No one in my family quilted, but had a hobby of some type of sewing. I wanted to be different and decided to try quilting, although I had rarely sewn anything on the machine, much less by hand.

In 1982, I began my search for quilting classes in my area and it took me about a month, but I accidently came upon a small quilt shop very close to where I lived.

I took the first class and fell in love with the hand sewing and hand quilting. My 2nd class was making a queen size Double Wedding Ring quilt which I hand pieced and hand quilted in 8 months.

Not feeling secure about choosing my colors I asked my teacher to help me. At the time, I didn't know that she was color blind to grays and greens and I wonder if she knew it. But I accepted her choice of colors assuming she knew what she was doing. My brown and country blue quilt had one patch in each ring of bright tourquoise. Needless to say, I had to change my bedroom's color scheme. But that quilt gives me a good chuckle when I see it.

Since that time, I have made many quilts but one more has become very special to me. It accidently came about when my guild had a quilt challenge using one particular fabric. I wanted my quilt to be an original so I drew up a scene that I wanted to applique and piece together.

Just before cutting and piecing it, I realized that every item I was appliquing into the picture, reminded me of someone in my family in a symbolic way. The quilt itself is one of the first times I had tried appliquing so it is not the very best but the story behind the quilt of my family and past has made it very valuable to me and members of my family. It has traveled many places in the US for display with a member of my quilt guild who shares my story with ladies' groups where she is invited to speak.

Quilting has not only inspired me to be creative and achieve dreams but allows me to use what God has given me to help others.

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