How it all began

Somehow when I say "yes" to something that sounds like it would be simple, the project always seems to grow into something larger than I had expected. There are those times I've been asked to make a quilt, and once I've said that magic word "yes", I find out that the project isn't what I had really envisioned, but much more.


One time it was a baby quilt, that ended up being two, because they later found out they were expecting twins. Yeah, I know there was no way to know at the time I was asked, but this is the way many things happen in my life.


I used to just quilt for family and the occasional gift, or helping finish up quilt projects with the kids at school. Then one day a quilt shop opened that was just down the hill from me less than 2 miles away! That's when it happened. I was asked by the friendly shop owner what I did, and of course answered that I did many different things, listing a few, including quilting. She talked me into bringing some quilts down to show her (I'd never taken a single quilt back to a shop to show them what I'd made), and said "ok". When she started looking at my work, she said I should be teaching, or writing, and I thought "who, me".


I began teaching, and then when it came time to design a block for her first shop hop, she asked me to design it. I was flattered, and said yes, figuring I'd just design it in EQ (Electric Quilt), and hand it off to her. We learned the rules together, and when the block was designed she looked at it on my laptop and asked what it would look like as a small 4-block quilt. When I showed her, she requested that I make the sample for her, which I did.





Then there was another remark "if we had a pattern, we could kit it up." Soon I was off getting a business license, researching to find out how to print, package, price, and all those necessary things to produce and sell a pattern. Finally it was ready, and off it went, into her shop, and my pattern company was on its way.