Quilting Passion since 1976, but it took until 1987 to Start - Part 1!

Besides writing, quilting is one of my life’s passions! I started quilting in 1987 and never looked back. Fall in Ohio, with crisp days and long black shadows, seemed the perfect time to learn what I’ve always wanted to do: quilt. With Hubby Bill working long hours in accounting, and me working a 9-5 job for the state of Ohio, and training for marathons (no kids yet), I decided to dip my toe into the world of art in quilting, and have loved this choice for myself for over 38 years.

I’ve always loved quilts and wanted to learn the craft, even as a young girl and teenager. I feel that quilting is a practical art—quilts can be displayed on walls or over sofas, and then snuggled under on cold days, or frankly, anytime. When draped over a bed, any-sized bed, they bring a bedroom to life (even a hospital room…just saying).

When I was 14 years old, in 1976, the year of the bicentennial, I asked my mom to teach me to create a Betsy Ross-style quilt commemorating that time for the showcase outside the school offices. Well, she didn’t teach me to quilt like I had dreamed of for this project; instead, she taught me to crochet. What? Yep, under a slight protest, I learned to crochet because I really wanted to make a quilt. Instead of sitting at the sewing machine and using super sharp scissors to cut fabric, I crocheted red and white rows of yarn, with a crocheted navy blue block in the upper left corner, then glued on a circle of 13 white stars to represent the colonies. I also wrote a biography paper on Betsy Ross, got an A+, and called it a day. My crocheted flag stayed in the office showcase for a year! Now, that is saying something! By “default,” I was hooked on crafts (pun intended).

Unfortunately, at the top of the year 2014, my sisters, along with our heartbroken mom, decided that her dementia had progressed too much for her to live alone, and we found a lovely assisted living place for her in Cleveland. It was that summer when I drove back and forth from Maryland to Ohio to clean out our familial small 900-square-foot red brick ranch home with a finished basement—my dad insisted on it when they built the home in 1962 on Cleveland’s near west side— that I learned the reason my mom taught me to crochet over quilting.

As I was sifting and pitching stuff throughout the basement — old Barbie dolls, small broken kitchen appliances, old clothes, prom dresses, books no one read, beat up tupperware with no lids in sight, bar items and so much more — it was also filled with many crafty things llke girl scouty stuff, yarn, ribbon, felts, and some fabrics (my mom always made lovely kitchen curtains). In all the stuff that filled the entire tree lawn for three consecutive weeks during garbage collection, I found a quilting book, published in 1976. Hmmm. This find stopped dead in my tracks. All my efforts of pitching things came to a halt as I sat down, gobsmacked at this find, and thumbed through this quilting book for several minutes. Big sighs…

Since my mom was terrible in math and very weak in any math skills to save her life, the smoking gun was when I opened the quilting book and saw fractions! It was those fractions that freaked my mom out because cutting out a block to piece back together included fractions like 4 3/4. But, despite those pesky fractions, my mom could count with the best of 'em. That was the chief skill needed for crocheting, so that is what she taught me in 1976. Counting in crocheting took on a life of its own.

Sew, in 1987, and still wanting to learn the skills of quilting, I still had very few sewing skills, except for making a poorly sewn skirt in 7th-grade home economics class with my mom’s sewing machine (the only time she “let” me use it). As a new bride and now adulting by working and taking care of our home, I borrowed the same sewing machine to take my first quilting class with Cindy Craft. I can never forget her name. The dozen or so students in her class met weekly as Cindy taught us how to make a Sampler Quilt at a quilt shop named Hoops-n-Hollers in North Olmsted, a mile away from where we lived. Frankly, it was the best decision I made for myself, as it has become my life’s passion, and 38 years later, a source of cottage-industry income.

I finished that first Sampler quilt using green and mauve fabrics on May 9, 1988. I enjoyed every minute piecing most of the blocks by sewing machine, with one or two blocks hand-sewn, then finishing the entire quilt by hand-quilting it. I was elated to finish that first quilt, and I’ve been just as thrilled to complete many more since that day, using a state-of-the-art sewing machine and ditching the hand quilting needles for my Handi-Quilter Avanté Long Arm Sewing Machine.

Quilting has been more than a creative outlet for me through almost four decades; it’s been my legacy in motion. I take this quite seriously. Each quilt I’ve made, from baby quilts to “legacy quilts,” holds a story, a season of time, and a slice of my heart stitched right into the seams along with some tears, too. I often imagine my family and friends wrapped in the warmth of those stitches long after I’m gone, feeling the love that went into every inch of thread and fabric. What began as a simple curiosity in 1976, even as a crocheted flag, has become a lifelong passion, one that connects generations (I have a grandchild now!), comforts hearts throughout the world, and reminds me daily that creating beauty with our hands leaves a lasting imprint of love.

And that, my friends, is how I keep Manufacturing Sunshine—one quilt, one stitch, one story at a time. :sun_with_face::thread:

bSoleille!

Terri

PS: Tomorrow's post will be my Betsy Ross Report in the original handwriting, and then cleaned up in a Word Doc! Technology at its finest, including a couple more photos!