Good Things Are Coming - A Quilt to Remind You They Are

This week, I finished Good Things are Coming Quilt, and by doing so, made my little saying come true - I now have a VERY good thing! I like that, don't you? The idea that we can be the bearer of good things in our own lives? 

There were a few things that happened this week that almost derailed this good thing. Firstly, my sewing machine went on strike, completely jamming up and refusing to work until I got her some professional help. The following day, my husband Tim's flight was cancelled and he was stuck in Melbourne. I spent the afternoon wondering if I'd need to go pick him up (Melbourne's about a million kilometres away - roughly half a million miles). When my daughter called me from school to say she'd missed the bus, and could I please drive the half hour to get her, I laughed. So this is how it was going to be, hey?

I came up with the name Good Things are Coming while thinking about the Star of Bethlehem, the original name for this block design, first published in the 1930s. In the Christmas story, that Star was like a good omen. And I started daydreaming about what it would be like to have the kind of understanding and worldview that would have me look up at the night sky, see a certain star in a certain place, and just know that something good was about to happen. Don't you think that would be cool? 

So that got me daydreaming about fortune tellers and horoscopes, and how nice it would be if someone would just tell me that everything was going to turn out great. The kids will be happy and well adjusted, the money stresses will be short lived, the garden will come together, that all my hard work will definitely be worth it. 

All of this was floating around in my head while looking for words that expressed the message, “good things are coming”. Do you know that's really hard to do in English? Words like harbinger and omen feel more bad news. Herald just means a newspaper now, as do many words like it. The word ‘sign’ is way too broad. As I searched online thesauruses and talked through with family about what “Good Things are Coming” actually means to me, hoping it might spark something I hadn't thought of, I slowly became convinced that "Good Things are Coming" was actually the best fit.

And the more I talked about it, the more I adopted this happy little phrase as a kind of motto. It's a good one don't you think? It's not actually a promise that everything's going to turn out perfect. Which is good, because mostly it doesn't. But it is a promise of good things ahead. It carries just enough mystery that it makes you look out for them, these good things, to make sure you don't miss them. 

Looking out for them has changed everything. I'm noticing things that usually get drowned out in the stress and noise and mess of everyday life. The look of the hand quilting I added because my sewing machine died. My 10 year old asking if she can help me cook dinner. The little flowers on my bean vines promising that I'll have beans soon. And with each thing I notice, I find myself saying, “See! You were right! Something really good just happened!”

Good Things are Coming Quilt is made up of REALLY BIG Star of Bethlehem blocks. Taken directly from the  Red Sky at Night quilt, the blocks finish at 19"! Choose between 9 or 16 blocks to make a throw size or queen size quilt. I just love that they finish square, and then can be trimmed and machine sewn into the quilt top! It makes for a happy, dramatic, yet simple and relatively fast EPP Quilt.

For me, it's been the perfect, cheerful companion for rainy days, for quiet evenings after full days, for days that try to derail me. It's been my promise of good things to come. Grab what you need to enjoy the same good things below!