My grandma! She had 86 grandkids, and made each one of us a quilt before she passed away.

My aunts on my mom's side all quilt, as do all 4 of my sisters. As soon as I learned to tie a knot, I was helping tie quilts, with the big frame taking up our whole living room. The first one I made by myself was when I was 20, when my nephew was born.

When I was about 46 years old, a women I worked with showed me a pillow or drew me a picture of a quilted pillow top. I was so interested, I ask her a bunch of questions about it. I had sewed for many yrs but did not quilt. When we moved here I took a machine quilting class at the college. I made about 13 quilts and got out of that again and just got back to making everything else. I am a vendor and sell my products at shows. They are getting so expensive and the sales have gone down and I had to do alot of traveling so just in the last few months I've cut back on shows and started quilting again. I found this board and love it. Quilting has changed alot since yrs ago when I quilted and ther are many new techniques and products out there. It is amazing. I am glad I found this quilting board and all the friends. I also join the local guild here which I belonged to many yrs ago when it first started. Now they have at least 85 members. this is a small town. I am the only one in my family that sews. I taught my mother to sew. That is a switch. I have 4 brothers and 3 daughter. My granddaughter just stared to sew in the last yr and has one of my old machines. She likes it.

wow - this makes me think.. i have always liked crafts - dont know why. Mom's sewing machine was in my bedroom so i learned to use it. My first quilt was a biscuit quilt i decided to make for my mother in 7th or 8th grade. i gave it to her, but i honestly dont think she was impressed. In her defense it is HEAVY! i eventually just sort of repossesed it and i still have it (35 yrs later OMG!). i handsewed the biscuits together to form the quilt and for the most part it hasnt come apart to much. I figure, not bad for the first effort of a kid :)

My grandmother and her Sun Bonnet Sue Quilts

Some friends and I went to the Redlands CA Victorian Home and Quilt show, maybe 7 years ago. We went to see the houses but one friend and I were amazed at the 'art quilts', watercolor quilts and portrait quilts (which were the rage at the time) decorating the houses, draped over front porch railings and hanging everywhere. We were only familiar with old gramma quilts .. no offense meant, I'm a gramma too. But at that time we didn't care for traditional gramma quilts that go on beds , we were taken with the 'art' quilts.

So we both joined our local quilt guild, took a beginner's quilt class and were permanently hooked.

warm quilt hugs, sue in CA

My cousin

I'm not sure. As long as I can remember I have considered quilts an art form. My grandmother had two or three quilts that were made by her aunts that I always loved. One is a wedding ring design and I don't know the name of the other patterns. They are all blues, pinks, greens and yellows on a white background. I grew up sewing and at some point I saw a quilt that I loved, could not afford and defiantly thought, "I can do that!", so I did.

my grandmother on her treadle. i have her quilts from back in the early 1900's. they are a work of art. my mom sewed clothes and doll clothes. me i started at GM's treadle. wish i still had it.

Going to bernina dealer and getting embroidery machine. Seeing the quilts their they had embroidery on.That enspired me to start quilting.

My Grandmother was my inspiration...She always had a quilt project to work on...Everything was done by hand...I made my first quilt when I was 9 years old...I still have that quilt..It is made of squares from all the clothes making that she did..I can still pick out the ones made from my skirts and dresses..Her favorite pattern was small diamond shapes...I often wonder what she would think of all of the modern day tools and notions...
When she quilted , she would hang the frame from the ceiling in the living room ,which was very small..We barely had room to get around ...But she only did quilting in the winter time when there was no garden to tend to...She did the piecing all year long..Her hands were always busy..She always said that "idle hands were the devils workshop..." I guess thats why I always like to have handwork around when I am watching tv....