When I was about 10 years old, my cooking & baking training started at home. I became so good at the baking part that I was usually the one who made the treats for guests (we lived in a place & time where visiting/coffee/goodies was a frequent thing) and I made all the pies & tarts because I was the one who mastered the art of perfect flaky pastry. (Now, Pillsbury makes my pastry.) I can still make spaghetti and soups, but Stouffer now makes my lasagna and macaroni & cheese.

Since our children are long since grown up & gone, we no longer have set meal times; for many years now, my husband and I have pretty much each fended for ourselves when it comes to food prep., because he is a diabetic and I am just not very interested in eating. For the same reasons, I rarely do any baking. This a.m., I decided to make a dozen muffins using a whole grain muffin mix that has about 6 steps to it before muffins are ready for the oven. And yet ... I managed to make stupid errors and a big mess in the kitchen. Three days ago I boiled a half dozen eggs for 30 minutes or more because I was sitting at this computer reading posts from this QB and forgot about the eggs.

So I'm thinking ... what if I quit making quilts for a while ... would I forget all the things I learned the hard way and have to make the same old mistakes? It doesn't bear thinking about! Do you gals who leave off quilting for years and then come back to it have to learn all over again?

nah, it's like riding a bicycle!!

I stopped quilting for a while...family issues got in the way....had to take care of mom and dad. Now they are gone and I am back to quilting. I may have forgotten some things, but like someone else said, I think it is like riding a bike.

Why would you even want to stop quilting?

Yeah, why? Love to quilt just not enough hours in the day to do it all. I have been bitten by the get old sewing machines bug that you wouldn't believe it!!!

I have no intentions of stopping or even slowing down, but I know that some people have stopped for a variety of reasons and either have not yet been able to get back into it or have gone several years without sewing/quilting before getting back to it, so I was just curious about getting "rusty" and having to re-learn stuff.

I did nothing quilty for a few months this summer. Got on the longarm yesterday, and as a previous poster said, it was like riding a bike. Made me wonder why I stopped.

When I have bad flair up's with my RA I have to go sometime without sewing or quilting. I get a little rusty on some things but after working it out I get back to doing it right pretty fast.

When I started quilting instead of making clothing, I tried to make my DIL a maternity dress, I found the patterns were different than the ones I learned to sew with, anyway it took me forever to get the dress made and I didn't like the whole process. So I'm really rusty trying to make clothing.

I hear you!!

I have had to reduce my sewing/quilting significantly because life got in the way. The longer I was away the harder it got to go back because I thought I would forget what I had learned. I sat down last night to make a table topper for DSIL and found I was still able to get a good 1/4" seam, but I did slow the machine speed way down. I have a quilt on the design wall and it is not done because I hit a wall as far as the design, got to get those juices working as well.

Now I need to make cookies for a friend's funeral and I am scratching my head since I have not made cookies in ages (because DH is diabetic and he has to make sure the hot cookies taste good). Hope I don't burn the house down.