A little history

My quilting activity has been somewhat spotty.  After I made Mom's Star and Crescent quilt, I made a few others--baby quilts, a twin size Grandmother's Flower Garden for my DSIL, etc.--but then, having two little ones sucked up most of my time for a few years.  When they were in grade school, I made a few more for gifts and for the kids.  I was still the Lone Ranger as far as quilters in my life.  When the kids were in grade school, I had gotten through 80 credit hours at Western Michigan University, but took all the fun classes (30 hours of Biology, 20 of Chemistry, 8 of Physics) and was down to mostly General Studies stuff, which I found really boring at the time, and I also found out that the unemployment rate for biology majors was greater than that of the normal population, and it seemed futile to persist, so I dropped out.  Then when the kids were older, I found out they would take old people in nursing school!  I was excited, since that had been what I wanted to do after H.S., but got married instead.  So, at age 37 I started the program, and at 39, I got my RN at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, MI, and then finished up a BSN at Nazareth College in Kalamazoo--the closest school at that time that offered a BSN.  All at once, it was 1985, and I could have a life!  I went to the quilt shop in Battle Creek and took a beginning quilting class, my first ever.  Through that, I learned about and joined the Cal-Co Quilt Guild in Battle Creek, and the Log Cabin Quilters in Kalamazoo, both groups just chock full of fabulous quilters.  I learned so much from those marvelous women.  What a grand discovery that was.

 I found I enjoyed entering quilt shows.  It was then that I entered Paducah's show the first time, after the Log Cabin Quilters challenged each other to enter.  We had 11 quilts juried in that year from that group, amazing.  So, when a national store had a contest, I thought it would be fun to enter.  They are no longer around, but the stores were called House of Fabrics in some states, and SoFro in others.  The contest theme that year was Stars, and I made the quilt pictured above.  Much to my surprise, it won the grand prize.  I was sure for days that they must have made a mistake, LOL.  It also went to Paducah, but didn't win anything there.  I still was immensely pleased just to get it juried in.  And to this day, if I get a quilt juried in, my feet don't touch the ground for days.  I strongly encourage people to enter their quilts, since if it doesn't get juried in, the worst thing that can happen is you get the letter saying it's a nice quilt, but you can keep it home.  I've gotten lots of those, LOL.  Nobody will come and drag you out into the street and shoot you if it doesn't make the cut.  Please, enter your quilts.  They need hundreds of quilts to make those wonderful shows happen.