Fiona Marie's Great Global Christmas Swap

Two years ago, while surfing around on the internet, I came across an online New Zealand quilt shop. Having been to New Zealand, I really enjoyed looking at all the patterns and lovely NZ theme fabric. The best thing, though, was Fiona Marie's Great Global Christmas Swap. Here is a link to it:

http://www.fionamarie.com/greatglobalchristmasswap.shtml


I signed up and was paired up with Carol from Wanganui, NZ. She lives in the northern part of NZ, which is the area Tom, Liz, Jeff and I didn't get to visit when we were there. Carol is very sweet and we hit it off immediately. Part of participating in the swap is to have access to some special stitchery and quilting patterns which one can use to make a gifts for one's swap partner. Although the patterns were cute, Carol and I decided to send "surprise" gifts to each other for Christmas. Carol even sent a gift for Taz, our cat (Taz sent something for Monty, Carol's cat, as well) All in all, it was nice having "goodies" from New Zealand to open on Christmas morning, but EVEN better than that, was finding a new quilting friend. Carol has since joined the online quilting group I belong to, and will be visiting HERE at my house, in April 2009. How sweet is that? All of this has come about from Fiona Marie's Great Global Christmas swap. Who could have guessed? Of course, reading the swap experiences at Fiona Marie's website, it is apparent that not everyone was even half as lucky as I was. Some people send gifts and received nothing in return. So it goes...there are dishonest people out there... But in spite of that, I've signed up again this year. While I am not expecting to find a new friend as wonderful as Carol, I enjoyed it so much last time, I want to play again. If nothing else, I'll have the cute patterns. There is one for a Christmas ornament that looks very interesting! Christmas is my most favorite time of the year. Being surrounded by family and friends, celebrating the birth of our Savior, snowflakes, sparkly lights, Christmas music, sweet memories of Christmas's past...mmmm yes, my favorite time of the year. Which will be even sweeter THIS year, with Aurora among us, celebrating her first Christmas ever!