Guest Blogger: Quilter Bea Lee

Our Guest Blogger series returns this week after a 3-month hiatus for the Celebrate Christmas Quilt-Along. I’m now booking guests for March, find out how you can be a guest blogger here. Please join me in welcoming quilter Bea Lee as today’s guest.

My name is Bea Lee and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to quilt!

I’m grateful that Michele has let me be a guest blogger here.

I’m originally from Denmark- Born and raised, moved to Florida when I was 18 to go to college then met my husband etc… that was 15 years ago (OOPS I just gave away my age, didn’t I?) Now we live in the STICKS of North Carolina and have 2 great kids.

I wanted to tell you about how I got started with this OBSESSION – quilting.

7 ½ yrs ago I was pregnant with our 2nd child – a girl, and my church had a quilting class over the summer for a few evenings, taught by a pastor’s wife, so I figured I’d try it out and see if I liked it. I actually have a degree in computer animation – my goal was to work for Disney, but while I was in college I met my husband and I also soon after that got saved, so my view on life totally changed….

So, I took this quilt class and made a little baby girl quilt for my daughter (she still has it and it’s loved to shreds!)

I remember at the end of the class we were asked if we’d get into quilting and I said, NAH not really…. Oh boy, was I wrong, and I’ve apologized to her several times for saying that.

I slowly got more and more into quilting, a few years later we moved into the country and I got my own craft room, WOW!! PLUS, some of my neighbors quilted – really inspiring.

Then I started submitting a few quilts to the local county fair, I think I brought in 4 quilts and got 4 ribbons, I was thrilled. That Fall, my husband was looking at my quilting magazines and asked me if I wanted a long arm machine, because he could tell I really liked it – well SURE!! So he researched it and a month or so later I got my Hinterberg setup, a Voyager machine and a Summit frame.

Now I also long arm quilt for customers, I love doing that too!

I love every part of quilting: designing in EQ7, buying fabrics, cutting, piecing, applique – needle turn or machine, long arm quilting, adding on the binding and label.

My least favorite part of a quilt is maybe the border! Piecing a long strip for the border is just BORING….

I make lots of small quilts and love giving them away, either to expecting mothers or babies or others who needs them.

I also make quilts that I would like (one day) to get published, where I designed the patterns and have written up patterns for a few already. If anyone would like to be a TESTER for me, let me know.

I’ve also taught a few quilt classes, some at a local quilt store and recently at the local college.

I also try to make quilts for shows, and have won a few ribbons already :-) one was at an international quilt show in Washington State a few years ago, called BARGELLO MIRAGE.

I’ve mentioned already I won a few ribbons at the local county fair, and last month I won two ribbons at a county quilt guild show, I missed the submission date for the state fair this year, I’ll try next year.

Don’t get me wrong, of course I love to win ribbons, but it’s not my main focus in quilting. What I truly love is giving them away. I feel God gave me this gift and I want to Bless back with my quilting in different ways.

I love to BLOG about my quilting projects. And I love to get inspired by other quilters too. Until Dec 18th, there’s a great give away from Electric Quilt. Have a look. I also have a web site.
If you have any comments I’d love to hear from you via my blog or web site or email.