Why I started quilting

My aunt Linda made me a quilt when I was 4. Patched and worn, it still keeps one of my children warm at night. I colored some pictures with fabric paint at age 5, and my mother cut up some old clothes and we made our first quilt together. It is even more worn than the other since we used old fabric as a start. I have patched it and patched it...but it is still well-loved and on the bed of my other child. I loved to sew as a child. My mom's machine broke when I was 11 or 12, and we did not have the money to buy another. I hand-sewed dolls and doll clothes until I was 12 or 13. My dad was a pastor, and one of the older ladies of our congregation took me under her wing when I was 13 and decided to teach me to quilt. She taught me hand-applique with polyester as it did not ravel on the edges. I worked on it for a while, but alas! boys began to hold more of my attention than quilting. The day before we moved to a new church when I was 15, she helped me sew my small pile of appliqued blocks to other plain blocks to make a quilt top. Using a sheet purchased at Dollar General with my hard-earned summer job money (picking vegetables in 100 degree heat), she taught me how to pin-baste the front to the back with safety pins. She gave me a lap hoop and said, "You can finish this in a month if you work on it every night." LOL!! I was 15 and had a boyfriend. I did not sit around sewing every night. This is quilt you see below that took me 15 years to hand quilt! I did not make another full quilt for 15 years...but now I take on smaller projects or hand-tie a huge quilt...My dream is to own a long armed quilting machine, but that is in the future.