I began quilting in 2005. I couldn't machine sew - at all - so Mom taught me to crazy patch. She assured me that it's impossible to REALLY mess up crazy patch since I could always sew a button over the top of any mistake. That's MY kind of sewing! In August 2005 I joined thequilt guild that Mom belonged to. In September 2005 the guild was threatening to cancel its quilt show since no one would volunteer to chair it. I volunteered. Mom said I was crazy. I had helped hang quilts at the show for years. As the daughter of a quilter, I had worked as a white glove lady (Yes, that's a quilt all right. What? The name of the block? Um, Fred? Alice? I don't know.). I didn't want to lose the show. One month after joinging the club, nine months after learning the name of one type of quilting - crazy patch, I volunteered to chair the bi-annual quilt show. I had never made a quilt.

I chaired the guild quilt show for 2007, 2009, and 2011. Our guild challenge theme for my first show as chair was a one color theme. We each drew a card with a color listed on it. We could use any shade of that color and one other neutral color (white, beige, brown, or black). The primary color had to be predominant. We could use fabrics with very small amounts of other colors as long as the fabric read our color. As you can see from my challenge quilt above, my color was gold. In October 2005 at our guild retreat, I learned how to sew patchwork. By show time in 2007, I still had no idea how to make a wall hanging using patchwork, so I fell back on my "cannot make a mistake" crazy patch. I called the quilt pictured above "Mom's Heart of Gold." The quilt really is square - it's just hanging slightly crookedly. I don't have many ribbons, but I'm proud to say that I won second place with this quilt. It currently hangs in Mom's hallway. Thanks, Mom.