hear, hear!

I bought a sailboat late last year that needs new cushions. I figured "It's sewing, how hard can it be"(whole nother story there). Anyway, I ended up with an industrial 30 inch free motion sewing machine
[IMG]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ve/Consew1.jpg[/IMG]
and thought, since it's here.... After some construction experiments I decided to go deep piecing a top to quilt and this is what I have so far
[IMG]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...e/DSCF2056.jpg[/IMG]

fanrastic!

Learned to sew in Home Ec and ended up making all my clothes for years. Made clothes for kids and hubby, jeans, t-shirts, jackets, westren shirts, curtains, furniture covers and embroidered the name tags for hubby's National Guard buddies. Made small baby panel quilts, hand quilted them, for gifts and always wanted to do a real quilt. Had a friend bring me the scraps from a clothing maker....the polyester stuff. Made crocheted rugs and a quilt that I tied. After retirement thought finally time to quilt, ha ha. Made my grandson a full size Summer at the Farm quilt. Turned out cute and went on from there. Would love lessons, learning it all the hard way. Have no sense of color so my DIL will pick colors for me, she does a great job but I don't always wait for her :roll:
This board gives me so much help and inspiration, thank you, thank you! :D

I have always made cross stitch samplers for any of my friends that have had babies. Then, last summer, I had two friends that were due to give birth within a month of each other. I had finished the cross stitch sampler for the first friend, but didn't have time to do one for the second friend, and plus I wanted a change from doing cross stitch. Knitting or crocheting would take too long to learn to a satisfactory standard, but I could already sew and use a sewing machine, and knew the basics of patchwork. So with some research online and A LOT of help and encouragement from everyone on here, I made a simple, patchwork squares baby quilt. Now all my friends with babies have a quilt, and have been tryinga different pattern with each one and loving it!!!

Maribeth, your story is very inspirational. You go girl! I started quilting because I have to be doing "something". Doll houses, stamping, card making, stained glass, now quilting. Do you know you can have UFOs in just about every hobby there is! I can prove it!

Pam,

Thank you, that is so sweet. The other wonderful thing about quilting is that I feel artistic for the first time.

And yes, I am aware of the nature of UFOs. My husband is into puzzles and model sailboats and he has a closet full of these UFOs. My sister loves making stained glass and she has made some beautiful pieces. We are planning on exchanging projects. I will be making a red and black (her favorite color combo) quilt to give her and she is making a few pieces for me to hang in the windows.

Maribeth

DavidMichael that's great progress, keep up the great work.

Maribeth good for you, I'm glad you where able to find a part of you that you deserve to know.

I rebelled against quilting. My mother did many quilt as you go log cabins when I was a teen. My grandmother had been a seamstress long ago and had taught me how to hand sew during that same time, so I knew enough to fix things, and have a much cherished doll blanket that was my first quilt. Funny it is my first quilt. Though I have always thought of the one in my avatar as my first one. I'll try to post the other later.

DH offered many many times to buy me a sewing machine I refused. Many things some of them seemingly no big deal and others very hard for me, lead me to make a quilt from my daughter's baby clothes. Because of my hands I did it all on the machine. I love it and feel that no fabric is to much of a challenge and no pattern I wont try that doesn't eat me first. ;)

I always made my granddaughter's clothes, but when we started homeschooling, she didn't need school clothes. It just so happened there was a small quilting group close by, that you could donate scraps, thread, etc., to, you didn't have to quilt to join. They donated all their quilts to local women's shelter. I had no intention of quilting. My dh wants to know where the REAL Carmen is, because the REAL Carmen said she would never quilt. I told him that was before I learned about rotary cutters, rulers, quick piecing methods, etc.LOL That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I started out not quilting, but, going shopping many trips w/a quilter. Her only son left for college and she retired all in the same year and was looking for someone to help her fill a void and I was that friend. Even though I did not know how to sew, I'd shop w/her and help her pick out colors. She convinced me to do a Dear Jane w/her, paper pieced. Verbally told me how to do it and I raced home, dug in the bottom of a closet for my old brother (that burned up w/in this 6months!)sewing machine and sewed my first paper pieced and first quilt block....upside down!:))I figured it out and we had a great time buying and sharing our fat quarters for this project. I became very addicted to quilting at that point and now have 2 janomes in my space:)Skeat