One Sunday afternoon

We had so much fun in our metting,... here, Carolina our new member

Carmen showing us the quilt for Hawa's baby....

Marcela showing gifts from Carolina, She made them for every one of us...

Thank you Carolina for the beautiful Christmas cards ....

Seems like Scrapbooking is a lot of fun!

Yanina and her wedding pictures...that we couldn't see....next time yanina...

Carolina showing us her art....scrapbooking master :)

nice job...

Sra. Gladys doing flowers as usual, she has a list of request from all of us..

we like to include her flowers in every project!

Marcela's mairmaid finally done

Proud Marcela, it took like 5 month to finish this mairmaid...and still adding shells from Tery and adding more ...jeje..

We had a nice and fun meeting!

Claudia showing us her guy's Quilt projet, everyone gave her ideas and opinions about her nice quilt....as usuall we always ask for advice and ideas..

That's why we love Minerva's

Secret Santa

It is that time of the year again! Thanks for including me. We had so much fun last year and I bet you guys will have a blast again. Be sure to take lots of pictures so the Minerva's 'expat' can see all the beautiful things you made!

Here are some pictures from last year.

Thank you!

Ladies,

I just wanted to thank you all for your wonderful hospitality. I have gone to only a couple of meetings and already I feel like I have known you all forever. You are all so nice and sweet and I just can't wait to learn how to quilt and teach you girls a thing or two about scrapbooking. Here's is my blog if you want to see more : Voila! Scrapper Junky

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Caro :o)

Minerva's circle is alive!!!

Yes! We are still meeting and this Sunday was a busy day. A nice day to sit outside of my apartment and enjoy the company of nice ladies interested in crafts, sewing quilts...eating, cooking....we had a new member with us, who likes to make scrapbooks. They are really cute and something many of us have never explored before. Her name is Carolina, to add one more name that starts with C in our group ha!
The only one missing in this picture is me, even Luca was there.


Some of the food we brought, my transformed recipe of Pilar's pistachio cake into a lemon cake...not bad for being experimental..


And some nice stuffed eggs that Gladys and Carolina made. Really delicious!


We also have to announce that Teri defended her Thesis successfully and she did a great job. She wrote her thesis about our group and community building and it was very interesting seeing us as research material. Congratulations Teri!


And last but not least, one of our members got married on November 17th! Yanina and Jorge got married at the beach and then we celebrated this special day here in Gainesville with them. Congratulations to both of you and we wish you many happy years to come!

It's been a while

What's happening with this group? I have been missing meeting with all of my crafty friends lately. We do see each other in different occasions but for some reason we all have been quite busy with other things these past weeks and our meetings are quite lonely. Last Sunday I was all by myself, but at least Luca was with me and I made part of his Halloween costume.
But I do have some pictures to share from another week. We don't get much done, but we do enjoy some nice food together and good chats. And the kids have fun too.
As you can see from these pictures, the commons room has been painted blue. It does look better, although they need to work on it some more. It is kind of plain still. They have some ugly plastic flowers in baskets that I vote they should be removed from there, and we should make some mini quilts so that it warms up the room a bit. We are trying to get some funding from the university for that. What do you think? Here are some pictures of us:
Pilar...the gate keeper

Flor, on the top of the picture those ugly flowers

Mathew, thinking about his Halloween costume

Pilar again and her butterfly tattoo from the butterfly festival, very stylish, and I opened the blinds in the back and you can actually see some green while sewing, isn't that nice?

Luca, Tarzan-like and searching for the scissors

Me. I have been working on my mom's quilt, and not just getting it out and back in the bag, I have actually worked on a new border, that still have a while to be finished, but I am one step further.

Visiting Gainesville

Last year, when we started Minerva's Circle, we were about a dozen girls from all over the world. Life in an university town is very dynamic, people finish their degree and go back to their coutries or they find a job somewhere else. Now, there are Minervas in Brazil, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee. New members are joining, keeping high the spirit of friendship and craftness we all share.

Pascalin, Pilar, Carmen with Robert, Terri, Claudia and Flor with Matthew. Just like the old times... Well, Robert and Matthew are so tall!


We all were very interested on the new store Claudia found out.

Here I am trying to work hard.

Terri working on her grand daughter's quilt.

Matthew says 'Cheeeeseee'.

Claudia showing her new treasure.

I am the one in Tennesse and after 6 months away I had the fortune to go back and sew with the girls again! It was so nice to see my friends and share our stories. I can tell it is hard to find girls like you! You are all precious and being friends with someone like you inspire me. You are all fun, good mothers, workers, wives, and good friends. And you all cook delicious food! I miss you all.


I have a suggestion: Can we have the Sunday meeting sometime here in Knoxville?

Amisha

Sunday's afternoon was filled with emotions. At first because -like never- almost all the Minerva's girls (living in Gainesville) were there. And we had a very good reson to come to this reunion. But before telling you more about it, I invite you to see the advances in each of our works:

Yanina and her king size quilt, a piece of art made by hand. We all agreed once it's finished instead of putting it on her bed, she should put it on a museum.

Gladys and her lovely knitted blanket.

Amisha completed her promise and finished her red & white quilt. She also did the apron that Pilar is showing us... beautiful, right ?



Later on the reunion, Yanina talked for all of us and gave Amisha the wall hanging that we had prepared for her with so much love and care as a good-bye gift.

We feel great that she liked it (she was admired how we chose her colors. That means we know her well).


She said she doesn't think of hanging the quilt but instead she will bring it everywhere, she would fight a cold New York and her long studying nights with it.



Amisha, you're an admirable woman. We're sure that you will get all your academic goals and will come back even stronger to fight for your ideals. Good luck on this new journey.

With all our love and friendship from Minerva's Circle.

Camila's Quilt

At Minerva’s we are a little sad because another friend is leaving us....
Our sweet Camila is in her home country by now.
We all will miss you.

We had a busy week trying to get the quilt ready on time for her, and we did it.
I do not how but we were good..
Here are some pictures of the process….

Here is the final result. All of us made a single square and then we put them together.

We used her favorites colors...I know she love it.

Camila now must to figure out which belong to each of us….I challenge you…it will be difficult.

.... and 30 hours later we got this beautiful quilt

We surprise her at the restaurant with our farwell gift, we all know that she will enjoy it.

With a lot of Love from Minerva's ...

We will miss you...We wish you the best and we hope too see you some day...


This is the back of it....with all the quilting in each square.

I took the liberty to include this wounderful letter that she send us... she really touched us with this....

Dear Minervas,

You have no idea how happy you guys made me by giving me that precious quilt!
It was an amazing surprise (completely unexpected!) and it is definitely the best gift someone could get. Carmen said that before and now I can confirm it. It's priceless!!!!
I'll treasure it for life and will always remember you guys and the good times we spent together.

The quilt is the most beautiful I've ever seen. The colors are perfect! My favorites by far!!!! I'm sure I'll never get tired of looking at it… ha ha
These four years were a very important part of our lives and this quilt is definitely one of the best memories I'm bringing from the wonderful time we spent in Gainesville.

It's a pity I didn't have the chance to see you guys before I left. But at the same time it was good because I hate to say goodbye.

You guys are an awesome group! I'm very proud to be part of it, even being so absent in the last few months.
I hope Minervas will last for years and years and many new people will have the chance to enjoy and experience it!

Please keep me in the email list so I can follow what's going on. I'll keep in touch as well and as soon as we get settled I'll send you guys our new address, so we can receive lots of visitors… he he

Soon I'll send you the pictures we took on Saturday!

Beijos (kisses) to all of you! I'll miss you guys!!!!

Love,
Camila