Boutique Time

Please - this is not to be confused with the change to Standard Time for the umpty-leven clocks we all have, especially those pesky VCRs/DVDs. In our house, the worst is the cable box, which is not under our control and which takes a week or two to get the message. Why do we still have a cable box? Well, it gives us remote control of my 20-year-old TV, which is not cable-ready and lives in the bedroom where it is only on while I'm folding and putting away laundry.

No, once again my seniors' group is ready for our annual Holiday Boutique. We sell hats, scarves, slippers, lapghans (lap-sized afghans) and baby items at rock-bottom prices, with the proceeds going to local charities that don't have need for our handworked items themselves.

Most of the items are knitted or crocheted, though one mother-daughter team makes the most beautiful pieced small quilts. A couple of years ago I got a pieced tote bag as a Christmas gift and our Seamstresses Extraordinaire M and her mother, also M, have adapted the pattern to make our own totes. Last year we raised $1100US! One of the local churches has a top-notch boutique and we joined the group of vendors a couple of years ago, since the boutique at the seniors' center died from lack of interest. I don't know how many items we have, but it fills the back of a minivan. I think we had over 50 lapghans last year, though I'm pretty sure we didn't sell all of them.


A week or two ago I bought a quilted afghan as a potential gift, though I changed my mind, and it will sell in the boutique. And I've bought a couple of others the last two years. So, just to let you see the craftswomanship, here are some pictures of a couple of our items.The Southwest motif afghan came about through pure happenstance. Someone brought in a lot of fabric with pre-printed motifs, including the SW figures, and then another donation had fabrics that coordinated perfectly. Last year, two different donations had fabric with the same Sesame Street characters, in two different motif sizes. Our newest DGS-BL got that as a gift! There are advantages to being part of the set-up crew, lol!!

This browns and blues and corals quilt (a couple of years old and well-covered in cat hair from our girls) is more typical of the color sense that M and her mother have, and the beautiful piecework they produce from odds and ends, matching up coordinating pieces, creating motifs and choosing backing fabrics. These quilts are not really lap-sized, since that's my DH holding them up at arms-length. And pricing? The quilts will go for $20-25 US.

I nearly forgot to mention the fun we had over on the Elann Chat Center last night. Several of the knitters had major events to celebrate - a new house, a finally-finished kitchen renovation, a 37th wedding anniversary. So one of the knitters had the idea to have a virtual party. Invitations went out, hors d'oeuvres recipes were readied, and we all showed up at the same time; of course, with our group spread from coast to coast of North America, it was late evening in Georgia and the east coast of Canada while being early cocktail hour here in Pacific Time.

We exchanged recipes, discussed our favorite party attire and consumables, explored the new kitchen from a virtual angle, chatted about knitting, and so on. Any hangovers this morning were purely imaginary, and my own Midnight, who insisted on joining the party, failed to trigger any allergies, since her cat dander was not an issue.

Fun! I think we should do it again, and I send big "Kudos!" to blogless B, who hatched the idea.