15 ladies attended today. Last week Tina taught Kathy O. how to cro-hook and today Kathy came in with 2 finished dishrags. Marie brought in several more cro-hooking patterns. Alberta brought in her latest craft discovery. She read about creating embossed paper in a Carol Duval book. You simply use your rubber stamps, toilet paper, water and a brush. Surprisingly it makes a very elegant looking embossed paper. We were all rather intrigued by this. Fran brought in 3 aprons she had made. I brought in my purchases from Texas. Pat and Agnes have already started working on bazaar projects--pillows and teddy bears. Cathy Y. and Connie were knitting scarves and Deb was hand piecing her antique grandmother's flower garden pieces. Towards the end of the meeting Diane Luci came in. She is presenting a travel program tonight about her trip to the Galapagos Islands. She had made a quilt with pictures from the Galapagos which she brought in to show at her talk. We hung it for her while oohing and aahing over the pictures and her stories. It should be an interesting talk.

18 attended this week. Ingrid brought in a beautiful quilt she had finished. Edith was knitting a sweater in some kind of Swedish knit design with thin thread. I'm no expert, but it seemed very unique to me. Cathy M., Pat and Fran were bemoaning having joined the block of the month quilt this year--it is too, too hard! Marguerite brought her granddaughter Alexandra to join us but she's too active yet to settle down to handwork so she left early with her grandfather Harry when he got off of work. I missed Nimblefingers last week and am late posting my blog this week but will hopefully be more on the ball next week. Oh, an extra note, I was working last night and Pearl Kelly came in. Some of you may remember her--she was one of the original Nimblefingers members. She was using a walker and doesn't get out too often anymore, but happily she was still sharp as a tack! She said to say hello to everyone so a big Hello from Pearl!

I'm 2 days late with this weeks news but better late than never! We had 19 people come this Tuesday including a surprise visit from our old (but actually quite young) friend Sook Rho! She had to stop coming to Nimblefingers to go to work in her husband's restaurant and we all miss her. This week Hattie had pulled out a sweater to finish knitting, Connie was trying to figure out if she had gone wrong on a supposedly simple knitted vest pattern, Kathy O. brought me a sample of her machine quilting and Deb brought news of Cathy M. who's home sick. Marie tried out the ladies' crocheted scrubbie pattern and brought in her final project to show. She's also been crocheting some hot pads. Kathy O. has decided that it's time for her to make a 4-patch posie quilt so Alberta was giving her instructions and moral support while Winnie played with the kaleidescope blocks. Pat H. is looking forward to making small quilts for the Linus project and took some of our stash for that purpose. In other words, we had another busy day!

14 ladies attended today. Connie and Hattie were here representing the knitters in the group, Alberta and Nancy the thread artists, and Kathy O. was crocheting scrubbies (thank you Kathy for the gift of 2 scrubbies--my old one fell apart). They rest of us were into our quilting. Darryl is making a gardening wall hanging for a friend, Pat's making her donation quilts, Agnes and Winnie were finishing up their 6 hr. quilts, Marguerite was quilting her 4 patch posie, I was sandwiching 2 baby quilts plus our bug jar blocks, and Marie brought in a treat--several quilt tops she has finished that are awaiting quilting. They were lovely. Marie is a very talented lady! I am sad to report that Cathy M. is out with pneumonia. She was in the hospital for a while but is home now. Hopefully spring will hurry up and come with some warm weather and she'll start feeling better and be eager to come see us again, if she's not too busy gardening. Remember, this Saturday morning is the meeting of the Junior Nimblefingers and we can always use some extra help!

Nimblefingers was cancelled last Tuesday on account of a broken boiler. Well, it's Friday afternoon now and the library is still cold but we toil on with sweaters and coats. Things should be back to normal on Tuesday so that we can meet again. I was on vacation this week visiting my mother in Texas. Of course, one of the highlights of my trip is a stop at Creations of Kerrville (http://www.creations-online.com/) to buy fabric. I found two really cute childrens panels--I've already turned one into a small quilt. I also bought all of the ingredients for a bag made from Kaffe Fassett (http://www.kaffefassett.com/) prints. While in Texas I also enjoyed watching my younger sister make a psychedelic snake quilt and was given a show and tell of my older sister's knitting projects. She is a new great grandmother now and so has a new baby to knit for. The weather was great--in the 70's so I did some walking and enjoying the sunshine but now am back in New York ready to get back to work, finish some projects already begun and start some new ones. See you next Tuesday!

20 ladies attended today. We had a lot of show and tell. Our new knitter, Deb, had made a cute little doll's sweater; Connie brought in pieces of a fishing quilt to get some opinions on how to jazz it up; Tina brought in a wedding quilt she made a long time ago for her son; Marguerite brought in her finished star quilt which she offered to finish for someone at her former church then donate it to the church. Well now she's finished it and likes it much better than she thought she would. She wishes she hadn't been so quick to offer it as a donation. But she did so off it will go. Marie brought in a shirret rug she was working on. She informed me that her middle initial is R and she often feels that it should stand for Rugs. That seems fitting to me since she makes every kind of rug there is! Elaine, our biology professor knitting friend joined us--it's her spring break. Pat was tying a bunch of baby quilts she had put together. Betsy brought in a really cute purse she had made. She's gotten to be an expert purse-maker. She also brought in our finished future raffle quilt top freshly ironed but unfortunately I didn't have a piece of batting big enough for it. And our old friends Alberta and sister Nancy, and Ingrid joined us again. We haven't seen them for awhile so it was nice to have them back. Next week I will be in Texas with my mother and sisters so you all will have to continue on without me. See you in 2 weeks!

14 ladies today. Today I showed the ladies how to make bug jar blocks. Only Fran, Kathy M., and Kathy O. tried it out. They all donated their blocks to the library to display during Summer Reading Club where the theme is "Get the reading bug." Thank you to each of you from the library. Saturday the Junior Nimblefingers are going to meet and they will be making bug jars which is why I wanted to teach the ladies. Also today, several people brought in forest dreams blocks. We still need a lot more so keep 'em coming! Betsey took home another of our quilt tops to iron. Next week we'll sandwich it together so we can start quilting. Winnie asked for help binding her 6-hr. quilt. Tina asked if sometime in the future I could demonstrate snippets quilts. I will start making plans for that. Also, I talked to the owner of the Trumpet Hill yarn shop about having someone come to Nimblefingers some Tuesday to show off some of the new, fancy yarns, books, projects, etc. Hopefully that will work out. I'll keep you posted.