What's it like to quilt when you're eleven?

I made some friends far from my age; a few ladies were in their 40's and a couple in their 60's. Weird...nah! It's exciting trying something different at a young age. Although, I must admit, I felt too embarrassed to tell anyone at school what I did in my free time. It was the fear of being "uncool" I got over that real soon when I decided I'm happy being unique!

You may be wondering how an eleven year old girl starts quilting, especially when nobody in her family sews! Let's just say I had an awesome babysitter for the first seven years of my life who taught me to make a jacket, and showed me several quilts of hers. I had a little mishap with the iron and my fingers, creating two giant blisters on my tiny fingers. My apprehension of ever using that burning metal blister maker almost stole away my desire to sew again.

Almost.

That happened when I was six. When I grew old enough (in my mind) for a sewing machine, I began bugging my parents. My constant nagging brought me a sewing machine for my 11th birthday! Woohoo! I started making pillows, but you can only make so many pillows before you want a real challenge. Therefore, my mom discovered that my next door neighbor goes to quilting classes at JoAnn Fabrics. The picture above is the first quilt I ever made, and I'm damn proud of it! Look how good it turned out...and remember, I was ELEVEN when I made that thing. Ok, ok, that's quite enough bragging for me.

It took me eight months from beginning to end to complete this. I had to work on only one part at a time, waiting to learn how to do the next step the following Tuesday at quilting class. Learning from the book was too difficult at that age, so I hope to take pictures to show step by step instructions to teach others who may not have the option of quilting classes. I'll gather up some pictures and work on this part in one of my following blogs!