I fell in love with the "quilting" on quilts. Always looked at the quilting. A couple of years ago a friend started to teach me every thing she knows. Every Monday at a friends house she walked us through piecing a top. It is now my drug of choice. Quilting can calm me soo much. Go to a quilt camp in Rockaway Or. in the fall and a quilt retreat on the Mckenzie River Or in Jan. My dd has started too. She is a busy mom of two and she has made more quilts than me. When I am not sewing tops, I sit with dh and hand quilt some of my tops. Soooooooooooo much fun.

I laughed when I read this. When I was working fulltime and had a 2 hours r/t commute everyday I got so much more quilting done than now when I have all the time in the world

I took 6 years of sewing in home ec. in junior high and high school but it was garment sewing. I always made most of my clothes as I am extremely short (4'10"). Fast forward 30 plus years. I was looking for a hobby and prayed about it and the Lord lead me to quilting. I was surfing the net and up popped a quilting site with a lovely quilt pattern and I was hooked. That was about 12 years or so ago and I've been quilting ever since.

In 1992, I was working part time in Joanns and saw a book on how to make a Lone Star quilt. I loved the pattern, so I bought the book and required fabrics. I had been sewing garments all my life, so I figured the quilt couldn't be all that difficult for me to make. My head was a lot clearer back then so I was able to make the top by following the instructions. Then it got tricky. I had no frame of reference for the actual method of quilting. My sister's neighbor was a long time quilter, so she coached me along until I got the hang of it. I loved quilting (hand) and planned to make more, but got involved creating stained glass art for several years. Then I found out about the classes at my LQS, went to the first one about a year ago, met some wonderful and fun women, and fell in love with fabrics and quilting all over again.

i have been sewing since i was age 7. it is in my genes on both sides of my family, especially my mom's. lot's of garment making most of my life and i had developed a boutique kid's clothing line when i was married and raising my children. my daughter was tall and slender and nothing fit her right from the stores so i designed clothes for her and my nieces & nephews which is how i started my clothing line. plus i liked bright colors and coordinated prints for children (think osh kosh b'gosh prints). this gave me lot's of opportunities for clothing design which i loved (and was educated for).

so fast forward to 7 yrs ago, i had already downsized my life and was ready to give away the remaining fabric i had and decided to make my family quilts from my treasured fabrics. thus i started a new sewing venture which reignited my passion for fabrics which has contributed to my love of all things postage stamp sized which in turn started my whole new love of vintage sewing machines (looking for the perfect piecer) which has awakened a hoarding gene (it must be genetic) for all things sewing/quilting related (i.e. threads, books, patterns, fabric cutters) which has significantly reduced the amount of space in my home for living with fabric storage which has seriously made me think about some sort of 12-step program which in turn will make me a great candidate for some sort of trial quilter hoarding deprogramming therapy.

yep thus has been the humble beginnings of my life as a quilter.:D

Unlike many others, I was NOT drawn to my grandmother's quilting. I accidentally found myself in the quilting section of the now defunct GEnie BBS (late '70's I think it was). I was drawn to the warm friendly atmosphere and figured I had to try my hand at this just so I could say I "belonged" to this great group of people. Then I went to the quilt show in Lancaster, found modern quilting and was hooked totally.

I played around with quilting, mostly doing squares for swaps. As bad as my work was, I'm surprised they let me "play" with them. Many years ago I did a lot of garment sewing and thought that should easily translate to quilting. Ignorance is bliss as they say... When GE sold the BBS, the group broke up and I didn't touch anything quilty again until a few years ago. Now I am diligently working toward improving my skills and have a lot of respect for quilts of all styles.

My much-loved DD was a horrible baby... fussy, difficult, just a nightmare (tho by age 4 she was the daughter of my dreams -- except she doesn't quilt... LOL!). My DH worked long hours (back during the oil boom of the 80's) & I also had a 4-year-old DS. So I really needed some "me time". My BFF saw an ad in the paper about a quilting class at the junior college a couple of small towns over so we decided to take the class. Class met once a week & we'd get sitters & make a whole day of it... lunch, class, fabric shopping afterwards. Not only did it save my sanity by just getting me out of the house & with other female grown-ups, it made me fall in love with sewing. We made a sampler & tho I have no idea what ever happened to that top, I still have the book from class.

All my female relatives made quilts & I'd grown up with them on all our beds. My Mother sewed. I took Home Ec for 4 years & hated every second of it. I was horrible & my sewing preojects were all disasters (I always picked projects that were way over my skill level), so I fugured sewing wasn't in my future. But... things have sure changed! And I'm forever grateful!

I don't know other than when I found out I was pregnant with our first child I wanted to learn how to make a quilt. We were stationed in San Angelo, TX and my dh was in the Air Force and I was at home alone all day. So to help keep me busy in a new town and state, I ordered a kit for making a pink, white and blue baby quilt. That was about 32 yrs. ago and the kit cost less than $20.00. I did very well with it and then subscribed to "Quilters Newsletter" magazine the same year it came out and I was hooked. My mother did sew clothing but never any quilts. So I am the first in the family as far as I know but hopefully not the last!!

My BFF and another friend made a quilt for the DH a few years ago. Back then I said I would never ever quilt, I cant even get a sewing machine to work. At the time I was a knitter and was really focused on that. Fast forward a year later. The Coast Guard transferred us to a new state 2300 miles away, my BFF transferred as well to another state over 1000 miles away from out new station. I quickly learned that knitting was not as big of a thing as it was in my old town. The quality of fibers was not the same as what I was used to and I hated ordering yarn on line~Im a touchy feely kinda knitter. So I decided to look in to quilting. I found a great LQS and the owner and all her customers were AMAZING. That was last Oct and I have been hooked ever since.

The women in my family knitted and crocheted. I wanted something more and something no one else in the family did. Saw a quilt on the cover of a ladies magazine and tucked it away if and when I could find out how to quilt. Not long after that, there was adult enrichment classes held at the local school. I went to the quilting class and my Mom came along. I was bitten hard immediately by the quilt bug, but not my mom. She made a couple of pillow tops but couldn't really get into it. My first quilt was the trip around the world in red, white and blue like the magazine I saved, minus the use of velvet.