12 ladies attended today. Hattie Kline sent us a thank you note for the prayer quilt we gave her. Hopefully she will find out soon what is making her sick. Cathy Maikoff brought in some quilt blocks for Cathy Yachup and others to arrange for her. Kathy Olsen tried out the standing hoop for quilting but learned that she didn't really like working on it. Several ladies laid out some other quilt blocks to see if we could make another prayer quilt out of them. Pat took home several big pieces of fabric to wash so they could be used in our prayer quilts. Deb came with tools to cut out pieces for her placemat. Marguerite and Pat Orourke were both hand-piecing blocks, Marie Russell was appliquing hawaiian blocks and Julie was finishing up her Sudoku quilt. On the other hand, Betty Smith was knitting more dishrags trying to use up her yarn and Edith was working on the child's needlepoint piece. Lots of food with Pat Hammond back from vacation--more food than people today. It was a quiet group but as always a good time was had by all.

15 ladies attended today. Marguerite brought in her apple core quilt again for more quilting advice. Darryl brought in her Michigan State quilt for advice about a border. I had to figure out the puzzle in my sudoku quilt. Tina was doing cro-hooking so she and Nancy had a discussion about cro-hooks and cro-hooking. Elaine joined us again and impressed us with her wedding wristbands knitted from wool from her very own sheep! Deb is ready to head off for her surfing vacation in Myrtle Beach and hopes to find some surfing fabric for a quilt on the trip. Darryl brought in some patterns for people to copy for table runners and baby quilts. Tina brought in a chocolate/cherry cake and I brought in Watergate salad plus some Price Chopper brownies so once again we ate well. We are all thoroughly tired of the snow and cold and look forward to spring.

Welcome back to me! I spent last week in Texas visiting my mom and soaking up some warmth. Today 12 ladies attended. Marguerite informed me that Hattie has been sick so we tied up a prayer quilt which Kathy O. is taking home to finish. After this we pulled out the to-be-raffled quilt and started quilting. Fran suggested that we all make ourselves nametags because we're all having a hard time remembering each others names. Marguerite brought in her almost finished apple core quilt. She wanted some advice about her quilting pattern which we all gladly responded to. Marguerite does all hand piecing and hand quilting so her quilts are always amazing. She is a great quilter with small stitches that we all envy. Edith Goldstein was back and has started a new needlework piece. I asked her to bring in her finished heraldic piece which we all oohed and aahed over while she was working on it. The new piece is a kids design which will be a great gift for her grandson Adam. Joyce came in for a minute to tell us about the project we will be working on at the next (April) meeting of the Jr. Nimblefingers--a personal statement quilt. Several of us will need to bring in our machines for that meeting. Marie wore her beautiful yo-yo vest she had made from a sweatshirt. After making yo-yo's with the Jr.'s we are all becoming more aware of the fun that can be had from yo-yo's.

18 ladies attended today. We took down the quilt show. It's always amazing how much faster it is to take down than it is to put it up. Deb was there doing her aerial acrobatics on top of the ladders. Kathy Olsen has been working on our next raffle quilt. She was going to try to machine quilt it but it was just too big so she went back to hand quilting. She brought it in, laid it over a table and several ladies sat around the table quilting and talking. So we have a good old-fashioned quilting bee going on! Pat Hammond brought in a birthday cake for us. It was her birthday last weekend. So we celebrated by enjoying her cake! Next week I will not be here. I'll be soaking up the warmth in Texas with my mom so see you in two weeks!

Today was the meeting of the Nimblefingers and the Junior Nimblefingers. It was also Yo-Yo day! We had 27 people, 16 adults and 11 kids. We made a lot of yo-yo's, some were made into bookmarks and some into pins. We got out the glue gun and made some button pins too. Door prizes were presented. And we had lots of good food thanks to Pat Hammond and the leftovers from last weeks open house. It was a good time for all with a lot of interaction between the kids and adults. I don't think any of the kids went home empty handed and the adults left with smiles on their faces too. We won't get together with the kids again until the April school break so next week we'll be back to normal.

This week was Open House week. We had at least 50 people attend. It was a big success! Congratulations to us! We had many hand-outs; several of us worked on a prayer quilt, Kathy Olsen demonstrated machine quilting on our next raffle quilt, and Betsey Hoffman demonstrated the braided table runner. We had so many people come in at first that it was hard to keep track of attendance. Cathy Maikoff did a very nice thing and brought our old friend Katherine Denegar to visit. It was good to see her again. We also outdid ourselves on refreshments--what a spread! A good time was had by all.

17 ladies attended today. It was a crazy day--we set up our quilt/craft show! We had ladders going this way and that, piles of quilts everywhere. Thanks to "Fearless" Deb Johnson, who has no problem climbing to the top of any ladder, our quilts reach up to the ceiling! It is a beauty to behold! I think every year we outdo ourselves. We truly are an amazing and talented group of ladies. We are looking forward to our open house next week so I hope anyone local who reads this will come and visit us next Tuesday, Feb. 13th, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. We'll be here with good food, good company and beautiful quilts/crafts!