I took a sewing class in 8th grade and just about failed the class. :lol: Not kidding!! I couldn't sew a straight line to save my life. But, I persevered; and even though I shared this fact with my husband, he still agreed to buy me a sewing machine (a Singer) 12-years ago. My first project was a Star of Bethlehem quilt top. It was HUGE. Unfortunately, I have no clue what I did with it. I don't remember if my points were actually 'pointy.' I just started cutting, sewing, and didn't pay attention to the small details that I now do. It was pretty (from what I remember). I wonder if I threw it away?

Fast-forward to four years after that, I took my first "formal" piecing class from a lady named Carmen Hague in Minot, North Dakota. We worked on a Thimbleberries sampler quilt. I loved it!! I learned to cut, piece, and even do a little applique. I had no concept of Beginner Quilter / Intermediate / Advance level. All I knew was if the directions were easy to understand, I just went ahead and followed it. After that quilt, I made the Thimbleberries BOM quilt that you see in my avatar. So, that is "officially" the second quilt I've made. After that, I've only pieced two other quilts. Technically, I consider myself still a 'beginner.' I love this message board. I can't believe how much info is shared on here. I love coming back and reading all sorts of threads.

Please share how you got into sewing and quilting. I think it's fun to read about how someone got hooked on this wonderful hobby!

My grandmother tought me to sew when I was 18 (1981) and I was making all my clothes for a long time. Life got on the way and I stopped. In 2000 I was cross stitching at work in my lunch break and this Dr. approached me. I knew she quilted, but I didn't know if I wanted to learn or where to go to learn. She asked me if I could finish a cross stitch for her. I told my daughter, and she said: Mom do it and ask her to teach me to quilt (my dauhter was 13 at the time)as payment. I did and she agreed. We spent Memorial day at her house and the next weekend at mine. She didn't have to give us another class. We started getting books, joined a guild, took classes, and now have a home based bussiness quilting. My daughter is in college, but when she is home she helps, and she only gives quilted gifts to her friends. Of course, Mom quilts then after she pieced them.Even learning to quilt was a negotiation for me.

Maria

My grandmother who died when I was 2 was a creative person. She had a milliner's shop for years and did incredibly neat hand work. It appears that I have at least some of her knack for sewing. She did such a number on her daughter (my mom) that the word "sewing" makes her hair stand on end. I taught myself to knit, crotchet, and sew/quilt with the help of mentors and classes.

Yes, I also failed sewing miserably in school....but who in their right mind wants to wear the crap we had to sew then?????/

I was raised around the foot pedal of a Singer Sewing machine that is now mine. My mother was a professional seamstress. She taught my brother and I how to sew by taking the thread out of that machine and the bobbin, drawing straight lines and curves on paper and letting us follow those lines on the machine. My grandmother had me cutting out and sewing together fabrics for quilts when I was big enough to use scissors. I took Home Economics every year in high school just to get two new outfits each year and I made all of my dresses and blouses and skirts and pantsuits for high school. (Got in trouble with the pantsuit at school because we weren't allowed to wear pants and I did anyway.....lol). I also learned from my mom how to embroider, crochet and quilt. I never could get into knitting......I'm a lefty too..... :)

sadly no one i know can sew.

i am 100% self taught i purchased a book called Quilting 101 and i purchased EQ5.

my first quilt was a log cabin - which i have never quilted, it sits on my pool table to this day.

I started sewing around 7-8 yrs old. Mom set me up to the sewing machine and I took to it like a duck takes to water. In Home Ec. in school the teacher got frustrated with me cause I would always say" thats not how my mother taught me". I made all my own clothes and then all my childrens clothes. As they got older I started making other things. My first quilt was with a card board template and sissors. I chose to make attic window cause it only had three pieces. My seams don't match and my points are cut off but I still have that quilt. I hand quilted it. Then I purchased an Eleanor burns book, trip around the world and a true quilter was born. My sister decided to get in on the act and we opened a quilt shop. For ten yrs we had fun, taught classes (even took classes ourselves) We sold the shop and are retired but I continue to make quilts for sale, for gifts, for charity or whoever else needs a quilt. Marge

I think I first got interested in sewing when the young wife who lived in the apartment in my parents house made doll clothes for me as a child. My mother had actually majored in Home Economics the few years she attended college. By the time I came along she was to busy taking care of 4 children and helping my Dad with their part time business as florists to teach me to sew. As the only girl on our block growing up I played with a little girl up the street who spent the summers with her grandparents as her mother worked. Her grandmother gave us scraps of fabric and the two of us spent countless hours handmaking doll clothes. I learned to machine sew in junior high school Home Economics and the rest is history. I made my first quilt from scraps from the clothing I had made while I was in high school. My parents gave me a new sewing machine as a high school graduation present. I was at least 30 before I met another person who was actually a quilter. I have only taken a half dozen formal lessons in quilting. I have mostly learned from TV and guild speakers etc.

I started sewing in high school. Home Ec. class. Didn't do the greatest. As a young mom my dad found me an old white sewing machine that had been converted to an electric machine. I taught myself and made nearly all of my DD outfits. Loved it. Sewed on and off for many years and taught myself to quilt after DD had a battle over who got the one quilt my mom had made for oldest DD. After my two daughters were fighting over who got the threadbare quilt my mom had made for oldest daughter and having my dear grand daughter (5 years old) trying to claim it too I decided I wanted to make something that could inspire that kind of love. I moved on from clothing to quilting and have never looked back.

I am only a quilter, I don't sew except for basic skills. I taught myself to quilt through books and a TV show called "Simply Quilts."

Janie

Me Too! :-)

My mum is an amazing sewer, she does clothes and all sorts. But she never had the patience to teach me, and I never really had an interest.

Until I discovered quilting not quite two years ago. It's the patterns that attract me, especially the clever geometric ones. I made my first and was hooked. I've done a couple of classes, but the majority I've learned from searching online, and I've picked up a lot of hints to polish my work by watching re-runs of Simply Quilts.

I have one friend who quilts, she's much older than me and isn't as obsessed as I am.