Edie

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.

Charlee

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!

mountain-moma

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.

ghostrider

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:

hulahoop1

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.

nellie

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

carrieg

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:

SherriB

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.

Lostn51

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

hokieappmom

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?