I never saw a quilt before in my life until I met my husband. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to make a blanket when you can just buy a comforter in the store that's probably warmer anyway.
My mother was a home ec goddess. She was one of the first women (and first non caucasian) that graduated from a fashion school in NY. She crocheted, knitted, sewed you name it. She would go with my aunts (her inlaws) to craft fairs. She never bought anything, and wouldn't let anyone else buy anything either. She would just go home and make it....from looking at it once. When I was growing up in the early 1980's, she would get catalogs in the mail and then make whatever was in them without the pattern.
She never taught me...any of her gifts. She had gone to college in the 60's and I came along a little later than she had planned. She felt the women's movement had come along enough that she didn't have to teach me anything. She really thought that knowing how to make beautiful things was keeping me into the "mold" that so many women have to do. She didn't teach me how to cook or anything that could be considered feminine work. I still have no clue how to sew. I'd love to learn someday.
When I married, my MIL had little patience for me. She couldn't understand why I didn't know how to do ANYTHING. She let me help her make a quilt for my nieces a year or so after we married. It was very complicated and she went really fast. I think she meant to teach me a lesson, but I got a hunger for making quilts that has had me ever since. She helped me pick out a beginner machine a year or so later when I drove her crazy constantly asking about different machines. I signed up for a beginner class at Hancock's. I think that I learned to cut backwards, so that's a hard thing for me to do, but I still have the quilt bug.
My first 4 quilts were all the same pattern. Lap size rail fences. My husband's family raved about them and I've been making stuff since. 90% of what I have made, I have made in a group for charity. I've made 6 total lap size now and one queen....but countless full and twin size for charity.
My MIL ended up becoming my best friend and a good mother substitute for me. When she passed away in 2007, I was blind with grief. I got quilter's block so bad. It was people here that helped me out of it. I kept some small squares of fabric she had helped me pick out for a friend with cancer. I kept the left over squares, sewed them, and framed them. They now hang in my sewing room....with a picture of my MIL and I presenting a quilt to a charity. I will always have reminders...but I thank God everyday that she showed me my new passion. It really brought us together.
Once both of my mothers were gone, I started accumulating clothing from both of them. I don't have enough of one mom or the other to make a quilt, so I will make one that honors both of them at once.
My latest quilt, a lap size for my grandmother, has incorporated many patterns and nuances that my dear MIL taught me. I know that I will carry her gift with me everywhere.
Melissa