Several years ago my mother in law gave me this applique kit I wanted - Merry Merry Snowmen. I had played around with applique , but I wanted to improve my skills and since I love snowmen I thought this would be a good motivation.
I worked on it pretty hard , but soon found applique is not my " passion" and I put it away and worked on other things for awhile.
At the start of the new year I decided to pull it out and start working on it and was determined that this was the year to finish this and move on to some other applique project
I had the blocks that I had finished but I needed my box of applique thread , scissors, and embellishment. I looked in my sewing room and that box was no where to be found. I was really put out because I spent a whole day I had set aside to sew looking for that box. Finally I sat in the floor and started to pray, "Lord ! where is that box!" I even told my husband I was a grump because I couldn't find that box.
I prayed for 3 weeks and as the days went by my prayers became more detailed. I went over and over in my mind praying , did I leave it on the plane from Switzerland when we went on vacation? Had I left in the Virginia mountains when my son got married last May? Had I left it in Pennsylvania when we had visited my daughter or in New Jersey when we went up for my father in law's 90th birthday... I just kept praying. I woke up at night thinking about it a prayed, I went through the day praying and came to wonder has my love of quitling outgrown my love for God! I asked God to forgive me if it had, but that I was thankful for quilting and all the years I have been able to have this craft in my life!
Then one night I woke up thinking about that box and pleaded with God ," Please, just let me know where that box is even if I have left it on a plane and it is gone forever , Please just help me remeber. I got up quietly so as not to wake my husband , who had been very patient with my whinning about that box, and pulled out my laptop to look through pictures to see if the box was in any of them.
Well, there it was in a picture of the weekend of our son's wedding so that eliminated leaving it on the vacation plane. Then it popped into my head that I had finished sewing some hexies and they were in that box. That was on the car trip home for my father in laws birthday party so I was beginning to remember where it wasn't , but where was it!
I ordered new applique scissors , actually a bigger size than I had, and reorderd thread and the embelishment kit . The company sent the wrong kit and said I could no longer get the one I needed. The new scissors came , but I still wanted my box!
My sweet husband said we should drive up to our lake house and look and see if that box was there. I was sure I hadn't taken it up there , but it was worth a try. Our house is about an hour away and the weather was cold and rainy but we left on a Sat. morning and I prayed on the way up to the house.... You know the outcome.
There was my box! it was on a chair under some drapery material I had thrown on top of it.
At first I had felt so silly praying over a box, but when I found that box I was so happy and thankful and I could see that 3 weeks of praying had taught me an important lesson that I thought I already knew - Pray with out ceasing and pray over everything...and if it is big enough to bother me it is big enough to take to God and in His perfect time He answeres in a perfect way!
So now I am finished with all the preparation, now on to the stitching! I may even finish this quilt this year!
