Author to Turkish Delights to Appliqué, Bended Bias Appliqué and Quilted Fairie Tales.

Thanks Michele for having me as Guest Blogger this month, it’s such an honor, and a warm welcome to all the bloggers out there for taking the time to read about a slightly compulsive little girl turned professional quilter by chance!

As a little one, my parents needed to keep me busy. I wanted to know everything. Why can’t fish walk? Why can’t we have pizza every day? Why can’t I have my own pair of scissors like mom and Nona (Italian for grandmother) have?

I am a first generation American, my dad is from Northern Germany and my mom’s heritage is Northern Italian. Luckily, my Italian Nona lived with my family and I received some of the best projects to do from her. I was given those scissors I so dearly wanted at age 4, along with floss, needles and fabric marked with those big X’s on them to embroider. Remember those pillow cases and hand towels? I breezed through the embroidery and weaved little crooked potholders everyone got for Christmas. Next I was taught knitting and crocheting and anything else that required occupying my time. I was eager to learn!

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Hello everyone, my name is Jackie Kunkel and I have been quilting for about 17 years and really love every aspect of it. From the fabric shopping right down to the binding! I started because my husband encouraged me to get a hobby.

The first class I took, I was a little put off. The teacher made us use cardboard templates and scissors, yet I knew that there was this new invention called a rotary cutter! She wouldn’t allow us to use it, she was very old school. So I ended up taking another class. I was able to use the rotary cutter and loved every second of making my first quilt. It was a Quilt in A Day pattern, called Star Log Cabin. I gave my first quilt away to a dear friend. She now has it and continues to use it to this day.

Well, quickly my “hobby” became a passion. I was quilting everyday, and just couldn’t get enough. I missed it when I wasn’t quilting. I then came home one day and said to my hubby, guess what we are buying??? A long arm quilting machine!! He said, “What is that and what will you do with it?” I told him he was silly, and that people would love to have their quilts quilted faster than they could get them done and spend more time piecing. He thought I wouldn’t have enough business, because his sister and I were the only quilters he knew. Silly again!

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When Michele first asked me to be a Guest Blogger on Quilting Gallery, I was extremely flattered .. then nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs .. EGADS!!! ME?!?!?!?!? I’m not anyone famous, just a person that loves to quilt, blog, learn new things, and knit. Okay, I thought about it and needless to say, I agreed as here I am. I wasn’t too sure what to say, but my quilting journey and it’s beginnings was suggested by Michele .. Okay – I can do that ….

My journey started in 1995 after my son was born. I was in Joann’s looking for some fabric or yarn to make something for my son. He was long as a baby and while it’s cute for a belly to peek out from under a shirt, it’s not something you always want to see .. so I made his clothes, and knitted his sweaters, jackets etc. While going through Joann’s I happened to see a BOM packet that had blues for fabrics and a star!! Oh did I like that star .. I looked at the price, and while I can’t remember exactly what it was, I’m thinking $4.99 or something like that .. I thought why not … for $5, if I don’t like it, I can scrap it and that’ll be that. It seemed like a good price for something new to learn and maybe like.

Oh geeze o pete .. how I remember that well!! I can’t remember what block it was – but I do remember my ‘journey’ with it! I read the instructions on a ¼″ seam and pressing to one side. So after reading that i was confident that I could do this. Now this block “might” have inset seams as well. I truly can’t remember. Templates and inset seams for someone that had never quilted a day in her life .. what was I thinking????

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Quilting is so personal to me. From the reason why I started quilting to the reason I quilt today, quilting is personal. In my 15 years of being the editor of Better Homes and Gardens American Patchwork & Quilting magazine, I heard lots of reasons why people started quilting and why they continue. For me, it’s personal.

My maternal grandmother Maurine Moore taught me to quilt. I was a young girl participating in 4-H and wanting to learn all about the crafts. I mostly did cross-stitch and quilting, but my 4-H club shared other crafts as well. Grandma Moore was a teacher for 45 years, so she had lots of patience. She showed me how to pull threads to cut the fabric straight. She showed me how to mark my 1/4 seams with a guide for easy hand-piecing. She looked over my shoulder as I hand-stitched the pieces together with very tiny stitches.

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Normally, as a former English teacher, I wouldn’t write a title like that, but it seems to fit, since that’s what I wanted to write about for my guest blog.

I have three blogs, you see, and some people think that’s crazy, but it works for me. While I’m a pretty creative person (okay, I’m really creative), I do like order to some things. Blogging, like my book library or my DVD library, is one of those things. Whenever anyone asks me my favorite pastimes/hobbies, I always say the same three: reading, writing, quilting. And because my anal retentive brain won’t let me write about all three in the same place, I have one blog for each favorite hobby.

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Greetings everyone! Here is something about me and making quilts in my corner of the world. Cheers from sunny Bulgaria! It is a beautiful country with the oldest processed gold on the planet and talented people.

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