My entire career has been in sales.  First with Bank of America where I worked for 20 years and financed inventories for franchised new automobile dealers (selling to salesmen).  I left the bank and went to cosmetology school.  I got my license but, other than mine and my husband’s hair, I never worked in that field.  Locally, I worked in retail at Gottschalks.  I was there 5 years and was the Estée Lauder counter manager.  Finally, I am a licensed (as you can see, I collect licenses)  real estate broker and am a Broker Associate with Coldwell Banker Segerstrom.  I retired in 2017.  I now wonder how I ever had time to work..

 

I am obsessed with quilting, literally.  Although I’ve sewn virtually my entire life, I’ve only been quilting since 2018.  That’s not to say I haven’t made patchwork “blankets” but no way could they be considered quilts.  I started my first quilt in 2001.  I was quilting it by hand and decided it was taking too long.  I put it up in the closet where it remained for 17 years.  In 2018, I showed it to a friend and she convinced me to finish it.  That was just the beginning…

 

“Can’t” is not in my vocabulary.  I guess that’s because I think I can do anything if I set my mind to it.  I got that can-do attitude from my Mom.  My focus borders(?) on OCD.  If I see something and want to do it, I jump in with both feet, ankles, knees, all the way up to my neck.  I will tackle anything I’m interested in without reservation and work at it until I feel I’m fairly competent...and then work at it some more.  

 

I decided right away that hand quilting and quilting on a domestic machine were not for me.  And I could not bring myself to pay someone to quilt my quilts.  What a dilemma!  Since I did not want to stop quilting, I had to figure out a solution.  So, although I didn’t know anyone who owned one, I decided to buy a longarm.  I met Richard from Elk Grove Sew & Vac at Cal Expo in March 2019 (shortly before I joined the Guild) and purchased my HandiQuilter Amara 20 with Pro-Stitcher from him on the spot.  Delivery, however, had to wait until I figured out where to put it.  

 

Since we have a very small house with only three bedrooms, I decided to recess a Murphy bed into the closet of our guest room.  When we don’t have guests, it’s my longarm room.  So, I have an office/sewing room and a longarm room.  Perfect!  My husband gets half of a bedroom.

 

I took a lot of classes and thank goodness for YouTube.  I live on YouTube.  I would watch a longarm episode, pause it, go apply it, come back watch some more, pause it, go apply it, etc.  I quilted a lot of community quilts and, with a lot of trial and error, I figured out how to operate my machine.  I love it!!

 

I sew 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, and 4 hours on Sunday.  My husband enables me.  He does all of the cooking (including grocery shopping and most of the cleanup).  At noon, he calls me to tell me it’s lunchtime.  I go eat, watch an hour of television with him, and go right back to sewing.  We’ve agreed that my quitting time is 4 o’clock and noon on Sunday.  I couldn’t have a more wonderful and tolerant husband.

 

Thanks to him, in the seven years I’ve been quilting, I’ve made nearly 100 quilts and quilted over 300 (I have nearly 40M stitches on my longarm).  I have no UFO’s (unfinished objects).  I work on one quilt and won’t start another until that one is completely finished.  But I do start thinking about and anticipating my next project.  And the one after that.  Life is good.

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