Snug Buggy Success

Last year, I received a message from Celeste Nossiter, a member of the Dropped Stitch Knitters Guild in Albuquerque.
She and some other guild members had taken an idea, gleaned from
projects around the country, and were doing a fund raising project
called Snug Buggy.  Proceeds would benefit the S.A.F.E. House in
Albuquerque, which is New Mexico's largest shelter and service provider
for survivors of domestic violence, serving more than 1,600 men, women
and children each year.

The plan: participants were asked to create a 5-6" square that must be made in some shade of purple.  It could be knitted, tatted, crocheted, sewn, embroidered, quilted, or
created by any other means of fiber art or craft.  These pieces would
then be assembled by the guild to form a cover for a VW bug,
which was displayed at the Albquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta in May 2007 (the
volkswagen was generously loaned by a local dealership for the
duration of the show).

I had the pleasure of seeing Celeste last weekend, and asked how this project turned out.  It was a huge success,
and she generously shared these photos with me, as well as some comments they received from contributors.  I'll include it below.

I am ashamed to say I got so caught up in my own whirlwind of work and projects that I failed to contribute to this one...but admire those who did, and am again reminded how many hands make light work.  We have so much power when get together to make something happen!  ---Martie

Snug Buggy stories

On of the most fun and unexpected parts of creating the Snug Buggy was the personal stories that accompanied the squares. We received over 450 squares from 172 fiber artists in 10 states and some of them included comments. The best are:

While vacationing in NM a woman heard about the project late but took the idea back to Las Vegas Nevada where she teaches high school. She sent in 8 quilted squares made by her mentally and physically handicapped students hoping we would still accept them. You bet we did!

Another woman wrote a short note thanking us for getting her back into embroidery, something she hadn’t done for some time.

One woman who heard about it at Village Wools sent in a square she made and one each from her two sons – for one of them it was his first knitted item.

Several people just sent checks in support of the project – some people had a friend make the square and they paid for the donation.

One woman started on tatted lace headlight and tail light covers the day she heard about the project – they took over a year to make.

A rug hooking group all got together and made hooked rug ladybugs in different colors, and then decided the VW needed a license plate, so they hooked a “Snug Bug” license plate in the state colors of red and yellow.

We received squares that were knitted, crocheted, quilted, felted, appliquéd, woven, rug hooked, several kinds of lace making, painted fabric and silkscreened. They were made by children, adults, beginners, experts and everything in between.


The best story of all is how we received the matching grant.  A knitter in the local Guild knew someone who has a foundation that makes small contributions to local non-profits supporting peace and justice, especially for children. This project was right up their alley. Turns out that Don and Nancy Tubesing of Placitas, publishers of the award-winning picture book, Old Turtle, were thrilled to support this effort through the Pfeifer-Hamilton Legacy Fund. We have raised a total of about $4400 for SAFE House. The Snug Buggy will eventually be used to keep their very special Old Turtle VW Bug warm in the winter.