I turned 50 this year, but at the annual Utah State Quilt Festival, they gave an award to everyone who is 50, because that is the average age of all quilters! Yeah, prizes!
I have been sewing since I was 10 years old, and spent many hours together with my two younger sisters and Mom in the sewing room making projects for 4-H..... I started quilting about eight years ago when I found a bag of unfinished Log Cabin blocks that my Mom had started before she passed away. It would have been her first pieced quilt. I brought it home, finished it and gave it to my Dad for Christmas. I was hooked.
My triplet daughters and I joined a block of the month club when they were 13, and began our own quilting journey together. They're now almost 20, and we all enjoy quilting and spending time in our own sewing room together. Actually, Quilting was something we could all do together, and each of us have won multiple sweepstakes and awards at quilt shows and county and state fairs, even one of my girls placed in a national 4-H demonstration with her quilting. Quilting for cash and prizes! Gotta love it! Then, of course with us all quilting, I just had to take the next step and bought a longarm machine about 5 years ago. I still have a pile of 20 of my own quilt tops just waiting to be quilted while I quilt for everyone else...
I love quilting. I love the connection I feel with the women in my family who have gone before, and I love quilting and spending time in the sewing room with my own daughters. And now when one of them comes to me and says, "Hmmm, I think I want to make a quilt..." That is the payoff!