I am a self taught quilter. More than 20 years ago I joined two different quilds. One was 20 minutes from me and began in a home. The other was an established group founded by Mimi Dietrich. In the last couple of years I have dropped out of both of them. The local one is now has more than 100 members. Most of them I don't know. The second has gotten to far for me to commute in rush hour traffic as I have grown older. I am a hand quilter and thus an oddity in the eyes of most "modern" quilters . I am not interested in block of the month or any other group project. The last straw for me was the "Holiday" party last year where they gave each of us a number when we entered the room and we had to sit at the table with that number. I ended up seated with people I only knew by site if that. Needless to say I and most of my original guild friends were not happy with that arrangement. I understand the idea of a "mixer" but not at the party. I do a lot of charity sewing. I make at least 20 Linus quilts a month and lately have been making dozens of "Princess Pillowcase Dresses". I used to go on a retreat with the one group but it is a lot of effort and misuse of time to have to break down my sewing set up at home and drag it and the kitchen sink somewhere else for a few days. I could spend that time and effort producing more at home. I do hand quilt on a raffle quilt that we are making at our local senior center two hours a week. It is ten minutes from my home and requires me to only bring my needle.