Best Kept Secret

"Boiler Up!"  60" X 78"

This quilt might just be the very best kept secret of all time!  I made and surprised my husband with it for Christmas. You might not realize how hard it is for me to keep a secret; the very fact that he didn't know a thing about this quilt until he tore off the wrapping paper was an enormous feat on my part. It isn't that I can't keep a secret because I want to spoil anyone's surprise... it's just so very hard for me to keep any kind of happy news bottled up inside of me; it usually finds a way of leaking out. Years ago, when I suspected that our daughter's then boyfriend was going to ask my husband for his blessing before he proposed, I made my husband promise that he wouldn't tell me... I knew I could never keep that kind of news from our daughter and I didn't want to be responsible for spilling any beans.  He promised that he wouldn't tell me. But then, after the two men had spent time together, the suspense was killing me; I begged my husband to tell me what they had talked about. My husband looked me straight in the eye and said to me: " you made me promise", that was true, I had, but when I suspected that he knew something that I didn't I was tormented by suspicion. It's just the way I am... terrible with secrets. Anyway, back to the quilt story. I had planned to make Mr. Goodneedle a Purdue quilt for a very long time. Last February when I was at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival I selected 18 fat quarters to combine with this Purdue themed fabric in all shades of black and old gold, I hid them away and began making the blocks last August while on a day-long retreat. The pattern that I selected is the 3-6-9 Quilt. I secretly set the blocks together and added the borders when Mr. Goodneedle was away from the house, I was extra careful to make sure that not even the tiniest scrap was in the trash can, I didn't want even a thread to hint at what I might be working on.

As luck would have it, out son invited Mr. Goodneedle for a weekend away in early November... perfect timing! While they were gone I loaded the quilt and easily finished all the quilting in one day.

I added the binding on day number two of their weekend away. I even had enough time to reload and repostion the quilt that I had been quilting on Snowbird when he left; he was none the wiser.

Here's the quilt and a very happy Purdue alumni on Christmas morning. It was worth all the stealth maneuvers just to hear him ask the two-part question: "how did you do this, when did you do this"?

I just smiled; to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how I was able to keep a secret like this one!

Life is Good!