Claudia, Clarita, Gaby and Maria Emilia

Hi Minerva friends:
I had been here for a month and I couldnt see guys, I felt so bad...I had been really busy taking my quals and moving my stuff and now it is time to leave Gainesville and start my research in Ecuador, my natal country. But I cant go without tell you that I really have good times with you, I learned a lot about crafts and enjoy it :-), but most important I learned about courage, persistance, respect, friendship, kindness and generosity. You really are going to be in our hearts(my mom, my sister and I). You have a home in Ecuador, come to visit us.
We are planning to start a branch of Minerva Club in Ecuador, my mom is really into it, I will sent pics if we finally make it.

Thanks again for everything
Claudia

Apple crisp

Once again our Sunday's meeting became a bit more crowded than many other Sundays this summer. We had a nice crowd and we enjoyed our time together...so much that we didn't realize when 6 pm went by...

It is hard to appreciate, well it is impossible actually in this picture, the wonderful hand quilting that Teri is doing in her quilt. You can actually see it best when you look at the back of the quilt..she is going to have entertainment for a while, it is so intricate and beautiful!

And as usual Gladys brought some fruit and I decided to try a dessert that a friend of mine taught me. It is quite sweet but quite delicious as well. Everybody loved it and they asked me to post the recipe here...here it goes:

Ingredients:

4 apples

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup of water

1 cup flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick of butter)

Put sliced apples in pan (don't need to peel them)

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle oer apples

Pour water over apples

Mix flour, sugar and butter (warm 30 sec) and crumble with a fork

Sprinkle crumble over apples

Bake 40 min at 350 F.

Enjoy!!!

I wish I had a picture to show!!! but It was good so it was gone before too long!

Good old friends!

Today we had a brief meeting at Minerva's. It looked like most of us had other things to do. We had though, the pleasent visit of our friend Clara, who used to live here and used to come frequently to our meetings. She is so talented and such a nice person that we were all happy to see her and impressed with her creations, as always.

As for the rest of us, we were catching up with crochet, dress making, crosstitch and me...well I guess I'm just the webmaster and the one who yells at Luca while he runs wild in the room with his friend Akiko.

And this is something from a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't had a chance to post about it and I will do it now. Juanita, from Ecuador likes doing crosstich. At first she started with a towel, with a pretty decoration of cherries and she finished it so quickly that now she is into another intricate project. This is how her first project came out. Nice uh??

One memorable day

Today I went to our quilting meeting with no much enthusiam. I knew most people woudn't be there because of father's day and it just makes it hard for me to come and entertain my son while there are no other kids his age for him to play with. But to my surprise, so many of my friends came and also a new member, which made it even more interesting! I am happy I ended up going, it cheered up my day. Luca was a good boy and he had fun just as usual by himself.

He is the one who took this picture of us, before he dropped my camera and almost broke it (I think is back to life now!).

Proof that he had fun, look at his dirty feet!

And everyone else did too!

Bridgett working on a dress:

Teri working on her quilt top:

Her beautiful quilt top made of clothes by the great grandmother of her friend, and ancient piece of work!

Gladys teaching our new friend Zahra how to crochet flowers. She is a fast learner!

The proof here:

Farewell to friends

Once again, we have to say goodbye to some wonderful friends that have been recently joining our group. Three women and a little girl that have filled us all with joy and shared so much with us that we will miss them and hope to see them again (very soon Lisseth) in the future.
We had a little party for them that turned out to be bigger than we expected, lots of kids, another party of nice friends outside and wonderful treats to share. But the best of all, great friends and an emotional farewell. Thanks Claudia, Maria Emilia, Carmen and Lisseth for being the way you are and see you soon!!

Clarita from Ecuador

Our friend Clarita taught us many things while she was here with us. She also learned some, among others, patchwork and quilting. She barely had time to make too many projects here but she managed to continue back in Ecuador, to teach it to other and to make wonderful things like these that she just showed us this week. Congratulations Clarita! Enhorabuena Clarita!

Meringue cake!

Hello!
Yesterday we had a different type of workshop at Minerva's circle. Pilar taught us how to make meringue cake. Not only she had all the instructions in English and Spanish but she also had a bunch of tricks under her sleeves! We were a nice crowd, hosted by our dear Gladys in her home. We learned how to make meringue and how to put the cake together. It was really amazing! So soft and creamy and light and fluffy mmmmm way to go Pilar! Thank you for being such a great teacher!

Tada! this is how it looked at the end...amazing right?

Here the cook and the host, smiling as always :)

And since we had such a beautiful cake we took the oportunity to celebrate the birthday of a beautiful and much loved woman, our dear friend Gladys. Happy birthday to you!!

And the bags are being finished!

I know Clarita will be very proud looking at these pictures of her daughters...

Even Claudia is getting the computer ready for the soccer game :)

Teri always comes with some surprise in her hands!

And it was a very lively, busy and productive day. It was one h after or session adn we were still there enjoying ourselves.

The little ones also had fun.

Jose Antonio modeling for my little baby sun hat. I wee too small for him.

Carmen recited some thought about what it is to be a "mujerona".

The kids had fun and got pretty dirty, good sign of fun.

Cata almost done!

And the advanced student Gladys did it! She finished the bag in two sessions!

More bagssss

I had my second bag workshop in Minerva's circle. the fist was held last year around February and some of the same girls were there. I can tell you that this time most already knew what they were doing because we got to the middle of the workshop in just one meeting! Last time it took us about 5 weekends! Now, some of them used the sewing machine for the first or second time so to all of you keep up the good work and you will be very happy with the results!!! I guess it helped that we were a smaller group and also that Luca was enjoying aa nap with his grandparents instead of running around.
We will have more of this next weekend!