Living in a small sleepy town is really nice and I don't think you could pay me enough to move to a big city.  But sometimes you just have to get out of town, because well....there's not much happening around here.

Some of us girls headed down to the Twin Cities (aka Minneapolis/St. Paul) a couple weeks ago for a little culture.  We kinda, sorta got dressed up and went to the musical, "Grease". Minneapolis has a wonderful theater district and it's exciting to see all the lights and people.  We had awesome seats and the performance was tremendous. I'm admitting it here and now...I'm a big American Idol fan. Taylor Hicks was Teen Angel... his singing and harmonica playing was great... but his pants were so tight I was hoping they'd stay on...geeze...not sure how they didn't split?!?!

Something else that doesn't happen every day...the lights went down for the play to start and a side door opens up...in comes this guy and a whole entourage. Do you know who this is?  Well, if you're from Minnesota you had better!!

About 7 rows (alright, I counted, it WAS 7 rows) in front of us was Brett Farve!!  You could just hear the whispers grow across the theater. Let's just say I made my whole male family jealous with my text message.  You can be sure there was a lot of texting going on during the first act!

There also isn't a good wool store close to us. Yet, that is.  It will be nice when Farmhouse Woolens opens in a few months.  So on another trip to the Cities four of us went to LJ Fibers.  Karen went to make purchases for the store. She was the first one in (& I think the last one out) and you can see she was thinking mighty hard on what she should buy.

Faye, Denise and I didn't do too bad ourselves!!

Getting a package from France doesn't happen every day either. But today was the day that "Quilt Country" magazine was delivered.  I promised I would share what the article was like.  I was totally surprised to find that there were 5 pages!  Now I just have to find someone who can tell me what it says!!

I also said I'd choose someone to receive the pattern, "Breezy".

Uh la la....Arlette you won!

Please email your address. Hmmm... isn't Arlette a French name?

kari@newleafstitches.com

I have a couple nice surprises... one for you and one for me!

I just found out that my quilt, Breezy, is on the cover of the premier French quilting magazine, "Quilt Country"!  The quilt was sent over in October, but I had no idea it would make the cover...I love how they photographed it. 

Now, on to the surprise for you!  Gudrun drew a winner from the Flickr group of those that made and posted pictures of projects that were made from the Cross Country Christmas Blog Hop. It was fun to see everyone's work.  I always think it's fun to see the different color ways!

The winner of this special drawing really out-did herself... she made every project...so you can probably guess who it is...bro3ther!  Congratulations & make sure to send Gudrun your email address.

If you'd like a chance to win the Breezy pattern, leave a comment below & I will draw early next week for a winner.  And I promise... the directions won't be in French!  

Well, you waited all day for this and here it is!  It took us a while to get all the logistics to finding winners togehter, but now we have names of 3 terrific blog hop participants that religiously commented on every blog.  There was a huge pool of participants to choose from.  So Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for spending the last couple of weeks with us. 

It has been so rewarding for us to read all your comments about our stories, hear your own stories sparked by what we wrote, see your excitement about the projects and then actually see how many of you have gotten to work and finished many of the hop projects and loaded your photos on the Flickr site.

This is what the winners are getting!!! Isn't this incredible? These are books, patterns, kits, tools and fabrics that all of us have designed or companies that we work with have graciously donated.

So here they are.....the big winners:

1st grand prize goes to: Thea M  www.theamccurry.com

2nd grand prize goes to: Arlette from Costa Rica http://arlette0521.blogspot.com/

3rd grand prize goes to: What Comes Next   http://round22.blogspot.com/

Congratulations girls!! Please send Gudrun an e-mail (gudrun@gequiltdesigns.com) with your shipping adress so she can send you those awesome prizes.

Another Chance to Win!!

Yes, we are giving you another chance to win some of the prizes in the picture if you post a picture of your finished project on the Flickr site. You will have until Tuesday December 1st to upload your photos. We will then draw a name of one lucky person to receive some goodies. Instructions on how to upload a photo are on the Flickr page. This gives you an extra week to get some of these finished and snap a photo. 

Thanks again!  And make sure you check in with each of us once in awhile to see what we are up to and leave comments on what you have been doing.  Merry Christmas to you all!

Kari 

Well, I wish I could tell you who the winners of the blog hop are, but we are still trying to find qualified winners.  We have a surprise for you that I think know you will like.  Make sure to check back.

I do need to find a winner for the Winter Blooms pattern and Clearly Perfect Angles!  I never heard from the first name drawn, so as I said in an earlier post I would draw another name.  At least I can tell you one winner.  That person is:

Pat, from the blog "A Little of This and a Little of Pat"

Please email me with shipping info.

kari@newleafstitches.com