My first exposure to quilts was at a very very early age when my mother, aunts, grandmothers, greatgrandmother made quilts from feed sacks for warmth in the winter. They traded fabrics, patterns, quilt frames (that hung from the celing) The people who delivered the feed to our farm helped the women get the feed for that week in matching sacks (and I remember the men being very kind with their help, sometimes even expressing how much they liked a certain pattern. This was during World War II and times were difficult. Our town didn't have a fabric store. I remember when all of these ladies learned of the "double blanket". That's when the quilting stopped. Many years later when I was grown with my own family my grandmother passed away (my father was an only child). The grand kids shared a lot of my grandmother's things. One of the things I got was a quilt top of Dutch Dolls. A few years later an old gentleman from church made me a quilting frame that hung from the celing. My mother and her sisters and sister-in-law came to my house and we hung the frame from my garage celing, had a pot luck lunch, and they taught me to hand quilt. Each one of these ladies had their own special way of making their stitches a lot of tales about times past. Of course I still have that quilt and from that day a couple of these ladies began making quilts again. One aunt got all of her grandchildren a quilt made before she passed away. My mother always thought quilting was just too much work. Now she would climb on a ladder and trim trees or clean out the gutters, but she was not interested in quilting. I suppose the short answer here would be YES I did have a quilting class before I began quilting. I just wanted to share this wonderful memory with other quilters. In addition to this day, I watched every quilting show I could find while I was still working and after I retired, I have found time to pursue this wonderful art.