Hi everyone. My name is Marilyn and I have been making quilts for about a year now. I've been sewing since Jr. high school. I'm retired, will be 62 in February 2011 and spend my days taking care of my 3 horses, visiting friends, watching certain tv shows and making quilts.

I have 4 children and 9 grandchildren. My daughter lives in Indiana and works in a manufacturing plant. My oldest son lives here and is an LA County Sheriff's Deputy. My next son lives here and is a Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy. My youngest son just separated from the Marine Corps after 5 years of service and 2 campaigns in Iraq. He and his lovely wife and my grandson are currently living with us until she can join the Coast Guard. He will be going to college to learn Fire Science and wants to be a fireman. My husband will be retiring in 5 years and wants to travel.

I have enough material to last me the rest of my life. I've made quilts that I donated to people who made donations to horse rescue organizations and now I am making quilts for disabled American vets, donating them to the DAV in San Bernardino and will be donating to a VFW. The VFW caters to the needs of disabled vets living in a vets home in Barstow, CA. My goal for them is to make 92 quilts sized for use by those in wheelchairs and 92 larger, throw size quilts for their beds.

I'm new at this and don't know how to do a lot of the quilt block designs. All I can do so far is the log cabin block and the "strip" blocks which are sewn onto foundation material. I tried making a triangle for the first time yesterday and found that to be easy to do. Now I just have to figure out how to make those gorgeous eight point stars.

I'm so glad I found this message board and, believe me, I will be devouring every word in an effort to learn how to do a variety of blocks so that I can get those quilts to the disabled vets.

Welcome from Iowa. Nice to see you here.

Good Morning and welcome from Michigan!
there are so many tutorials on making blocks and even the 8 point stars! when i get back from quilting, i will post some links for you..but i am sure otehrs here will chime in with thier links to help you!

http://www.quiltbus.com/free-quilt-blocks.htm

that ought to keep you busy till i get home!

on the right hand side is a few eight point star patterns!
enjoy!

Welcome from Western NY!

Hi,welcome from Kentucky

Hello to all of you; Murphy, Kim, Pam, Patty and Quiltzilla. Thank you so much for responding to my post so quickly.

I'm so glad that I have found a place where I can ask questions of all of you seasoned quilters. I'm glad you are willing to share your "secrets" about quilt making.

Kim, I have made you one of my favorite "sellers" on Ebay. I have been purchasing quilt blocks already made off of Ebay. I've made 8 purchases so far and received 2 of those so far. I put borders around them and will be putting quilts together to give to the VFW for that vets home in Barstow. Of course, I will be letting the lady with whom I am working at the VFW know that I did NOT make those particular blocks; that I bought them off Ebay, but that I did put them together to make the quilt I would be donating to her organization. I won't take credit for work I have NOT done myself. I just wish I knew WHO made those blocks I bought off Ebay so I can give credit where credit is due.

I also am studying each set of quilt blocks I receive from Ebay to see how they are made...and learn how to do them myself. Lord knows I have enough material to choke a horse. Hahahaha.

Also Kim, thank you so much for the links. I will surf them today and, hopefully, learn something. I can't wait to get started trying to make the 8 point stars.

Quiltzilla, thank you so much for the compliment. I wasn't sure how much info I should give but decided to give the basic details so you all know to whom you are "talking".

Today I am going to get out my "browns" materials and see if I can put together blocks that are pleasing to the eye as far as mixing and matching the colors/prints. That's the hard part for me. What may look beautiful to me may look ugly to someone else. I guess I also have to learn the correct way to decide which fabrics to put together into a block so that it is pleasing to the eye.

Lord, there is a lot of stuff to learn.

Hello to you Marilyn, from cold North Carolina. Yep - dis be da place to find all the info you'll ever need on quilting and THEN SOME. Go up to the search on this page and put in something random and I can tell you, there will be dust on your quilting chair !!! hahaaha

Blessings,
Ruth

Welcome from Middle Tennessee.