I truly loved reading all the reasons about why you all started quilting!!

Have you ever heard the story about when and how I learned to quilt?  If you’ve heard it already (or if you don’t care), just skip down past this part.

In 1980 I lived in Westlake and worked in Lake Charles.  Dividing Westlake and Lake Charles is a big enough river with a very tall bridge.

That is one big, scary bridge!  But, I wasn’t scared back then so I crossed it every morning and every afternoon.  And sometimes I went back to Lake Charles at night so I crossed it twice again!

The bridge had nothing to do with my quilting except . . I had 1-1/2 hours for lunch and it took me about 25 minutes to get home so going home and going back to work really wasn’t an option.  I could bring my lunch, which I mostly did, but I also would go out shopping . . I had time to kill and money to spend!    Those were the days, huh?

One day I happened in this little quilt shop, The Calico Patch.  The ladies in there were so nice!  I went back every day for I don’t know how many weeks.  Everything was done by hand — marking the fabric, cutting the fabric, piecing, quilting!  They were offering a Beginner I class and then later a Beginner II class.  You were supposed to take I, then take II but I talked them into letting me take both — I was maybe on  Tuesday and II was maybe on Thursday so in my mind, there was no reason why I couldn’t take them both at the same time.

Here’s my first quilt — the one I made in those two classes.

How 80′s is that?  The full truth is . . I pieced it all by hand, borders and all.  Then I took a hand quilting class and I started hand quilting it.  It’s maybe 1981 by now.  We moved to TX in 1989 and I finally paid someone there to finish hand quilting it for me and sometime around 2000, I finally put the binding on it.  But, there have surely been a lot of quilts made between that one and now!

OK . . that’s how I got started but here’s my answer to why do you quilt? Because I have to be doing something all the time.  I cannot sit still ever!  I cannot garden all year because of winter and then it gets too hot.  I cannot cook all the time because we’d be bigger than we are now.  I cannot knit all the time because my wrists would hurt.  I cannot paint because I never clean up my messes and everything would ruin when I walk away and leave it.  (Actually, I cannot paint anyway because . . I’m not very artistic like that at all!).  And, probably the main reasons that keep me quilting are (1) there are so many designs still out there that I want to make and (2) giving quilts as a gift makes me feel like I’ve given something to someone that they will keep and cherish forever.  I know not everyone will love what I give them (I wonder what happened to the photo quilt I gave  my ex 15 years ago!), but for those who do love their quilts, that keeps me wanting to make and give more.

How’s that for an answer?  Seriously, I love every aspect of quilting — designing, choosing colors, sewing, quilting, I don’t even mind the binding but I’m so ready to get to another project, the binding too often doesn’t get finished too quickly.  I can’t imagine what life would be like without quilting and . . all of you, my quilting friends!