Gosh I feel so deprived! AM I the ONLY one who taught herself to quilt? There were "home ec" classes where I had to make a project there but never had one stitch of interest at that time. It wasn't until I was pregnant with our first child & I wanted to make him a baby quilt. I hand embroideried about 12 blocks, all little animals, put the sashing on & then never finished it! It wasn't until about 16 yrs later I decided to make our youngest son a clown outfit. Then he outgrew a baby quilt that was made for him & I was going thru the terrible teens with our oldest child so that is when I took up quilting. I started off with a plain label machine. did not have a name or brand on it anywhere. Then I bought a small end Janome & used that for several years. After that my DH talked me into investing into my first Bernina. I have sewed on that for 10 yrs & just last April bought my 2nd Bernina. I am using the embroidery module a lot on my new machine where I never used it on my other Bernina. So I taught myself but I am trying to teach my grand daughter. I hope some day she writes on here that "her grandmother" taught her to quilt! That would make me so proud :o}

When I was 15 (1961) my father bought me a Montgomery Ward zig zag machine since I was making all my own clothes on my grandmother's old treadle. That machine lasted until 1980 when it literally blew up spewing sparks and smoke all over. I replaced it with a Viking which lasted 10 yrs. The computer board went right after the warranty. Being short on cash and long on wants I borrowed money from my m-in-l and bought a Pfaff 1475. It has been my work horse every since and I love it. I also have two featherweights, a 1940 Singer elec and two Wilcox and Gibbs chain stitch machines (one elec and one treadle) plus two sergers.

I played with grandma's treadle machine (which I have today but no longer use). My mother couldn't sew a stitch but my father sure could. He made clothes for my sister and I on that treadle machine. In high school when I finally got to take home ec for a semester I decided to buy my own machine since I was working at a fabric shop after school. That was 1962/63 I purchased a "Necchi" that I paid about $10 a month for. I loved that machine but it I passed on to another sewer that needed a machine when I bought my Elna about 12 years ago. My dream is to one day have a longarm!!

sewed by hand as a little kid--my cousin, tommy (an air force pilot, back then) brought me my first "real" machine from hong kong, when i was 7--it was a kid's machine that sewed a chain stitch, with a hand crank on the upper right for a "motor". it worked. my dollies had dresses! used mom's old kenmore (the one that used cams) until i got married. when i had our first daughter, hubby didn't buy roses or flowers (we couldn't afford those)--he bought me a "sewmor" sewing machine from a salesman he met at the gas station hubby worked at. he bought it on "time". it still works. (that "baby" is 41, now.) it was made by the "white" sewing machine mfgrs. after another twenty years or so, he bought me a singer for valentine's day--and i still use that one. i have a janome embroidery machine that is lovely--but that old singer is my buddy, and we understand each other. there was a singer serger i had that got gifted to a niece--she wore it out, and is on her fourth or fifth serger, now. (she sews for her daughter's ballet shows--the daughter is the teacher) i have a janome serger, still in the box after three years. gotta get it out and prove to myself that i'm really not afraid of it... but the old singer still reigns in my heart. and it likes to sew quilts, wedding dresses, quilts, grandkid's clothes and QUILTS!