Hi Beverly, To answer your Q?, I did go to Darby Creek Nursery,me and my friends went there after the swap. But they didn't have a good sale like they did last fall.We left there almost empty handed.But we had stopped at Shroders off of 71 on our way to the swap and before we got to the swap. They have some really good sales on their plants.That's where we bought most of our plants that day. On our way home we stopped at Seely's. I ended up buying 4 Hostas and Jacquie and her sister Bobbi bought 4 or 5. And we were loaded for bear.LOL I was in so much pain I couldn't hardly stand it. But It was fun.I couldn't unload my car and lucky for me I have some very able friends who don't mind helping or doing for me.Oh!! If I only Had My Legs Back!!! What's this Beverly about you having a Hosta Sale on the 30th? Did you sell them for a business or are they your own??Diane had emailed me with the info and date, But I didn't get the message till after the day of your sale. Sorry I missed it. Hope you did a good business!!! Hope you and Betty had fun at the swap.Fill us in on the Goodies you brought home!! Keep in touch!! Granny57 Todays Memories Are Tomorrows Treasures May You Have Many Yesterdays!!!

Hi from Anne, Actually, the cross stitch and other embroidery kits were not pieced. They were what we call wholecloth quilts. You got the size of the bed with the embroidery kits. Bucilla was one of the kit companies for those kits and I think they are still available today. They had many kits and the cross stitch and other embroidery kits were really popular. It kind of went with the 50's where the people considered all the hand work to be kits. Men often did leather work and copper work (not to say women didn't do that but the men considered those manly man crafts) and the women did tole painting, crocheted bed dolls (they were plastic dolls with crocheted big skirted dresses.), crocheted and quilted potholders and some quilts were made too, but mostly people were trying to get their lives back on track to recover from WWII, and then Korea came along on the heels of WWII. And there was the communist scare, and people were busy building bomb shelters in their back yards. I wonder today how many of those are still intact? We had men returning to work and women leaving the more industrial world, though they did still work, but more things like teaching, nursing and secretarial work. There was a focus on getting women to "act like women" whatever that meant. It meant women worrying about cooking nutritious meals, housecleaning, having their hair look just right, having frilly and basically useless aprons, and very pretty dresses with shoes and purses matching and women wore gloves and hats to church and going out. People focused on banning books. Did you know that there is a list of banned books every year. In the 1950s, I think was actually an attempt to ban Nancy Drew books as being shallow and poor literature, but in reality, Nancy Drew represented the new woman, having a nice car and able to be proactive and solve crimes (they were not mostly what we could consider crimes today). I read them all, and to this day I still could go back and read them again and enjoy them as much as then. A childhood friend and I would read the same books and then act the parts in her backyard of Nancy Drew. So much fun in those days. We did not have shopping centers or plastic (i.e. credit cards) yet, so we traveled on the bus to go downtown, visit all the five and dime stores as they were called then, try on hats and go visit Mode O'Day shops. How many remember those? How truly wonderful they were. And we had layaway. It was exciting to buy something on layaway and look forward to getting it. I guess cars and appliances were sold on time payments. Did you know that the sewing machine was the first thing to be sold on time payments, and within a year of when they came out, some 75% of households had one. It is funny to see a quilt of those times, for often they were almost totally hand sewn, but they would always use the machine to show that they had one for it was prestigious. And they often hired women to sit in the store windows and sew what are recognized as heirloom quilts with fancy quilting (I actually saw an exhibit in Los Angeles of quilts Barbara Brackman, our favorite quilt expert collected, and it had one or two of those as I recall. I always say that because some days I don't recall what I had for breakfast the other day. Chuckles. Well, that era brings back a lot of memories. Gals wore summer dresses that were full and pretty and those underskirts that made the skirts stand out and we had matching sweater sets and beautiful straight skirts with pleats in the bottoms and other beautiful styles. When women wore pants, they often were capris with men's style shirts with sleeves rolled up and the bottoms out with curves on the sides. Saddle shoes and pedal pushers were common at school. And the men and young guys looked so cool with their duck cuts and their cool pink or gray or turquoise shirts and nice pants with belts. No bums hanging out with ugly underwear, tattoos or shaved heads or beards and long hair in braids or pulled back, which comes from the prison crowd. Ask me how I know that. I am a student of criminal justice, and next year when I am almost 75, I should graduate. Whoo hooo! So I see a lot of documentaries and photos of the criminal crowd in prisons, and that is exactly what these guys wear. Pretty ugly. I love the days when men always had nice haircuts and nice shirts and pants and they were all handsome. Have a great Thanks Giving everyone who reads this. I purposely spelled it that way. We can give thanks for all we have and we can give to those who do not. Anne always

I just finished the second half. Several new shops this year. A couple of repeaters with new or expanded locations. Civil War era repros have become very popular. In addition to the 2 Temecula shops, Fat Quarter in Vista and Quilters' Emporium in Woodland Hills that have always specialized in CW repros, The Calico Horse in Redlands has a large CW section and Cozy Quilt'n in Apple Valley has added a CW section. The Temecula Quilt Co's pattern is a patchwork purse in CW repros. Really stylish. ...but then everything they do is really stylish! And it's designed to be made into a charming period purse as well as a quilt block. My vote for best patterns has to go to Butterfield Quilt Company in Hemet (Area 3) for their antique orange crate label appliqué, Cozy Quilt'n (Area 3) for their sand castle appliqué and Temecula Quilt Co (Area 3). Fat Quarter's was cute (like most of their area, a purse) but they packaged the kits to make it in the most adorable tiny plastic purses. The packaging would break any little girl's heart! But, overall, I think Area 1 had the best theme (My Neighborhood) and the shops that put the most consistent effort into their sample quilts. Boo to Area 4 where few shops did more than their own block and some of them only did it as unfinished blocks. I got a TON of things including enough new projects for the next 5 years. I hope to get started on a couple quickies in the next week. Right now I need to catch up on sleep and 4 days' housekeeping! ;> Anyone else do any more shops? There are still 2 days if the above report gives you any inspiration.

Marsha, I used to make gifts for all of our family & friends. I started in June! Then I realized I was spending half my year making gifts for people who have more stuff than they can ever use, so DH & I decided to make donations to charities in honor of our family and friends. Now I make gift for special occasions, like babies or graduations, and an occasional birthday gift. Many of my quilts are given to charity. And if I'm showing something off and someone really likes it, I usually give it to that person! Donna