For my baby shower, a friend of mine gave me a baby quilt (with some cross stitch as blocks), and I LOVED it. No one in my family quilts, or really sews. My experience with sewing was making a tote bag and a pillow during home ec in junior high school.
I had been begging my hubby and mom for a sewing machine for quite a while because I had cross stitched a stocking, and I wanted to finish it for my first baby. So last year for christmas (2009), I got a pretty basic Kenmore sewing machine (Black Friday deal) from my Mom. She was pretty convinced that it would just sit in a closet and not get used. Well, it didn't. I headed out to the store and found a pretty cute baby quilt kit with dogs on it and a bunch of minkee fabric. It had GREAT instructions included about pressing seams and such. That was it, putting together basic 6" blocks and adding minkee borders, and I LOVED it. I DVR'd all the Sewing with Nancy episodes (I now have 42 episodes saved on my TV!), and learned a lot from there.
A neat story that has happened recently I want to share with you. I read so many stories on QB about people who give quilts and the recipients don't appreciate them and I just finished a baby quilt for my hubby's cousin and I kept thinking "I REALLY hope she likes this and uses it" because it took so much work and care to do it, so I decided to email the lady who made me the baby quilt for my shower. She was so excited that I emailed her, that we have been talking sewing/quilting/embroidery ever since. We now have dogs AND sewing to talk about!