I sewed a lot for my kids when they were growing up and ended up with a lot of leftover fabric. Being somewhat of a pack rat I couldn't bring myself to throw the scraps away. One day I made a 9-patch out of some fabric that was a particular favorite. Don't know what inspired me to do that but I soon decided it was the perfect way to use up all my fabric scraps. So I put together my first quilt top. I knew the quilt would never get finished if I hand quilted it so I got a book from the library on machine quilting. This was back in the 80's when machine quilting was pretty much looked down on by most quilters. I finished that quilt and even though it wasn't exactly a masterpiece I was very proud of my work. That got me started and I've quilted on and off ever since.