A Grateful Heart
This site contains affiliate links from which we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!
I feel like I am finally settling down and ready to catch up on some things that should have been done ages ago! The main thing I wanted to share with all of you is something so special, something I will treasure all my life…
As most of you know, I had a little quilt shoppe in Arabia. It was lots of fun to run, awesome to have lots of fabric as eye candy in my own house (lol), but the best was all the friends I made while I had the shoppe. Yes, like every shop I had a few difficult customers, but the majority became good friends :)… and the memories of time with them is what I will keep in my heart always.
When I left these friends held a goodbye dinner for me at a lovely posh French restaurant:
It had a great view of one of the city’s famous towers from the balcony:
Inside we had a large table to ourselves…
And the food not only looked beautiful but tasted great!
About 30 ladies came to have a drink or some food and say goodbye… I got lots of lovely pressies (which are all in the container, sorry no pics!), and at the end of the evening they pulled out this surprise for me:
A gorgeous heart quilt! On the back the label reads:
I have such precious memories of each person who made a block:
As I looked at each block, I could see something of the personality of the person who made it! I do love quilting and quilters!! I got one more block in the mail from a dear friend in Scotland that will go on the back next to the label… I am so blessed.
I know that as I settle back into life here in Oz I will make new friends. But there is something about a friendship made in a foreign country that is extra special. When you are all there without family, you become family. This quilt will always hang in my quilting room and remind me of the hearts that are close to mine all over the world….
As I write this post I have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat…. Thank you dear friends, from a very grateful heart in Oz… Miss you guys…
That is such a special treasure, Joy. It is a beautiful quilt, and obviously the blocks were stitched with much love.
What a special and beautiful gift! That is indeed a treasure.
It is so pretty and it is fun to see all the different versions of a heart block.
I so need to hang all my goodies up on the wall in the sewing room.
Awwww, now I have tears in my eyes … beautiful!
Awww that is soo special Joy I had a lump form reading it, cheers Vickie
What a sweet and special gift and such a lovely reminder of dear friends far away.
How wonderful! I must say, I teared up a little, so I can only imagine how you reacted! What a wonderful memento from your friends.
What a beautiful gift of love and to use the heart as blocks on it–lovely!
hugs, di and her ‘kid’
That was a lovely post and the perfect memory gift for a quilter. Thanks for the phone call yesterday. Have a lovely week and take care.
that’s so lovely Joy…. I’m sure you are missing them all dreadfully….
Hugz
Dear Joy, we have a lot of lovely memories from our expat lives, and your quilt is very special, because you were such an important part of our community here.
I had the fabric with the heart for years, waiting for the good moment to use it:)
Now we have to work on some more “goodbyes” …
What a fantastic present, and a great memory for you. Welcome back to Australia.
oh how wonderful is that. It’s such a beautiful quilt and filled with such memories and love
so very special…………..it is a beautiful memory of your friends and times there…………