Thread: What first attracted you to quilting

I was reading a thread this morning asking what attracts one to a quilt and got to wondering what attracted us to quilting in the first place

I was working at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC in the 1970s. A good friend and I were having lunch and a Fashion Design teacher joined us wearing a vest made up of cathedral windows. Marilyn and I both began making a CW quilt - she finished hers and I luckily found someone in the 90s who was glad to take what I had given up on.

My mother was my idol and when she began to quilt, she taught me what she had been learning. G rowing up she had already taught me to knit, crochet and sew. Now that I am out of work on disability, I have a lot of time and a lot of grandchildren to quilt for. It makes me feel close to her even tho she is gone.

I remember as a child going to visit my cousins 'down south' and we would go with my aunt to the church gathering room once a week. The ladies sat around a quilting frame stitching. My cousins were used to that but I had never seen 'quilting' before and thought it was fantastic. My mom doesn't sew but my older sister started teaching me when I was very young.... between 5 and 8 but that was just sewing clothes. Then, I married my best friend that just happened to have family 50 miles from my aunt's house.... and all the ladies in his family quilted. I made my first quilt for my 3rd child, back in the 70's but didn't quilt again until the mid 90's. I saw a quilt I loved (lover's knot) on the cover of a quilting magazine at my MIL's house but I couldn't do any sewing because I had a broken wrist. The healing of my wrist took months and a surgery so almost a year later I started that quilt. I haven't stopped since. I've found my passion........

I came into quilting much later in life. I used to watch Simply Quilts while I ate my breakfast before work. Loved it and never gave half a thought to doing it. Then when I retired one of my sons said "now you can make me a quilt". What? I don't quilt! He said, but you are retired and you can learn. So I did join a quilting class/group and did make him his quilt and the rest is history. I've been quilting about 8 years.

I started as a way to use up scraps let over from making garments , because thats what my mother did. Having started making my own clothes in 5th grade ... mom never discarded any of the scraps from any projects any of us kids or she made. They went into a special pile that was destined for quilts. We saved anything over a 2 inch square. It just always seemed that natural progression of fabric .. first clothing .. then the quilts. The only time I recall purchasing fabric for a quilt was for the backing . This was all pre - rotary cutter!

my sister had quilted for a long time and she made beautiful quilts. and then she started
her own business hand-guided machine quilting by pam berntson. she did long arming and
made severl quilts for customers and all the family. i was blessed with 2 of her quilts. so i took
some classes and here i am. she always answered all my questions. well june 2 we lost
that special person. i havent quilted since but know i will. but i sure do miss her. some of the
quilts she made covered every pew in the church for her funeral. some pew had two or three
on they were gorgeous.

I fell in love with the "quilting" on quilts. Always looked at the quilting. A couple of years ago a friend started to teach me every thing she knows. Every Monday at a friends house she walked us through piecing a top. It is now my drug of choice. Quilting can calm me soo much. Go to a quilt camp in Rockaway Or. in the fall and a quilt retreat on the Mckenzie River Or in Jan. My dd has started too. She is a busy mom of two and she has made more quilts than me. When I am not sewing tops, I sit with dh and hand quilt some of my tops. Soooooooooooo much fun.