Tell us how long you have been quilting? How you got into the art? How many quilts you have made?? Have you won a prize for your quilt and so on :wink: :wink: :D :D :D :D

I have been making quilts off and on since I was 9 yoa. My maternal great grandmother was a quilter. She taught me on her treadle. I have been hooked on fabric and the art since then. I have quit making quilts for periods at a time but always go back So unsure how many years to count. I guess I will take credit for 15 years off and on. I am unsure how many quilts I have made but do know many were really wonky in the beginning.
I have never entered a quilt in a show so I have no prizes :( :( I may get brave and enter one in our next years show.

I have loved quilts for as long as I can remember...when I could not crochet, knit, do any kind of handwork anymore I got to thinking about quilting and started up a stash, buying other "necessities" and about 3 years ago made my first block :D :D :D I have numerous tops made and a few other quilted items. Nothing entered anywhere yet...that is quite a ways off, if ever :roll: :lol:

I have sewed clothing for nearly 40 years, and quiltmaking for 23. I have won a couple small awards at local events and I have made too many quilts to count. Hundreds, if you include wall quilts and tablerunners.

Hi, keep quilting. The addiction never goes away. I started in the 70's at a night college class with my sister where we learned to draft patterns and make blocks of different sizes. My sister didn't like the class so didn't do anything with it until the late 90's. Need I mention we are both in our 70's now. I truly believe you should enter a quilt in a show as the judges will look at it and tell you the good things about it and the things that need improvent. I have won many ribbons thru the years. It went a long way in my quilting. I don't do as much any more haven't entered a quilt in about 5 years as it seems like the only time I make a quilt now is for a gift. I know a lot of women who make beautiful quilts but won't enter them in quilt shows as they don't like any negative notes. I make quilts that please me--not the judges.

I started my first quilt in 1979. It was an Irish chain and I used cardboard templates and scissors to cut it out. The solid block fabric is a sheet and one of the chain fabrics is a twill weave. I sewed it on my old machine that had problems doing quarter inch seams. I found a batting and backing in 1982 and got it basted together. It laid around like that until 1999 and I got a frame and quilted it by hand. By that time they had invented rotary cutters and cutting mats.

I made another 5 quilts on my old machine and then I bought a Pfaff and it made a huge difference!

Basically that's just the quilt part of the story. My first marrige ended and my second marrige began between the time I started and finished that first quilt. My oldest son was 5 when I started it and 25 when I finished it.

I still have that first quilt. It hangs over the back of hubby's chair. The floral fabric has faded really bad in the last 10 years. The burgandy twill is as vibrant as it was to start with though.

I used to get to cut out the squares for my grandma when I was a little thing. I have been sewing, crocheting, embroidering, ect since I was a child. I have tied a few quilts that I made along the way but got really into quilting February a year and a half ago when I quit smoking. It is what has kept me ON the wagon. :D

I started to sew when I was around 4 in 1965. I always wanted to quilt but never tried until around 1984 when I took a class in Santa Clara Ca and made this wall hanging. Then onto a "quilt in a day" log cabin and then my wholecloth queensized kit quilt that I won an Honorable mention for at the Marin Needlework & Quilt Show in 1993. I didn't do a whole lot after that for a while. But now I am into it full tilt.

Well, this should get a chuckle out of everyone...

My First Quilt...

In November of 1983, I found out I was pregnant. Excited as all young mothers to be are, I wanted to make something "Just for you" for my baby. As luck would have it, I went to a yard sale that next weekend. The lady had strips of POLYESTER material in the most beautiful pastel shades!!! I could not resist. She also had the softest rainbow shaded "couch throw" I'd ever felt... I bought it to.
At the time, I was a maid at the Rendezvous Inn in Panama City Beach, Florida. I knew absolutely NOTHING about quilting, nor did I know anyone that did. Everyday at work, I'd wonder how in the world I was going to turn all that beautiful material into a quilt...
One of the Canadian women that "lived" in the motel every winter did needlepoint... She was working on it one day when we went by to change her linens.
I thought, "I could do THAT to the top and that would hold it all together!!!"
From all of that, my daughter's quilt was born... It never crossed my mind to cut the fabric into squares. I took one of the strips of polyester (the kind that almost every woman had a "suit coat and pants" made out of at the time) and laid it across the crib so that it hung down far enough to hide the mattress, and cut it. From that strip, I cut all the rest of the material into matching strips and started sewing it together.
Naturally, or so it seemed to me, those seams were really bulky. How did I fix that? Well, I sewed each side of the seam down, that's how! So instead of one seam, the strips had three! (LOL)
When I got all that finished, it looked kind of plain to me... and I remembered the lady needlepointing. I didn't have any "real" embroidery patterns, so I decided to make some!
I found a gorgeous child's coloring book, bought some plain old carbon paper (after all these years, some of the tracing can still be seen) and traced a puppy, a jack-in-the-box, an owl, a kitten, and a squirrel on the top and started to sew.
I didn't know how to embroidery either, so I had to buy a needle BIG enough to put all that thread through the hole! I could NOT figure out HOW that lady made such tiny stitches with ALL THAT thread!
While "coloring with thread" the first picture I'd traced on, it crossed my mind that THAT sewing could be what held the top and back together!!! So, on the Second picture, the puppy I think, I pinned THE FOUR CORNERS (ONLY) together and started doing that way.
I can't tell you the number of needles I went through, nor the HUGE amounts of thread I wound up using....
When my daughter, Michelle Leigh Combs, was born, I added to the center of it her name, weight, time of birth, name of the hospital and her doctor's name.
She was born a little premature and had to stay in the hospital for a total of 9 days. Everyone there oohed and ahhhed over my quilt... no one ever told me that it was absolutely nothing like any quilt they'd ever seen before.
It did exactly what I wanted it to though. My daughter loved it more than the Charlie Brown character loved his. She's always kept it on her bed, and now that she has a daughter of her own, Lily loves to use Mommy's quilt to.
After all the years of HEAVY usage, it's stained and tattered. In my opinion, the older it gets the more beautiful it gets!!!
When I speak to her today, I think I'll tell her to bring it with her next time she comes to see me and I'll take a picture of it and her and share with you.
I suppose it exemplifies the term, "free-style" quilting.

great story Kathy :D :D Is the quilt still around???

Yes it is. My grand daughter uses it as much as her mother did as a child. I'm going to get her to bring it with her next week sometime so that i can take a picture of it and post for everyone.

Kathy, It would be great to see it.

well Donna how long have you been quilting??????

oh goody show us a pic of your quilt Kathy :D

I've been quilting for about 5 years. I was layed off from a job and started watching Simply Quilts because I've always loved quilts. After a couple of months of watching every morning I said I can do that!

So I went and bought fabric, drug out my old Kenmore and went to work. I was hooked from the beginning.

I've never entered a quilt in a show. And I've done about 15 lap & Queen size quilts. And numerous wallhangings, placemats, table runners etc.

This has been posted before but here's the first one.

Kathy, that is a great story. I love what we can do when no one tells us that we "can't"!

I've been sewing on and off for about 20 years. Mostly it was clothes for my daughter (she's 19 now). Then we moved to a house with a ton of windows, so I made the curtains and drapes for them. My biggest accomplishment is the drapes that are 22 feet long. To this day I still don't know how I did that.

I didn't really get interested in quilting until June of this year. I don't know why it took me so long! I guess because I had a "surprise" baby and I stay at home with him (he's almost 2 now) and I needed another hobby, lol.

I started off with a rail fence quilt. Then I made one in the Around the World pattern for my daughter. Then a simple one for a friend who married her high school sweetheart after 30 years (so romantic!). And a throw for my sister-in-law who always helps us out. I just finished one that's a sort of modified rail fence for a girl at our church who has leukemia. Plus a Christmas wall hanging.

Now I'm on the prowl for a new one!

My Grandmother quilted all her life. I can remember sitting and working the peddle on her machine. She was still lap quilting up into her 90's. My cousin would mark and sandwich the squares, and she would sit and quilt them. When she passed away at the age of 96, all her quilts went to her sons and daughters, and being only a grandaughter, I did not receive one. I bought out all the kids, and now own the old home place. While cleaning out my grandmother's linen closet, I found 6 very old bow tie squares that had been hand sewn from feed sacks. I brought them home with me, and a quilter was born. That was 13 years ago, an di have no idea how many quilts I have made. I do all hand quilting, so it takes me awhile to finish one.
Here is a picture of the first quilt I made, for My DH, He is sitting here on the couch now covered up with it.

I made my first quilt in 1967, when expecting my first child. I have mostly done clothes. Didn't have a clue about quilting. I used a coloring book for pictures and appliqued. Didn't have a clue about that either. I made two quilts, even used them for my son. I've had to replace the satin binding, but the quilts are still good. Prayfully my daughter will get to use them if God blesses her with a baby. In the 80's my wonderful MIL got cancer. She wanted to teach me to quilt, but was never able to. She did give me alot of blocks. My favorites were one inch squares that she had pieced while pregnant with my husband in 1937. I used them and some of her other precious blocks and created a quilt which I quilted by hand, even use the backing, muslin, to wrap around for the binding. Many garments later, when I quilt work about nine years ago I started quilting, because I didn't need clothes as much. Now I teach quilting in my home, even have a Handiquilter. How many quilts have I made? I've never counted them. I do journal most of them and give most of them away. I still make most of my clothes. The picture you see with my name is my son's baby girl. Soon I'll making her clothes. I've already made her 8 quilts.

I've been quilting since '04- or was it '05? Anway, I consider myself to be a newbie since there are so many things I still want to learn.

I bought a "kit" from Wal-Mart- it had a 6 1/2" x 13" ruler and 4 patterns in it. I had a rotary cutter and mat from years of crafting so I dug that out. Fabric- $1.00 a yard from Wal-Mart. After all, I'm learning and I don't know if I will like this. I made a single Irish chain for my son's twin bed. Backing is his twin sheet from sheet set he no longer needed. Binding- I brought it around from the back. I can look at it now and see tons of mistakes- I had no walking foot and I didn't mark my diagonal lines- I went by sight. But, you know what, it's my favorite. It's soft and cuddly and I've had to repair it more than once.

Since then, I've made many quilts. My techniques have improved, my fabric stash has grown and I am always asked to make them for gifts so I guess I've gotten better. Much of my knowledge had been gleaned from all the incredibly talented quilters here on this list. I love this board and all it has to offer.

So now I look back at that first quilt and think- what was I thinking- how could I not like quilting? It grabbed me and hasn't let go.

I started in 2000. I made my 1st one for some dear friends as a wedding gift.

I've never entered one in a show but have made over 30 so far.

This was my 1st one and quilted by hand, now I machine quilt.

I have been quilting since around 2000. I'm a late bloomer! Mom taught me when she was 82. She turned 93 yesterday. I am still learning from her. I started embroidering 12 inch muslin blocks with the Aunt Martha's transfers. I found the sashing to match, the border to match, the backing to match and whatever was left over was the binding. I made a quilt for each one of my grandchildren's hope chest, so they would have a quilt for their first born. The oldest is 17, the middle is 8 and Josh is 7. I made the same type quilt for my niece, my husband's aunt, my husband, and me. Then I figured I'd try for the pieced quilt. Started off with a bang with a Memory quilt with each block having 21 squares and each square being mostly different as there was a lot of fussy cutting and picking and choosing of just the right fabric. Finished that one - it took a year - and made a baby quilt, a Sampler for my mom for Mother's Day, 2009, and then I was asked to make a quilt for the St. Paul Susan G. Komen Walk for Breast Cancer. I did and it turned out beautiful, I think. I did a happy quilt. It is on display now at our local drug store, St. Paul Corner Drug on the corner of St. Clair and Snelling (for any of you that live in the Mac Grove area) and it is being raffled off on, I believe, the 15th or 5th of November. They have raised an awful lot of money for this raffle and I am so very proud and humbled. I thank God I have never had breast cancer. I thank God that my husband has survived Leukemia and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I wrote a book to go with it telling about the people in the neighborhood that I can remember.

Actually, I do that with all my quilts. I write a story. Provenance for one and just to let people know what it meant to me to make the quilt, how I became bonded with the quilt (you all know that feeling) and felt like a child had left the nest.

I am now in the process of making a quilt for our son's best friend's first baby and then I am going to try a QOV (Quilt of Valor). I would like to make a few of those. Then I have a UFO - Floating Stars which I am making for our bed, the memory quilt is my legacy, I guess. My life. Am 71 now and have a lot of quilting to do.

I consider myself a newbie...because I'm just starting again after a long dry spell caused by a divorce and new marriage.

In the early 90's, I was living in Montana, and was helping to start a first responder unit in the area that we lived in. In order for us to get equipment, we had to raise money, so we went around to locals and asked for donations for an auction. I made two wallhangings for that auction that brought $125 and $175...I was amazed that anyone would pay that for my work! Then I made one for my mother that I got back when she passed away...it's dated 1993. I also made Mom a friendship quilt that I cut 12 1/2 inch white blocks for and sent to her friends and family to decorate however they wished...I got 49 blocks back, most with wonderful embroideries and/or painting on them and stitched them into a quilt for her. That would have been in 1985.

I'm just happy to be back at it! There's nothing quite like a quilt... Now I just have to accumulate a stash...I'm working on that! :) Oh...and I couldn't be happier to have found this board! Such beautiful inspirations here...and wonderful people!

I started back in 1979 the only thing i knew was how to make tops and then tieing them i once made 34 quilts for my DS one year to give as Christmas gifts that year i tell you that really help me out since my son was only 6yrs.old and hubby was out of work.Then i thought if i can make those kind of quilts i should be able to learn how to hand quilt so after many quilts of sandwiching and tieing those quilts i gave it a shot may have not been the prettiest quilt but boy was i so proud of it.So since then i have learn a lot more but no i have never enter a quilt into any fairs or anything but i sure do enjoy going out to the fabric stores and finding pretty colors to start another quilt.My Mom that is now no longer with us she sure try to teach me but guess i thought i didn't have the time to sit still long enough to learn Boy was i wrong.But now i love to sit down and start a quilt top i'm 52 now and wish i had started a whole lot younger.

I made my first quilt for my doll (still have both quilt and doll) more than 50 years ago. Started up again in the late 60's. I have absolutely no idea how many I've made. My first competition quilt was this year's Hoffman Challenge. I didn't win anything, but it was one of the 200 finalists selected to travel for the next year. :oops:

I am a relatively new quilter, making my first one - a Hawaiian applique wall hanging - in late 2006. Although I have sewn for most of my life, I took my first machine quilting class in 2007 and was hooked! I've made about a dozen quilts since and love every minute of it.

i have been sewing since 7th grade,i have always wanted to learn to sew but my mother would never let me touch her sewing machine,so when i married in 1968 my husband brought me a used portabe sewing machine and started sewing some home decor and for my some clothes for my kids ,quilting i started late in 1993 and just fell in love with quilting i took a class for my frist quilt but have been on my own since then ,you can say i learned the rest myself just by books and quilt tv shows

My mom won a holiday shopping spree at a local strip mall. She won $1000 worth of gift certificates from 28 stores! Among the many she gave me was the free class at the quilt store. That was December 2003, took the class in February 04. I owned a sewing machine, but only had used it very infrequently. Not like all you who sewed for years before quilting came.

I have entered a few quilted wall hangings in the local county fairs and got a few ribbons! That's fun.

I tell people that free class has cost me lots of money! :lol:

When I was pregnant with my first DD 22 years ago, I was into making pillows with candlewicked tops. I bought cheap muslin, cut it into squares and then traced patterns onto them. DH and I would sit at night and candlewick the designs onto the muslin. My Mom sewed the pieces together with pink fabric and tied it for me.

My second quilt was a piece of fabric from Walmart that was meant to be cut into sqares for pillows. It was dark blue with carousel horses on it. My Mom and I started hand-quilting around the horses and she finished it up. It now belongs to my youngest DD who is 14.

Both of these quilts are very special as my precious Mom is no longer with us.

Fast forward to today. I sewed ever since jr. high, making clothes and things for my home. I started making rag quilts and finally decided to make "real quilts" for my two grandbabies.

I am a Newbie quilter and I am only on my #3 full size quilt (King size). I have done small things like place mats for my puppies and for the kitchen table, wall hangings, pot holders etc..

(#2 quilt is in my avatar and its a queen size and its FMQed)

I started quilting because I restore vintage sewing machines mostly treadle types, and I wanted to use them for something other than just to look at. So I taught myself how to sew and started piecing a quilt together for my wife. Lets just say I have been hooked ever since. I might one day put one in a show but I need to get a few more under my belt. And I want to try and do one completely by hand one day but I dont think it will be in the near future.

But after doing it for 8 months or so I can see this something that I will enjoy for the rest of my life!

Billy

I started sewing in 1972, my senior year in high school, when I took Home Economics. I fell in love with it and started making most of my clothes. When I was I was pregnant I made my clothes. I made my first quilt, a queen sampler, in 1981, after a friend showed me the one she made. I then made both my children a baby quilt and matching bumper pads, sheets, etc. Then two twin quilts for my daughter's room. While my children were growing up, I mainly concentrated on sewing clothing and curtains etc. I got back into quilting a few years ago and made a queen log cabin for our bedroom and then a queen for my daughter (that is my avatar). I currently have 3 quilts in the works (what was I thinking?). How many others start projects before they finish one?

If you have more than one WIP you never get bored. BUT then I'm never bored.

I've been making quilts for about 3 yrs now. I have made about 4, have one in the works and 4 others to make. Currently, nothing is happening since I sprained my finger,hand.
I love handiwork of any kind, crochet, needlepoint etc

Oh so true. Problem is, two of them I started last September and haven't touched them since. I work full time though and don't get nearly as much time to sew as I'd like. My sewing area is in our basement, and my husband calls it "the dungeon". "Are you going to the dungeon tonight?" I'm almost through reorganizing it and will hopefully post some pics soon.

Well, Scissor Queen, we were kind of "molded alike." My first quilt was the Double Irish Chain--traced every piece with a cardboard template and cut each piece out individually (about 25 years ago). My Mother-in-law said you could not double the material since it might not be the exact size. I also hand-pieced the whole quilt (Queen size). I had some church ladies handquilt it since it was for my niece's wedding. At her Bridal Shower, I wrapped samples of the fabric in a box and said on my note: "Your quilt to be."

My maternal Grandmother quilted and as a very young child, she would let me trace the cardboard templates to her fabric and even cut some out as I got older. So, the love of quilts was instilled at a young age. I have finished six quilts. The rest are on-going projects that just need borders or need blocks joined. My husband (a great quilt supporter), says I get on too many rabbit trails, like place mats and table runners--I also did a wall hanging in my very first quilt class quite a few years ago. Then there is the "water color" wall hanging (Amish) that I dearly love. I got the kit at the Hampton Quilt Show.

We are heading to Lancaster the first week in November and he is exercising his arm strength so he can hold the bolts of fabric :lol: I am so blessed to have him as an encouragement. Finished six place mats this past Saturday for an Open House and he walked in my sewing room and saw them laying there and said, "they are beautiful." That made it worth all the rush to finish them.

Thank you all for sharing all of your inside stories on quilting. All I need to do is talk about quilting and I want to go and start quilting more.

I just started a couple of months ago. My first quilt top is a Double Irish Chain, which I'm too scared to start quilting on. My second project (currently in progress) is a tree skirt.

I was always semi-interested in quilting -- my grandmother was a quilter, but she died several years ago. I wish I could have learned from her. Over the years I would start thinking about doing a quilt, but was too intimidated. When I learned one of my friends had made a few quilts, I asked her to teach me, and so here I am :)

Since I was forced due to illness to quit work in Oct 06, I decided to use the time to sew something for my kids. I have sewn apparel since I was 10 or so. I figured that I could decipher quilting instructions...easier to sew straight lines! Since then, I have finished 8 bed sized quilts, 4 lap quilts, 5 baby quilts, and a bunch of pillowcases to match.,..not to mention the 10 totes to carry the quilts... I also have tops made for 5 babys, 7 beds, and 5 laps. It is so hard to get the energy to sit down and finish them!! I hate sandwiching and basting. THe rest is okay.
And I am, and always was, a FABRICHOLIC !!!!

Nice to "meet" everyone!!!

My mother was the quilter including hand quilting everythng she did. I started about 1995. I have made a lot of baby quilts for gifts. I have three tops completed now to be quilted and 4 in progress. As you can tell I get rather scatted at times. They will all get done I know that but right now I have three to make for Christmas gifts. I better get moving!

I have been quilting since January 2002. I took the plunge and took a hand quilting class. Fell deeply into a passion I never thought possible. The only time I entered any of my quilts was last year I entered a quilt in the county fair and took grand prize. It was an unbelievable sensation. Not my quilt. As I never thought I was that good. I live to quilt and buy fabric for my stash. What a fun and enjoyable adventure I have been on and will continue for many years to come. I sill hand piece and don't really like using the machine. So I am much slower, but it is worth the wait.

For years, I used to visit my local quilt shop and fall in love with all the quilts. I was busy being a single mom raising 2 kids. No time for classes. Then I was busy raising my grandson. I kept dragging him into the quilt shop to see all the quilts. In 2003 I was laid off. I finally got to take a beginning class during the day. I pieced the quilt for the class but never finished it. The 1st quilt I actually finished was for my grandson. I designed it myself since I couldn't find many patterns for little boy quilts. I haven't stopped quilting since I took that 1st class. I recently starting hand quilting. I really like the look of hand quilting.

My sister does nothing but make quilts by hand. She has a cookie tin that she puts the stuff she needs and takes the tin wherever she goes. She can sit and sew anyplace she wants to (unlike us machine people). She has made all her quilts that way. She does absolutely beautiful work. All of them (except the Chinese Coin) have been her own design with embellishments (lace, ribbon, stuff) and are fantastic. She says it is more relaxing for her. She doesn't have to sit in front of a machine. She can sit on the dock, watch the fish jump, listen to the birds and watch the loons and sew to her heart's content. Not a bad way either. I embroider. That's my hand work. I have made quilts by embroidering 12" squares. And just when I thought I had a darn good idea on how to learn to quilt, I see they had patterns for redwork quilts. And that was from a long time ago. Good things last. Edie