I remember at a very early age going to my grandmother’s house for her to take care of me while my mother worked. My favorite room was the room that she had her quilt frame in. She made all her quilts by hand piecing and hand quilting and would give them to people as gifts. I thought all her quilts were beautiful and enjoyed sleeping under them. When I was old enough, my mother taught myself and my sisters how to sew. I remember the day she bought her new Singer electric sewing machine to replace her treadle machine. My oldest sister never was interested in sewing but my other sister and I would make most of our clothes. My mother never really got into quilting like her mother. She would tell me that she sewed all day long for a living and it took all the fun out of sewing since she worked on piece work all the time. My making my own clothes was the extent of my sewing until I moved out to Arizona and no longer had to work. I had seen someone sewing a wall hanging using foundation piecing technique and I asked her if she could show me how to do that because it really looked like fun. She was showing me how she was doing it and I really wanted to do it too so I went to the quilt store and picked up a pattern for a foundation piece wall hanging. She told me I should choose an easy one with just a few pieces but I didn’t listen to her as I always like challenges. This got me hooked and I started making more and more quilts and would quilt them on my home sewing machine. The only problem with quilting them on my sewing machine was I wanted to make quilts for my bed and they were horrible to try and quilt on my machine because they were so large. In 2006 my husband and myself went to the local quilt show in Sierra Vista, Arizona and seen a demonstration of the HQ Sixteen. I fell in love with the machine and knew that now I would be able to do all my own quilting and maybe even do some quilting for others if I get good enough. My husband told me to go ahead and buy it, as he felt that I would have no problems quilting with it. I purchased it right then and there at the quilt show and came home to try to decide where I was going to put it. I wanted to keep the table open to the full width and the only place it would fit would be my bedroom. My husband said that it was okay to put it there and that is where we set it up, in our bedroom on my husbands’ side of the bed. Everyone laughed where I would show them the quilter but it really did work well there as that was the bed room for natural light. I kept practicing with the quilter and doing my own quilts but I really didn’t feel very comfortable with it as I wanted precision and the HQ Sixteen with the stitch regulator was just not enough. Then Handiquilter came out with a computer for the quilter the HQ Pro-Stitcher. This is what I was looking for as now I could have the precision I was looking for with my designs. The very first quilt I did with my computerized quilter I entered into the local quilt show. This was also the very first quilt I ever entered into a quilt show too and was surprised when my quilt took a third place ribbon. This was the start of a wonderful relationship between me and my HQ Sixteen and the start of a new business. I am always reading all the information I can to learn more about quilting and becoming a better quilter. I have won four more ribbons for my quilts since then and many of my customers have also won ribbons for their quilts. Now I was looking into getting a digitizing program that would help me with my quilting and maybe even designing my own quilt designs. I heard that there was going to be a new program available soon called Art N Stitch and I couldn’t wait until it came out so that I could try it and see if it would help me the way I wanted it to. I tried the trail version when it came out and fell in love with everything it could do and I could even design my whole quilt before I started to quilt it. Now when I sit down with my customers I have my Art N Stitch program running and am able to show them what their quilt would look like even before I quilt it. I have even designed some original designs for some of my customers using this program. My business is thriving and I couldn’t be happier as I am finally doing something I really enjoy doing.

I own the following HQ machines: HQ Pro-Stitcher, HQ Sixteen