My Quilting Journey
Hey y’all. How does one go from just a hobby quilter to a pattern writer and having a quilty business? Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but here is a little insight into my journey.
I first learned to sew when I was around 7 or 8 with my grandmother, Jane. I would make projects with her when I stayed with her in the summer. We made doll quilts, pillows, pillow cases, doll clothes, and the basics of just replacing buttons and sewing on patches. When I got in middle school, everyone had to take Home Economics, well a beginning middle school version. Well, because of my grandmother, I was prepared. I also had a cousin (more like an aunt) that was the Home Economics teacher at the high school for 30+ years. We made simple things in class like pillows. I always enjoyed sewing, but I also played sports (basketball, softball and track) and loved the farm and my horse. So I didn’t always do good about staying inside. When I graduated college, I lost my grandmother Jane (the one that taught me to sew) soon after, I needed a new hobby to pass time because I had moved out and was living on my own and honestly was lonely. My mom had decided to learn to quilt and took a beginner class at our local quilt shop. I loved sewing still and decided I wanted to start quilting more. I remember going to the local quilt store and I fell in love with a Moda Christmas theme layer cake. What was I going to do with a layer cake? I had no idea. But I’m a sucker for Christmas fabrics and it was just so cute, and in my “I’m just out of college and just started working” budget. Well, the lady at the quilt shop told me about a tutorial that Missouri Star had done on the double slice layer cake quilt. So that is what I did. I remember it only took me a couple evenings to finish and I was so proud!! And hooked!!
The next couple quilts I made were just simple block quilts I “designed” and made up with out a pattern. One of them was actually a KING SIZE that I ended up giving away to my boyfriend at the time. He broke my heart a week later. Oh well, life goes on. And I kept quilting. I really got into table runners and table toppers for a while because I had purchased my first house and I LOVE to decorate. So between quilting and my embroidery machine, I had a table runner for every season!
Layer Cake Double Slice Quilt
Emily Maxwell, RN
Then I decided to go back to school, and nursing school at that!!! So for 2 years, I had ZERO time. However, I did make another Christmas quilt during my Christmas break. That spring I met my husband, and we were engaged by the next Christmas. He proposed the day after my nursing pinning. So then I was planning a wedding and starting a new nursing job, but I did make a quilt top for our guest book at our wedding.
Our guest book quilt
Our Wedding Day
My husband, Michael, and our son, JB
Life continued to be a little crazy. I was very driven to achieve what I wanted in nursing, and obtain a job in the department I wanted. We both worked weekend shift on the floor, he on the med floor and me on the surgical floor. However, I wanted to be in surgery so 4-5 days during the week I worked as a circulator in Endoscopy and Surgery. By October, I was a full time circulator at a surgery center, and he had actually moved from Oncology to a Pre-op nurse at a different surgery center. We finally had normal work schedules again, but we bought a farm! And decided to build a shop with a studio apartment to live in while we fixed up the 1913 stone farmhouse on the property. Our house sold in 1 day, and we had to move in with my parents for 6 months while we finished building the shop and apartment. Lets add one more surprise in there……we got pregnant! We joke that our little boy is the best surprise ever. We weren’t trying to get pregnant, and wanted to wait about another year, but I have PCOS so we weren’t fully preventing either.
This is where it started….
Our little 1913 stone farmhouse. As you can see, it had great bones, but needed some major TLC.
My husband was very supportive of my quilting and my wanting to have a quilty business, but life and lack of time kept interfering. We were finally ready to start on our house remodel (we gutted it and did all the demo ourselves so that we didn’t find and “costly surprises” - we embraced our inner Chip and Joanna) and COVID happened. Did you remember that we were surgery nurses - well elective surgery is considered non-essential and therefore all elective procedures were cancelled! So, we had our hours cut drastically!!! We had to put all of that on hold. Now remember, we have been living in a 480 sqft studio apartment with a now 2 year old. I hadn’t gotten to sew much because there was no room. So, we took some of our new free time and built me a big sewing/craft table in our shop.
Finally I get to sew again!!! Now remember, it is in our shop, so it isn’t glamorous. Also, its like 50 degrees in the winter and 85-90 degrees in humid TN summers. But, I had a space again! I began quilting during nap time. That was my “me” time. I fell in love all over again! Fall of 2020, I left surgery and started the new adventure of being a school nurse. It is different, but I enjoy it. It also gives me much more time with my kid, and keeps us from having to get up so early in the morning.
First Sneak Peak at my new pattern!!
Arrival of 2021 came and the itch to do more with my quilting continued to grow. I started branching out and doing some pattern testing. We FINALLY started work on our house in May, although we had some issues with the county required structural engineer that caused some major delays until August. At that time, I had signed up for the Quilt Writing course from Quilter’s Candy. I had done some pattern testing for Elizabeth, and was a part of the Quilter’s Candy membership. I didn’t get to interact with fellow classmates in the live as much as I had hoped due to timing conflicts, but I thoroughly enjoyed the course and learned a lot. I had designed multiple different quilts and focused on one for the course, which will release soon by the way.
Our house build/remodel became more stress than fun, and we had faced so many preventable issues, that my husband was ready to sell. I was just praying lightening stuck it and burned it down. If you don’t have to, do NOT build or remodel a house right now!! It isn’t worth it. Here we are over a year later and we still aren’t done! Our problem has not been supply shortages, we just can’t get anyone to work! With that extra stress, it was really hard to focus on anything else. But, I turned to quilting to be my therapy and have been diving head first into making this dream a reality. I have become a Midlife Quilter Maker and am loving getting to make new and real connections with other makers.
So, here’s a toast to the future!! I am so thankful to be a part of this supportive and wonderful community and I hope I can be that motivation for someone else and that my patterns will be inspiration, or therapy to someone else in need!