Quilters Meet and Greet

Hello to all newcomers! 

I'm Jayne and I have been recording my quilting/life activities here on the interweb for just over 10 years. I began in the months following my retirement from full time teaching, with the thought that it would be a fun way to keep track of my quilt projects. It has morphed somewhat to include occasional posts about family, household projects and vacations. It's been lots of fun, and I don't see myself stopping any time soon.

In a nutshell, here's a bit about me. I am an English teacher by profession; I retired from public school teaching in 2009, and have taught part-time at the college level ever since. In June, my husband and I celebrated 40 years of marriage; we have three great kids, Adam, Erin (and her hubby Jeff), and Emma.

My quilting story begins as a child learning how to sew from my mother. She started me in 4-H, and I recall making a tea towel, a needle book, and a simple 3-seam blouse - which I actually wore. By the time I was in high school, I was making most of my wardrobe. Growing up, we lived next door to our maternal grandparents, and Grandma seemed always to have a quilt on a frame. As a youngster, I paid very little attention to the quilts, however I believe her prolific quilting must have made an impression, because after I married, I was crazy to own quilts. In my adult years, I came to appreciate her skill as I began my own quilting journey.

I am grateful to both Mom and my late Grandma for their influence.

So, back to the meet and greet -- I shared a picture of one of my quilts with Benita, and while long-time readers here may be familiar with it, I will review it for newcomers.

The history on this quilt goes way back to the late 1990s, when I began hand-piecing the stars at track and cross country meets when our son ran. At some point, I decided I'd made enough stars, and proceeded to hand-stitch the stars together using the white diamond. That took me through all the meets of son's college years (longer trips)  in the early 2000s. I stopped stitching and put the whole thing away when I became totally stymied by the uneven edges that were inevitably going to happen. Agghhh! I couldn't fathom cutting off the sides of the stars!

Fast forward to 2016 when my lovely quilting group - the Frankfort Girls - suggested we do a year-long UFO challenge. I did terrible in the challenge, but I did finish this quilt. I found that I could lop off the sides of perfectly good stars.

I hand-quilted it and hand-bound it, finishing just in time to enter it into the Ross County (OH) fair where it earned a blue ribbon. To date, this is the only quilt I have made entirely by hand from piecing through binding.

I could go on and on about quilting (obviously, since I have blogged about it for 10 years!), but I will invite you to search out the yearly completion pages on the sidebar where you can peruse my finishes. My tastes run the gamut, as you will see. I don't think it would be possible for me to pigeon-hole myself into one category or style preference.

The meet and greet hostess, Benita, invites you all to her page to see the other quilt bloggers involved. And if you click below, you will be entered into the giveaway drawing.

Each visit to a participating blogger will give you additional opportunities to enter the giveaway. So get going!! You'll have over 40 chances to enter, if you visit each blogger participating and enter from their page.

Have fun meeting new friends, and I hope you will come back to visit me often! I'd love to hear a comment from all - especially you newcomers!

Happy Quilting, Friends!