Happy Thanksgiving!

It is Thanksgiving Day here in Ontario, Canada and of course we have a big turkey cooking in the oven. It is a celebration of the harvest - and all the good things with which we are blessed. I am thankful for so many things, and will spend time writing about them in my journal today. I am especially thankful for the gathering of my husband's entire family this weekend. We arranged for a rafting trip down the grand river (through this most wonderful company called Grand River Rafting Company) on Friday afternoon and we had record breaking weather for our trip....sunny and hot, and unbelievable for October! Here is the view we enjoyed rowing down the river.
We also attended some of the Oktoberfest celebrations, and the Saturday morning market. We saw the most spectacular arrangements of colourful vegetables. Look at the peppers on the right, the huge radishes on the left, and have you ever






seen purple or yellow cauliflower before?!?!

I am also thankful for many special quilting related happenings.

1) I was able to get to the fabric sale that Debbie told me about and got a great deal on some fabric for quilt backings. I also found some 3/4" fusible bias tape that I have been looking for.

2) I received my fabric strips this week, which Juliann organized for the 365 challenge members...thanks Juliann! I hope to update my 365 entries tomorrow.

3) My big quilty news is that I have decided to attend Quilt Canada June 2-7, 2008! This annual quilting conference is held in a different Canadian province each year and I have never been able to attend due to either family obligations (taking care of children or elders) or lack of finances. All of the money I make with quilting related activities, teaching and lecturing, from now until then will go into my Quilt Canada 2008 account. I have already written a cheque for over $1,000 which only covers the registration, classes, and food! I still have to pay for my accommodations and air flight to Newfoundland! But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I am very thankful that I am able to make this dream come true! I have poured over the list of 79 classes and had the difficult task of narrowing it down to 4 choices. I would be thrilled to attend most of them, except applique classes which I don't love. How would you decide?!? I narrowed down the choices by first eliminating the topics I am not interested in, which still left me with 70 classes. Then I eliminated the teachers that I could take a class with at other venues closer to home, but that still didn't help much since the teachers are from all over the world. I will be thankful just to be there and don't really care which classes they put me into!

Happy Thanksgiving!