Today 17 ladies attended. Last week I attended two quilt workshops with Karen Eckmeier at the Delmar quilt guild so I brought in my pieces to show and share. She does layered quilts--all are put together with topstitching. It was fun and I like learning new techniques. I hope I can actually make something with my samples. Ethel brought in the start to her I-spy quilt she is making for her soon-to-be new grandson. It has lots of good boy fabric and is in a very clever pattern. Marguerite got out the sewing machine and worked on the raffle quilt. After next week she will have sewn the entire top together (minus borders)! I think she deserves a prize for all of her hard work. Jo-Ann was back. She has been out sick for several weeks. Daryl made a couple of blocks for prayer quilts and Cathy M. brought in an orphan block to use in a prayer quilt. We need to start getting some together now. Sandy is still working on her beautiful needlepoint. Winnie has a pre-printed children's fabric book to put together. Fran bought some cute Maisy (from the books by Lucy Cousins) fabric for a baby quilt. Pat OR is still quilting her tablerunner. Marie brought in her patches for her Oops-a-daisy quilt. Last weekend I went to the luncheon for Katherine Denegar, our former Nimblefinger member who passed away recently. Katherine had planned this party before she died, complete with guest list. I went by myself but family and friends soon adopted me. It was a nice service/lunch. It's unfortunate that Katherine could only be there in spirit because I know she would have loved being surrounded by all of her favorite people. She was quite a woman and I am glad I had the opportunity to get to know her.

I just received some sad news. Our old friend Katherine Denegar, the "cat lady", passed away yesterday. There will be a get together for her this Saturday at Red's Restaurant in Coxsackie at 12:30 if anyone is interested. I know we will all remember Katherine fondly. In spite of everything, she always had a funny thing to say whenever she left the group. She had a great sense of humor. I know she loved the group and I'm glad that she found us and joined us. I enjoyed getting to know her as well.
More sad news is that Margot Hayes who moved to Florida also passed away. I'm not sure when but she had cancer which took her way too young. I used to enjoy going to quilt show with her. She always felt like a substitute big sister to me so I was very sorry to hear of her passing.

Today we had 13 ladies attend, one of which was Cathy M. back from her sick bed and one was Jean K. back from Florida! We were very happy to see both! Ethel brought in some yarn to give away most of which was snapped up by Daryl who does lots of work for the Hilltowns. A local needlework shop is going out of business so Ethel has been going through her projects and making a shopping list to catch the going out of business sale. I hate to see shops go out of business but I do love the sales. She was working on a very cute cross-stitch sample entitled Buttons with buttons sewn on. It is very nice. Sandy is still working on her needlepoint piece. Marie was appliquing flowers on her Oops a daisy quilt. Marguerite came in late from one of her hospital luncheons. Pat O. was hand quilting a table runner she had purchased at Flying Geese. Cathy M. was embroidering a redwork piece. Fran was making placemats. Cathy Y. was hand quilting her baby quilt. Daryl brought in a book she has that had an African quilt in it. She knows I like African stuff so I copied it. It's all applique and that's not my specialty but we'll see. I brought in a quilt top I made last weekend and made a quilt sandwich. I'll be doing some machine quilting for the next few weeks. Then I got out the blocks we have for prayer quilts. Fran and I both brought in some orphan blocks so we now have enough for 2 small quilts. I took one home to see if I can find some fabric for the lattice, border and backing. Daryl is working on a block she wants to put into the other quilt so I'll hold off on it until she's finished.

16 ladies attended today. Daryl was back. We all assumed she was off visiting family but it turns out she was in the hospital and quite sick! Fortunately she pulled through and is back now, sewing up a storm! Winnie brought in a fabric postcard she had received from Jean K. who is still in Florida. It was a beautiful postcard so I hope that Jean will have us all making them when she returns. I pulled out all of the blocks we have made in the past from our closet to see what we have. We have the start of 3 prayer quilts. So people are going to go home and either stitch up some more 12 1/2 in. blocks or bring in their "orphan" blocks to see if we can use them. I'm determined to get these little quilts made up and out of the closet. Marguerite pulled out the sewing machine and sewed together 3 more rows of our future raffle quilt. I sewed together 2 rows and Marguerite took all rows home to sew together and iron. This is going to be a very attractive quilt I think. Ethel showed us her purchases from a quilt shop in Florida. She's expecting a new grandson so bought some "I spy" type fun fabrics. June is off to Florida next week to visit her family. It's amazing how many connections to Florida there are in our little group.