About Me

My husband Larry and I were married July 15, 1979. We have 9 children and 22 grandchildren. 

I've been sewing since I was 9 years old, when my brother, who sold sewing machines, gave me a wonderful old mechanical Singer and helped me sew myself a red polka dot headscarf.  It was lined with blue silky stuff, had white grosgrain ribbons, and everything.  I thought it was the cat's meow.

 

When I was 14 and in 9th-grade Home Economics class, I made a short plaid wool jacket with pile fur sleeves and a silky red quilted lining.  I was inordinately proud of that jacket.  I made an 8-gore skirt to match, put a contrasting color behind each seam and opened them up so the color would show, and wore the outfit to our talent show, where I received rave reviews.

Sure and didn't that make me consider myself a bona fide seamstress!

 At age 17, with two of my very own paychecks, I bought Bernina's top-of-the-line machine:  the Electronic 830 Record.   What a wonderful, trusty little job that has turned out to be!  It was my only sewing machine until September of 2011, when I got a very nice used Bernina Artista 180.  I still drool over the new top-of-the-lines, though, and hope to have one someday.

 Through the years, I put more miles on that old 830 than one could ever imagine.  I sewed many clothes for our children:  school clothes; fancy things for special occasions at church, including suits for the boys and many-tiered ruffly numbers for the girls; pajamas, robes, and even slippers; coats and hats; and many things for the house, such as curtains, dressing table pads, canopies, pillows, seat covers, ------ and, of course, quilts.  

For a long while, I rarely had time to indulge in the sewing of quilts. I made the first one when I was 20.  After sewing my husband a three-piece suit, that quilt was as much fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Here's a quilt and priscilla curtain set I made for daughter Hester in 1991:

The children have grown and moved out of the house, leaving only the youngest, Victoria.

"Don't you miss all the commotion?" asked a friend not too long ago.

"Naaa," I replied.  "We saved the noisiest for last, just to avoid that possibility!"

I quilted quite a few king-sized quilts on my Bernina 830.  The Mariner's Compass quilt, pictured on my webpage http://natures-splendor.blogspot.com/, was the very last one I quilted on the 830.  It was finished at the end of November, 2009.  My elbows and shoulders didn't recover from that for six months.

And then, in June of 2010, ... <drum roll> ... I got an HQ 16 -- HandiQuilter's mid/longarm quilting machine, along with a 10' frame.

I quilted three small, one-panel quilts, to try it out.  Then, while I pieced together two very large quilts, Larry extended the frame to 14' --- and I was in business.  Oh, the things I can now do with my quilting, that I could never, ever do before! 

I keep learning better ways to quilt, and the more I do it, the easier it gets.  Someday I hope to get a larger, newer machine on a sturdier frame.  In the meanwhile, I'm very thankful for what I have.

If you would like for me to do any quilting for you, please contact me at sarahlynn.jackson2@gmail.com.