Quiltingboard Forums - Greetings from Alaska

Hello Everyone,
My name is Enid and I live in Wasilla, Alaska. About 4 years ago I fell in love with quilts after my house burned down and the Red Cross donated some things to my family to help us out while our new home was being built. It was our first home after 21 years of marriage and 5 children and within an hour all our worldly possessions went up in smoke. By the grace of God no one was hurt and everyone including all our pets made it out safely. One of the things that we received from the Red Cross was a beautiful quilt that was made at an Alaska Women's Prison. Ever since I received that quilt I was determined to make one on my own. I think I have bought enough fabric in the last year or so to make a king size quilt for every man, woman, and child and maybe even a few moose and possibly a family of bears living in the state of Alaska. I have yet to finish my first quilt for 2 reasons one I'm a perfectionist who more often then not stops on a regular basis to check for any mistake and then HAS to correct it right then and there, and two I have lupus and more often then not my hands swell and it's hard for me to maintain any energy for longer then 2 to 3 hours. I have to admit that even though lupus can be hard on me at times when trying to quilt because of the pain, quilting can also be so therapeutic for me. I love when my packages comes with all the beautiful fabric and even when I can't cut or sew I use my EQ7 to plan out my projects using the fabric I have already downloaded on to my library on my EQ7 then on good days I enjoy life doing what has become one of my newest loves...Quilting. I am really happy to have stumbled on to this site. I have learned so much and am hoping that sometime after the snow and ice melt that I can meet other quilters in my area and hopefully learn a lot more. Hopefully my intro. wasn't too long but I must say I love reading about all the things both old and new that are posted on this site.