20 ladies attended today and we had lots of show and share. Pat brought in a prayer quilt to tie, Betsey brought in an almost finished quilt top she was making for her husband (Irish chain), Kathy O. brought in a blue and white quilt (atypical for her--the Thimbleberries lady), Betty brought in her 4 patch posie quilt top, and Linda brought in a quilted bag which she will demonstrate next week. So if you want to make one, bring in a bound 22" pre-quilted square. She will show us how to sew and fold it to make a nice medium-sized bag. There was much discussion about the Delmar Q.U.I.L.T. show last weekend. We were all very impressed. Fran brought in pictures of her husband building houses in Mexico, Julie told about her 2-days in San Francisco, and everyone enjoyed eating the delicious apple cake Daryl brought to share. Cathy Y. brought in garlic from her garden to give away. Marguerite reported on Hattie who has ongoing health problems. We all wish her well. Cathy M. says next week she's bring Katherine Denegar for a visit. We all enjoy seeing her so that's something to look forward to. Slowly our snowbirds are returning home. Linda this month, Jean next month and someday I assume Margot will return. Welcome home and welcome back to Nimblefingers!

14 ladies attended today. Marguerite brought in her finished completely hand-pieced, hand-quilted apple core quilt. We were all excited about the curved binding which really added to the quilt. Fran made a wall hanging from some geisha girl panels she had picked up. It was beautiful! Betty told us about the 4 patch posie quilt her granddaughter is making so we discussed that for awhile. Many of us would like to learn the technique. Pat brought in a top for a prayer quilt and Cathy's M. and Y. helped make a quilt sandwich of it. And Kathy O. diligently worked on our raffle quilt with some help from Agnes and I. It's getting there but hand quilting is slow. This weekend is the Delmar Q.U.I.L.T. show in Ravena. Several ladies are car-pooling to that on Saturday. Deb J. is off to Myrtle Beach on Thursday and I'm off to San Francisco tomorrow. We both have plans to check out the quilt shops while we're away. Kathy O. had made a trip to Alfred's and discovered the Alexander Henry fabrics. It's from 1997 but it's gorgeous! Fran had already told me about it and I had hit it the week before. It's well worth making the trip for beautiful fabric for $6 a yard.

Today was a joint day with the Junior Nimblefingers. We had 17 ladies and 11 young ladies. What a day! The kids designed small personal quilts then we sewed down the pieces. We had 5 sewing machines going with other adults helping with the designing and the embellishing. Several of the ladies brought their granddaughters. I think we all had a good time--the noise level was high! All of the quilts made were fantastic! Some very creative kids in the bunch. And now for the regular Nimblefingers news. Darryl brought in a card she received addressed to her and Pat Hammond thanking them for making pillowcases for a sick child. Darryl is very interested in doing more community work of that sort so we will discuss that next week. Darryl also brought in some fabric that will work as sashing for another prayer quilt so now we have 2 quilts ready to put together. Kathy Olsen and friends continued the quilting bee on the raffle quilt. She says they do more talking than quilting but that's just fine. That's one of the goals of the group is to bring people together. Lots of good food today and lots of fun.

17 ladies attended today. We had some great show-and-tell: Edith Goldstein brought in her finished and framed needlepoint and Ann Bave brought in her 2-fabric circle quilt top. (Click on the pictures for a close-up) Both are exquisite! Kathy Olsen, who is determined to get our raffle quilt quilted, set up a table and got our little quilting bee going again. Winnie, Agnes and Julie helped out. We have 2 more prayer quilts in the works--still working on getting backing and sash fabrics. Joyce, who was on the reference desk, did a little research for us to find out what happened to Alex Anderson's Simply Quilts TV show. She reported to us that it is no longer on the HGTV channel (although you can watch some presentations on streaming video on www.hgtv.com). Alex is now on MWF on the DIY channel at 2:30 p.m. (you can find her on www.diynetwork.com if you look under TV, then Simply Quilts--this has the same instructions, etc. that used to be on the HGTV site) and she is also on a pay web site, www.thequiltshow.com with Ricky Tims. I have added these websites to the links column of the blog, so just click on the link for easy access. We are all sorry to lose our morning quilting fix with Alex. But enough Alex talk... Pat Hammond brought in a delicious fruit salad which disappeared quickly. Next week we'll be working with the Junior Nimblefingers again--it's spring break. They will be making small, personal diary quilt tops so we need to bring in our sewing machine and novelty fabric scraps.