Quiltingboard Forums - Greetings From New Hampshire

Hello from New Hampshire. I am excited to be a new member of the Quilting Board. I joined last week and have already been admiring many of your quilts. There are a lot of talented people on this site!

To share a little bit about myself, I have lived in many different states-all on the east coast. I stay at home and care for my 2 year old grandson while my daughter attends college. She will graduate next spring with her bachelor’s degree in nutrition and I am so proud of her. My son is an artist and musician and the director of a youth program in Maine at a community center. Prior to that, he worked with special needs children. He is making a difference in a lot of children’s lives and I am very proud of him as well. My husband of many years is a medical/pharmaceutical plastics engineer. He is “under foot” working out of our home most days and driving me a little crazy now and then, but I think I’ll keep him.

I am a beginner quilter. Years ago, while living in Ohio, I took quilting classes for about 10 weeks and learned a lot, including how to pop my knot, rock my needle, and make perfect tiny stitches by hand. I made a quilt block each week, and I graduated. I very much enjoyed it, but shortly after that, I put it aside and went to nursing school, and that was all-consuming, leaving little time for anything else. Forward-wind until now, and I am interested in trying my hand at it again, except this time I hope to use a sewing machine.

I own 4 sewing machines, plus a Babylock serger, and a Janome Coverstitch machine. I have a basic mechanical Babylock sewing machine which I purchased new around 1996. I have a Kenmore from the158 series that was born around 1974. It uses cams and was top of the line when it was new. I bought that second hand. It was built like a tank, manufactured in Japan, and has all metal parts. Next up would be my Kenmore 385.1960180 that has 100 stitches. I believe it was built around 1984, but it is in mint condition and sews like a dream. It was made by Janome. I purchased it used. Last year I bought a used Husqvarna Viking Quilt Designer. I am unable to find out much information online about that machine. Thankfully, I have the manual. It was one of the last Vikings made in Sweden I believe.

I took Home Ec in High School and, for the most part, that is where I learned to sew on a machine. My paternal grandmother taught me how to crochet and sew by hand when I was 6. Many of the women in my family sewed, but most of them made garments and home décor items. My maternal grandmother quilted on her treadle sewing machine and sold her quilts in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My family is from South Carolina BTW.

In high school, my Mom made a lot of our dresses and formals on her Kenmore. I have 2 sisters and we were in Job’s Daughters in Virginia and then Rainbow Girls in Germany (those are Masonic organizations) so there were many dances and events we traveled to. We kept her busy sewing and we helped and along the way we learned.

I graduated high school in Germany, and shortly afterwards I went to work in a tailor shop on an army base near Frankfurt. I sewed on industrial machines there. Several years later I was married with a child and I bought my first sewing machine second-hand at a Singer store in Huntsville Alabama. It was a Princess (manufactured by White) and it sewed a straight stitch and a zigzag stitch. It didn’t have an automatic buttonhole maker, so I improvised with the satin stitch. For awhile, I made nearly all of my son’s clothes with that machine.

I have had an interest in many crafts through the years. I have decorated cakes, sketched, oil painted, decorative painted with acrylics, made jewelry, weaved baskets, cross-stitched, crocheted, knitted, etc. I am an avid reader. I love to garden and to cook, and I attempt to play the guitar and the keyboard now and then. I am not a pro at everything I do, but I have fun trying.

Applique is something that appeals to me strongly. Baltimore quilts are beautiful—the deep reds and greens against a cream color background speak to me. My ultimate goal would be to make one of those for my king size bed. But initially, I’ll start by making a pillow or a table runner.

Again, I am very happy to be a member of this site. If I have questions, I’m sure I’ll be able to find the answer here. Thank you all for having me. Sharon