I don't remember when I really started to sew, but at age 11, I made my first dress: with full circle skirt, double ruffles for sleeves and a gathered neck line at the top of the bodice, in a beautiful yellow. I remember sitting outside in the shade while hand sewing that huge expanse of rolled hem. I wore that dress a lot.
Fast forward to the late sixties. I had been making clothes for my eight kids, and was wondering what to do with all those beautiful scraps. I thought about them for months; while milking cows, doing laundry, hoeing garden and such. I thought just sew two of them together, add a third and a forth, and just keep adding pieces until I have a a quilt top. Big mistake! I got bubbles that I had to slice through to get it to lay flat. Then I sewed a decorative stitch in black on each seam. It was really pretty. I really liked it when it was finished, but I should have worked in squares or used a foundation.
I learned my first lessons in quilting at a 4-H quilt camp, which I attended for six years with my granddaughter. Each young quilter had an adult with her, usually her mother, but there were two grandmothers.
Since that time, the most I have learned has been on this board. I can't believe how much I have learned here.
Now I have a great-granddaughter, one week old, who has one quilt already, but there will be more.