Nimblefingers News

14 ladies attended yesterday. It was a small but nice group. We had one new person--Meris, from Guilderland, who is checking out craft groups to see what is out there. I hope she'll come back. I forgot to ask her where she had heard of us. Marguerite brought in a show and share: a mile-a-minute quilt with little girls in the center of each block. It was very cute. She found that she had a bunch of fabric with little girls so decided to make a baby quilt. Meris was putting the binding on her quilt: a batik quarter circle quilt. It was beautiful. Many people are intimidated by circles but as long as they are relatively large they really are not that difficult. Towards the end of our time Cathy C. came in and showed us her quilt for a little boy that had trains on it. She told us about a place in Ballston Spa called "Almost One of a Kind" which is a quilt shop with a long arm machine that you can rent. She has been there twice--the first time for a 3 hr. lesson and the second time to quilt on her own. I think she said the lesson cost $35 (?) then after that you can rent the machine for $10 per hour. She said it took 3 hrs. to quilt her train quilt. It was a small twin size and as she said, it would have taken her at least 6 hrs. to quilt it on her regular sewing machine. She says that you spend the most time pinning the quilt top and bottom into the long arm machine. After that the sewing is pretty quick. It definitely sounds like something worth trying. Apparently this quilt shop also donates quilts to a house in Ballston Spa that has been set up to house women soldiers who have returned from duty and don't yet have any place to go. They try to give each woman a quilt. Sounds like a nice charity.