My fascination for quilting began in the early 1950s. My sister, Carol, and I grew up in a small town overlooking a cemetery. My father was a coal miner and we were very poor. The cemetery was our playground where we learned to ride our bikes and explore grave sites. We noticed that as the baskets on the graves got old, they were thrown into a burning dump at the back edge of the cemetery. As the baskets were thrown in, Carol and I would venture in and retrieve the beautiful ribbons. We washed and pressed them. This began our sewing process.
