My Quilting Journey

     Quilting has not always been my passion.  I had been a lifelong seamstress and crafter, but had never delved into quilting.  In the fall of 2012 I was digging around my mom's attic looking for something.  I came across a tub with 14 quilt tops that my great grandmothers had made in the 1930's.   I remembered that when my grandmother had moved in with my mom that my mom had begun to hand quilt some quilt tops.  Those were tops my grandmother brought with her that her mother and mother in law had made.  Maybe watching my mom spend a whole winter quilting one quilt is part of what led me to not be interested in quilting.  I had no desire to spend an entire winter to get one done.  These had been in tubs for 70 years.  Why let them spend 70 more years in tubs?  So I began looking at videos and tutorials for quilting.   That led to a local quilt store which led to a quilting class for my mom and me.  Then we began to machine quilt the tops together.  We were able to make one for each of my mom's 5 kids to get one that first winter.  Then we began working on quilt tops for each of the 9 grandkids.

    At that quilt shop I saw a flyer for the Quilts of Valor Foundation.  My son was an active duty combat infantry marine, so my heart was drawn to that organization.   I called the local coordinator for more information and discovered she ran a quilting/fiber arts retreat center less than 5 minutes from me.  I had never even heard of a quilting retreat!  That connection led to 2 years of almost exclusive piecing quilt tops for QOVF.

Made 2 Quilts of Valor like this for my son and his best Marine Corps buddy from high school.  Badges in middle represent their Marine Corps career.

     Now after more than 5 years, quilt guilds, classes, many hours on pinterest, I am a certifiable quiltaholic.