Introductory

Hello everyone, my name is Stephanie. I am a non-traditional, returning student at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. What is a non-traditional student? Well, I first started attending Southern Utah University fresh out of high school a long, long time ago where I met my husband, we soon married and then I quit school after earning an Associate of Applied Science degree in Computer Information Systems. Fast forward about 20 years, three beautiful slash amazing children, two dogs, a house and a new career at Southern Utah University as the Admissions and Data Management Specialist, I decided to return to school, hence the non-traditional part. I am a History major and proud to say, I will finally earn that long awaited Bachelor of Science degree that I started 20 plus years ago in May 2017, I can't wait!

I love to quilt. My grandma made quilts, she had the old fashioned quilt frames set up at her house all the time. She would get two big pieces of fabric, one for the top and one for the bottom and she would tie these quilts for her grandchildren. Getting one of grandma's thick, soft quilts as a child was a treasure. The following picture is a quilt my grandma made for me for a wedding present.

After I married, I was introduced to my husband's grandma's quilts. Their quilts were different from my grandma's, they were never tied, they were hand quilted. What a treasure to receive hand quilted baby quilts for my babies. Sorry for the wrinkles!

Several years ago, a friend introduced me to another type of quilt. She showed me a quilt she had made. It was her first quilt and it was beautiful and I had to have one. This quilt top was made out of hundreds of small pieces pieced, appliqued and in some places hand stitched together and also had a lot of decorative buttons to spice it up. I loved it, so she showed me where to access the pattern and I got busy. I had so much fun learning how to make that quilt. You see, every step in making that quilt, from applique, hand sewing, cutting the fabric, and even the binding was a learning process for me and instilled a love and a new hobby.

Since then, I have made many, many pieced quilts. I rarely tie them like my grandmother did and I never, never hand quilt them like my husband's grandmothers did, that is too much work! I would always pay for mine to be professionally quilted on a long arm quilting machine.

Last year, my mother-in-law purchased a Handi Quilter Long Arm Quilting machine! I have been so excited to use and learn how to quilt my own quilts with it. There is definitely a learning curve which requires a lot of practice. This is where my project comes in. I want to practice on a lot of quilts that will then be given to charity. I would like to become a professional quilter so I can quilt for others to earn some extra money for my family.

The following are the first quilts I quilted myself on the long arm.