cowgirlquilter

Love your story and your quilt!! Here is mine-
my momma has always sewn. She made all of our clothes and I vividly remember my daddy buying her a brand new singer when I was 11. At the time, it was cutting edge all of $597 and it was a family decision.
Anyway, hanging out with momma, I played with her treadle machine, and eventually began sewing. Momma even created a brand new 4h club that focused on-you guessed it-sewing!
During the same time, I would spend a week with my grandmother who was from Mexico. She had created a Sunbonnet Sue in faded colors (flour sacks and calicos) with pale pink borders and binding. I would sit with her and watch her braid her long floor length braids every night, and when I would trace my fingers over the small hand stiches, she would tell me what ranch or part of Mexico she had been in. I just thought it was magical. Amazingly my mother never really quilted, but when I was grown and married, I purchased a $99 machine which I still use, and self taught myself. It is only this year that I have actually begun organizing myself to actually learn pattern names, methods, etc. I am a former teacher, and every year would have a unit on math and wlting and would make big squared blocks, but nothing very fancy. Since then, I have made quilts for my daughter, granddaughters, special friends, and so on. I love making memoreis for them, and myself as well.

catrancher

My grandmother was a prize-winning quilter. I always wanted to learn. I've been fascinated by quilts and quilting my whole life. Finally learned in 2008 at age 54.

DaylilyDawn

I learned to sew as a child sitting under my mother's sewing machine area working with the scraps of fabric from whatever clothing project she was making for one of us 4 kids. As I got older I learned to sew clothing and learned from a very favorite teacher the difference between "home made clothing and Handmade clothing"My quilting skills match up with my sewing skills but alas I have no photos of any thing except one outfit my daughter wore to school one day and the pictures were being taken that day. The photographer did a double exposure shot of her . She is wearing a dark blue dress with a white Peter Pan collar and over the dress is a pinafore that has a smocked bodice done in a dark blue thread. The dress and pinafore were machine stitched and the bodice of the pinafore was hand smocked. My daughter now has conceded that my sewing skills are of the Hand Made distinction and offers them to her friends when they need something sewed.

deanneellen

I, too started sewing through 4-H and used to sew many of my own clothes plus clothes for my two children. My husband and I were square dancers so I made most of our outfits for that, too. As the years passed I became tired of trying to "fit" the patterns to me so went more and more into craft sewing. I think the main reason I became a quilter was because of our wonderful quilt store that we have here in my home town. I signed up for a sampler quilt class and have never looked back! Have never finished that particular sampler quilt but all of the blocks are completed and just need to put it all together one of these days.

LindaJR

I got one of the first embrodiery machines in the 80's and just did crafty things with it. The only quilting I have done so far is all my own designs of wall hangings for friends and relatives. They are crazy quilt designs with machine and hand embrodiery on them. I also made a scrap quilt top with blue jeans for a recycle lecture I gave at a craft camp one year in the 1980's. Now I want to make quilts for my 8 great grandchildren. I no longer have the patience to make fancy blocks, but plan to do strip quilting, log cabin (my favorite block) and scrappy quilts. I do silk embrodiery on men's jackets for friends and want to try some quilting on them.

lillybeck

Great story and the quilt is beautiful. I started making baby blankets as my siblings started their families. I had been sewing for many years so not hard to figure a simple pattern with SID. A few years later my grandma helped me cut squares and taught me how to do a full size quilt and I tied that one. Now man y jyears later I still do not much follow a pattern but I have learned to take an idea and go with it. I also learned to do FM on my machine so I am an old dog learning new tricks.

MadQuilter

I am a self-taught crafter and tried assorted techniques along the way. Made a pillow for my sister out of some old clothes using the cardboard templates. (The good old days, lol) When we moved into our house in '89 I decided that it needed a quilt to make it a home. I took a sampler class and that, as they say was that. Interestingly enough, the sampler never got finished.

PatQuilts

In 4th or 5th grade (the middle of the 1960s) we were all required to bring one of our hobbies to school for show and tell. I decided to start sewing quilt blocks! My mom had quilted since she was 13 using her mother's treadle machine. For show and tell, I cut out a bunch of 4 or 5" blocks from feedsacks mom had saved from her childhoold -- creating created about 2 dozen 4-block patches. That treadle machine was the perfect speed for my early efforts.

I went on to learn how to sew clothes, etc. in 4-H and high school home economics classes. Even majored in home economics education but that early experience was the end of my quilting till about 15 years ago. My mom came to visit for a few weeks visit during a Christmas holiday in our brand new house and we partnered on a quilt that I later machine quilted. I had to find something for her to do. :lol:

In 2003, mom moved in with DH and I. Of course, her treadle machine came with her and many tubs full of fabric--including those dear feedsacks that she had not used for my childhood clothes or quilts. Over time, it became more and more difficult for mom to do certain parts of the process so I started to help her. I've just finished my first project--a wall hanging--all on my own.

Mom can no longer quilt and is now in a nearby nursing home. Remember those blocks I did more than 40 years ago? She had put the blocks together and tied them for a quilt. They are now on her nursing home bed as a little reminder of her love for quilting and how much I love her.

After all these years I have found the same passion for quilting. I especially love using those precious feedsacks, 30s quilt patterns and hand quilting like they did. Each time I take a stitch I think of mom and the grandmother I never got to know.

samifel

My grandmother gave me a cigar box full of squares and spool of thread and a needle. I was about 6 or 7. That was a half century ago.

Kathy9052

I started sewing my own clothes as a teenager. Then life got in the way for awhile. My first "quilt" involved using two Snoopy sheets - red design on one side, blue on the other - for my son. After layering it, I sewed around the outside and tied the quilt. Since sheets have finished edges, I didn't put a binding on it. About 25 years ago, I attended a Fly-in held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They had a Lady's tent with several make-it-and-take-it projects. One of those projects was hand-quilting the design on a pillow. I got hooked. Then I took a fun quilting class. My first real quilt was a Trip-around-the-World in that class which was a lock-in class. We started around 7 p.m. and stayed until we got the top done. The pizza that was delivered around midnight helped keep us nourished. I think that I got done around 6 a.m. the next morning. That quilt ended up as a tied quilt. When I told my son that this was a replacement quilt for his old Snoopy one, he was reluctant to get rid of his raggedy Snoopy quilt. He said that if it wasn't as warm as his old quilt, he didn't want it. Of course, he took it.