Colorful glimpses of yesterday are stitched together.

Dollhouses and miniature rooms, with their small, authentic furnishings and tiny figures, are invitations to fantasies--little glimpses of other times and places.

Quilts that dazzle with their colors, patterns and intricate stitchery are sometimes a window on family histories or reflect the inner thoughts of the people who make them.

A collection of these things--miniatures and colorful quilts--will be brought together Saturday in San Pedro when the Las Primeras Auxiliary of the Assistance League of San Pedro-Palos Verdes stages its annual Quilt and Dollhouse Exhibit.

The long-running event raises funds for South Bay charities supported by the league. The 60 or so quilts to be displayed range from an unfinished 1880 quilt with a design suggesting a frontier log cabin to several made just last year. A 1990 panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which commemorates people who have died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, will also be shown.

The quilts are a kaleidoscope of patterns--from geometric zigzags to flowers, stars and animals--and colors, ranging from old-fashioned calico to shining satin.

Quilt exhibit Chairman Mitzi Cress sees quilting as “an expression of the inner self. . . . You get an idea, think about it and start a quilt, and you never know what it will be like until it’s finished.”

Cress and general show Co-Chairman Louise Campbell says some visitors are inspired to begin quilting or resume work on quilts they tucked away long ago.

In the world of miniatures, the league will display 10 crafted fantasies, including such things as a circus museum, country store, thatched-roof cottage and a Halloween party complete with a witch. One of them, a horse corral decorated for Christmas, was made as a class project by Omar Vasquez, a sixth-grader at Carson Street School.

The standout dollhouse will be the turn-of-the-century world of tiny, intricately woven Victorian wicker furniture and baby buggies created by Marie Terrones. The San Pedro artisan began her craft seven years ago after she tried to find a dollhouse for her daughter, who was then 2, and didn’t like what was available.

With a long veranda containing a porch swing, tables and chairs, the miniature three-story blue house rises to a peaked roof, where wispy threads of cotton simulate smoke coming from the chimney.

A tiny bird, fashioned from real feathers, lives inside a wicker cage. Prams have lacy canopies to ward off the sun, colorful patchwork quilts adorn the elaborate beds, tiny glasses rest on a closed book, and a dressing table contains a mirror and brush the size of fingernails.

Terrones, who uses antique doilies and handkerchiefs for her throw rugs and curtains, calls her house “my own small world” that offers an instant retreat from the real world.

People attending the show can buy $1 tickets for chances to take home three prizes: a handmade Irish chain quilt, which gets its name from the chain-like stitching; a miniature dollhouse with shingles, porch and fireplace, and one of Terrones’ miniature wicker baby buggies. Home-made cakes and cookies will also be sold.

Cress said quilts are appealing to some people because of craftsmanship in the colors and stitching. Others are interested in what quilts have to say, she said, citing a quilt made by a cancer patient as a thank-you to the people who took care of her. It was never finished.

They are art and history combined, she said. “People look at a 100-year-old quilt and wonder what (the person who made it) was thinking about and imagining.”

Terrones, who has made her wicker furniture for miniature collectors around the world, said the appeal of dollhouses is having “a piece of the past. They make people feel good. When they get depressed, they can look into the rooms and it totally takes them away.”

Campbell says she sees a strong link between both dollhouses and quilts. “They have a lot of history and are something that can be passed on to other people.”