I've been keeping a secret

While all of this has been in the planning stages I didn't feel like I could talk about it much - but now that it is all confirmed I can tell you that I'm so excited that I am getting to go visit in Belgium and the Netherlands. I leave Seattle on Feb. 14th and will be there for 12 days. Karen, from Crazy Exchange, had issued an invitation many months ago, but it was still a long way off. So at last I have my tickets and it's gonna happen! HURRAH! I have been emailing and exchanging with these gals (and guy) over the past 6 months and now I will actually get to meet them in person. I do realize how fortunate I am and am grateful every moment.

Our actual plans and details aren't sorted out as yet. I have traveled to the Netherlands before, so will first go visit some friends in den Bosch, where I have stayed before and who have visited us here. And then will take the train to Antwerp to see Karen. She reports that several of the folks in the group, even from the Netherlands, will come to Antwerp to join us for some fun, chatting, stitching, whatever we want to do time. Isn't that just great? I promise many photos.

We didn't have the drawing last night, but many of the gals from my guild group brought their Christmas string pieced squares. They are just loving how cute they are and how easily they went together. Saturday we have an all-day quilt together day, so we will draw the name for who gets them all. Won't that be fun? And then just to "enjoy" my lesson in humility, at our gathering last night I spent the time (and didn't finish) tearing out tiny background stippling I had done on a quilt. I just didn't like how it looked. Fortunately I had not done the entire top, but nonetheless, it isn't speedy to remove what had gone in. And the tan on the tan top and the green on the green backing just blended beautifully and are almost impossible to see. I had to use a magnifier, right under the light and separate the layers in order to see the stitches to clip. Oh I'm feeling most humble. It was supposed to have been a crazy exchange item, but it's time to move on to Plan B (for now).

I am happy to report that I am making progress with my UFO collection. It's all the new things that are sitting there calling me that are the problem. I have more pieces for White Chocolate to be cut and pieced - Santa even brought me a couple more neutrals for that one. Santa also brought some wonderful pale pink and some rose fabrics - so I'm hunting for the perfect two color quilt pattern. And it's time to start thinking about my nine patches for our Road to Oklahoma quilt that our guild will be making for our major fund raising project for '08. If you are familiar with that pattern, there are 400+ (I think) 3 3/4" finished 9 patches. We are making them from home spun/calico type fabrics, so it will be very, very scrappy and should be cute. We figure if each member makes about 40 9-patches then we can choose the best ones for the quilt.

Life truly is good!