My Mom taught me to sew before first grade. In the beginning it was an embroidered pot holder, then aprons and by the time I entered high school I made 90% of my clothes. I drifted away from sewing for a few years, but I did buy quilt magazines. My daughter wanted me to make here a quilt from a pattern in Spinning Spools by Georgia Bonesteel and I even purchased her video on quilting. Kari's quilt is the only quilt I hand quilted because I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from years of typing as a secretary. Then my husband spotted a "crib size" quilt with baskets. Of course my simple mind decided that it would be easy to make a king size quilt - I just had to make more blocks. LOL In short the "Basket Case" quilt grew to be an oversized king quilt (one good turn deserves all the covers) and managed to machine quilt with my Sears Kenmore sewing machine. No one told me I couldn't do it - so I did, but I did manage to take some quilting and machine quilting classes which helped tremendousy. Then when the quilting group at church decided that they didn't want to make more raffle quilts for the church fair, a group of us got together and made a beautiful floral stenciled quilt, which made a lot of money for the church. The rest, as they say, is history,I've lost count of the raffle quilts I have made as well as hundreds of quilted baby blankets, table runners, placemats, wall hangings,etc.etc. I made my DD's quilt when she was 8 or 9 and I've been quilting ever since. I'm now 65 years old, and although I'm recovering from a spinal cord injury to my neck which sidelined me for 4 months in the hospital and rehab. I'm happy to report that I'm regaining the use of my hands and legs, but I'm starting to quilt again, which makes me very lucky that I can. Since I've started to quilt (small things for now_) I'm much happier, which makes my family glad as I get very "grumpy" when I can't quilt. Now - on to clothes and more quilts for our wonderful grand daughte Zoe - maybe some day she may want to learn to quilt. Happy quilting everyone..