Sew Thinky Thursdays

Emily at Mommy's Naptime blog is starting a Sew Thinky Thursdays linky and I thought it sounded fun, so I'm joining in!  Every Thursday, she'll post a quilting related question to answer.  (I know it's Friday, but I just found out about this today!) So, here we go with the first question...

When did you start sewing? Tell us a bit about your sewing history. When did you realize you were really hooked?

When I was little my grandmother and I were very crafty - we did everything from ceramics to candle making to decoupage.  But NO sewing!  She crocheted and she tried to teach me, but I have never gotten beyond double crochet (I chalk that up to her being right-handed and me being left-handed, but that's probably just a cop out.)

Anyway, fast forward to junior high school and my three months of sewing in Home Ec.  My project was a dress.  I still remember the fabric (and I may still have this thing stashed in the attic somewhere).  It was a dark dusty pink linen-look something or other fabric.  As I recall it never really got finished.  That was it for the sewing for a while.  I wasn't doing anyting crafty at that point either. 

So, let's skip a few more years until I was in my early twenties.  I think I was married but it was definitely B-K (before kids), so I'm thinking around 23 or 24 years old, my Mom (the most uncrafty person I know, but she has lots of other good qualities - loving everything I do being a major one o:) )  bought, opened and promptly packed up and sent me a cross stitch kit.  I was intrigued but had no clue how this cross stitch thing worked.  My job at the time had lots of downtime, so the other assistant in the office and I would sit during our long lunches and cross stitch (I convinced her she should do it too - LOL!)  I liked cross stitch and, as is my nature, I needed to have all 356 (at the time) skeins of DMC floss (I remember with delight when that mail-ordered (way before on-line buying) bag of floss showed up on my doorstep!), lots of charts and magazines and weekly trips to the cross stitch store.  We had a great cross stitch store in the area at that time - Peace of Thread.  Sadly, I think it's closed down now.  So, I cross stitched for a number of years, didn't finish much but I spent a lot of time doing it.

Obviously, this one needs a little cleaning!

Then came baby Ariel and I decided I wanted to sew clothes.  So, I found a local seamstress who taught individual classes in her home and I recall hubby and baby driving me to my lessons every week.  I also remember the lady always had coffee breath.  I did about as well as I did in Jr. HS.  I think I made a sundress for Ariel, which, being a toddler, she wore, even though it was really pretty bad (and I'm sure that's still up in the attic too).  Well, the fabric was cute as I recall.  So, that endeavor really didn't go anywhere.

Then in 1994 (I remember because i still have the first quilt magazine I ever bought), a friend at work brought in a quilt she had made.  I was blown away (which was surprising because I remember looking at a quilt in a store window a few years before that and thinking "boy, I don't like quilts, they are boring" -which I find absolutely hysterical now!).  I came home and announced I wanted to quilt and luckily, it was near Christmas time, so hubby bought me a $100 Singer from the local Woolworth's.  I loved that machine.  So, I set out to make a project from that first quilt magazine - a Christmas stocking.  It's still in pieces in the box.  But, I kept at it and worked at my dining room table and loved every minute of it.  I think I was hooked from the very beginning of my quilting journey - I don't know why that "took" when I'd just dabbled in other crafts and then they all fizzled out.

Not long after I started, I wandered into my LQS at the time - Granny's Sewing Den - and met a lovely woman name Jo, who insisted I should join the small bee that met there on Thursday nights and that I really should come with them to the guild meetings once a month.  Those ladies took me under their wing - and I was a good 10 years younger than they were and so far behind them in skill, but they never once made me feel like I wasn't good enough - and they taught me a lot of what I know.  They are all fabulous quilters and every one of them is an amazing hand quilter.  So, Jo, Bee, Julie, Nancy and Barb - you ladies rock!

I took my first quilting class at Granny's - the standard Sampler Quilt.  It's still not finished - well, not quilted anyway - it's another hand quilting project (notice a theme here???)  

Taken at a PMQG guild meeting a few months ago when I did a retrospective on my quilts - thanks for the photo, Becky!

Since then, I've taken many more classes, moved up from that Singer to a Bernina and a Juki TL98E and an HQ16 mid-arm machine.  I've been doing this for almost 20 years now and I'm even more excited for the next 20! 

Well, I don't think I was supposed to write a book, but there you have it - my sewing story!  Check out Emily's linky post to read more stories!