When I was a teenager (many years ago), my Mom bought me a pre-cut kit to make a Lone Star. I pieced it and had it hand quilted and used it for a long time. Then as I was graduating from high school, Mom started 2 cross-stitch quilts...one for my sister and one for me. She got my sister's quilt done, but was about 1/3 done with the cross-stitch on mine when she left it as a UFO and I inherited it when she died in 2000. I finished it and hand-quilted it. Then didn't do any more quilting until about 2005 when I saw a sampler in a museum and decided that I could do that if I picked out simple block patterns and then could see if I really liked it. I'm hooked.
I've made 2 memorial quilts for friends who lost teenagers and now have a 3rd memorial quilt to make for other friends. Those memorial quilts mean the most to me, and I hope mean a lot to the families. I incorporate pictures of the teen and try to come up with something that reflects the loves of the teen. I had an opportunity to take a machine quilting class just before I finished the first memorial quilt and then (mysteriously) my quilter that had agreed to quilt it for me was booked for several months. That propelled me into the realm of machine quilting. I got lots of advice from my friends and I DID IT! I was proud of myself for tackling the project, but think there may have been some purpose in my preparation to be able to make those quilts and machine quilt them myself. It has been a gift of myself that I can offer to friends who are grieving.