First, I want to say thank you, for selecting me to be QNNtv’s “MOM”.  I was so surprised and happy to have been selected!

My name is Elizabeth Cook, but all my friends call me “Betty”.  I live in a rural area outside of Philadelphia, PA with my hubby of 37 years, Ron, and our only son, Ronnie.  We also have 3 daughters, Jennifer, Beth, and Katie and 6 grandchildren and 2 step-grandchildren.

I’ve be doing some type of handwork as long as I can remember.  My maternal-grandmother taught me to crochet and my great-aunt taught me to knit when I was 7 years old.  When I was 12 years old, I decided that my Grandmom needed to teach me how to sew.  She said that she never made any clothes just things for the house, but I said that was fine with me!  The first thing I ever made was a pillowcase and I used grandmom’s old Singer sewing machine to make it.  I remember the first time I went to buy fabric.  The poor lady in the fabric store had to tell me how buying fabric worked and asked me for what size pillow I was making the case.  I told her whatever size pillow would fit into what I made…well, that was over 43 years ago.  She actually taught me a lot that day about fabric!  The pillowcase turned out okay, I guess, or my mom felt obliged to use it…now I’m not sure.

Later, when I was a freshman in high school, I joined a sewing club.  That’s when I asked my Grandmom to buy me a sewing machine.  My mom doesn’t like to sew, knit, or crochet.  She said she never had an interest in it.  Every time mom would sew a button back on for us, it would fall off right away.  Actually, my dad, who had been in the Navy, did a better job of sewing our buttons back on…when Grandmom wasn’t available to do it that is.  Anyway, my Grandmom and Grandpop did buy me a sewing machine.  It was meant for all of us to use, but I think I was the only one out of the 4 girls and my mom that ever used it.  Later in my junior and senior year of high school I took Home Economics.  That’s when I really learned about working with pattern requirements and garment construction.  I still have the first dress I ever made…it doesn’t fit anymore, but it’s fun to look at it!

Over the years, I’ve made clothing, especially when my children were little, and items for our home.  It wasn’t until my mother-in-law gave me a pieced quilt top in 1995, that I found the quilting world.  I didn’t know that my mother-in-law was a quilter.  I had never seen her quilt until after she retired.  I guess she just didn’t have the time before then.  She was a single mom raising four children on her own and money was tight.  When she passed away in 1996, I decided I better learn how to quilt because I wanted to do justice to the beautiful pieced top she had given me for Christmas and the other one that I inherited from her.  Momma hand-pieced and hand-quilted all her quilts.  She only used the sewing machine to sew the rows of blocks together, but that was only after my brother-in-law and his wife gave her a sewing machine for Christmas one year.  Before that she did everything by hand.  We have a beautiful Wedding Ring Quilt and a Yo-Yo Quilt top that she made.  We also have a beautiful Churn Dash Quilt that my hubby’s Aunt made.  My hubby, Ron, is from Tennessee and comes from a long line of quilters.  If only I had known sooner!

I’ve been quilting for about 12 years now.  I’ve made quite a few baby quilts.  I don’t have pictures of all of them and I wish I did.  I didn’t know about documenting every quilt but I do now. 

This is a picture of the first block I ever made.  I entered it into a Wal-Mart block contest.  It didn’t win but it gave me the encouragement to try harder.  (It actually got a few votes because the tally sheet was still on the back when they returned it to me.)

This is a picture of my very first applique quilt block…can you see any defects?  This is when I learned to square the block…carefully and not too much…and make the applique fit the block!

Here are pictures of two quilts that I made for my grandson in 2003.  I gave them to my daughter, Katie, at her baby shower.  The matching pillow I made for the first one has my grandson’s name embroidered on it.

Since I’m a self-taught quilter, I have to say that if it wasn’t for Marianne Fons and Liz Porter, I wouldn’t know half of what I do about quilting.  They’re book “Quilter’s Complete Guide” has taught me so much.  I started working my way through the book and working each lesson as if I was in a quilting class.  Here’s what I have done so far….Okay, it’s only three blocks out of many in the book, but I’m working on it…and when I’m finished I’ll have a wonderful sampler quilt.

They’re show “Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting” is on here on PBS every Saturday morning at 6:30 am and I wouldn’t miss it!  And, now that I have QNNtv, I can watch them whenever I want.  So, I just want to say “Thank You.”  With Momma gone, you are my go-to-quilters when I need help or an answer to a question and I hope you all know how much I appreciate having you here when I need you.  

So, here are a few more quilts that I’ve made…

This is the first quilt that I ever made.  My hubby bought me an embroidery sewing machine for Christmas a few years ago and I had so many practice blocks after I starting using it.  When I wanted to make my first quilt, I decided to make the squares into blocks and use them as the center for each block.  I’m glad I have that machine now because I use it to make quilt labels and to do quilting on some of my quilts.

This is a Log Cabin Quilt I made.  It was also the first Queen size quilt I made.  It turned out great and we use it every day.

Now, this is actually a quilted shower curtain I made.  I bought a pieced one for $60.00 once and said, “Never again!”  The next time I needed one, I made it myself and it’s much better than the one I bought.

This is a wallhanging I did for my quilt studio.  My son bought me a Husqvarna Viking Fab-u-Motion for Christmas and I decided to try something smaller to quilt.  It seems to make quilting a lot less cumbersome when I’m machine quilting.  I definitely need to practice though.  Now if I could only talk him into giving me a long-arm machine for my birthday!

Currently, I’m in the process of making a quilt for each of our children and grandchildren.  I want to make sure that they each have a quilt made for them by me. 

This is one of the blocks for my grandson’s quilt.  He loves Thomas the Train.

This block is for my mom’s lap quilt.  If it weren’t for her mom teaching me to love sewing, I wouldn’t be having so much fun today.  I just wish that my mother-in-law were still alive to see what she started! 

With Mom’s quilt, I’m trying a “quilt as you sew” method.  I’m disabled and it’s a struggle to machine quilt an entire bed-sized quilt top.  I have a book that I bought awhile ago by Beth Donaldson, “Block by Block Technique”.  I thought I’d try it on my mom’s lap quilt and see if it works.

This is a scrap quilt that I’ve been working on since I started quilting.  Whenever I have enough scraps to make a few blocks, that’s when I work on it.  It has, or will have, scraps from all of the quilts I’ve made, and it’s slowly coming together.

Finally, I’m hoping that this is the year when I will have enough confidence in my quilting abilities to take the pieced tops that my mother-in-law entrusted to me out of storage and quilt them.  For me, that will be my biggest quilting accomplishment.

Once again, I’d like to say “Thank You” to QNNtv for giving me this opportunity.  I am very grateful for your kindness…Happy Quilting, Everyone!!