One More Quilt: A Story of Life
Chapter Three: The 1970s

In 1976, when I was eighteen years old, my friend Sharon Crosle and I used to do a lot of sewing together. We loved the calico fabrics and would go fabric shopping quite a bit. We got this idea to make bottle dolls. The body of the doll was made out of two-liter soda bottles with beach sand inside. We sold these dolls for ten dollars each and had many custom orders to fill where we each worked.

I was working at Picker International in Northford, Connecticut as a receptionist and telex operator. I had received my Executive Secretary Diploma from Stone School of Business and also worked as a secretary in several departments: Nuclear Engineering Department, Sustaining Engineering Department, and Safety Department over 8 ½ years.

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Sharon and I took a six-week quilting class at Sterling Village in Wallingford, Connecticut. I learned a lot. The Bird quilt blocks and Sunbonnet Sue quilt blocks are appliqued. The Grandmother's Garden quilt block and Log Cabin quilt block are pieced. I learned how to do Trapunto. The quilting teacher took everyone's String quilt blocks and put four of them together and I remember distinctly how I thought that was really something to create these blocks by putting them together and get a whole new look. The quilting bug had bitten me!

In Quilt World Magazine, there were quilters looking to exchange quilt blocks so I exchanged quilt blocks from quilters around the United States. This is when I started collecting the Strawberry applique quilt blocks.

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In February 1977, when I was twenty years old, I met my future husband, Bill Bailey. Our mutual friend Anita Colavolpe introduced us. She was working in the manufacturing area as a secretary and I was working on the switchboard. She planned for me to bring my lunch back into the factory area at the same time that Bill was getting his lunch out of the refrigerator. It was love at first sight. We went on our first date two weeks later and have been together ever since.

That summer, I moved out of my house in Cheshire and rented a bedroom from Lisa Pepe in Branford, Connecticut. Nancy Holmquist was also renting a bedroom there. That was the summer I went to Boulder, Colorado with Bill Bailey and Bill Carroll. It was plant shutdown time from Picker International and everyone had two weeks off. Right before I left for the trip, I went to So-Fro Fabrics on Branford Hill and ordered a new Singer sewing machine and it would be ready when I got back from Colorado.

One of the sweetest things that has ever happened to me is that when we got back from the trip, Bill surprised me by picking up the sewing machine and giving it to me as a gift. I have used that sewing machine for twenty years and have worn out the parts because I used it so much!

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Bill and I got married on September 22, 1979 at the First Congregational Church in Cheshire, Connecticut and lived in the third floor apartment on South Main Street in Branford, Connecticut.

I continued sewing quite a bit. I was making doll clothes for Judy Mager in Hamden, Connecticut. She made beautiful porcelain dolls in her home and I supplied her dolls weekly with outfits for five years. I shopped for all the fabrics and all the laces. I loved the antique satin and velvets.

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During the rest of that year and into 1980, I crocheted a lot. The shades of beige crocheted blanket I made for our bedroom. The shades of green crocheted blanket I made for my mother, Gail. The shades of blue crocheted blanket I made for my friend Les Schwanfelder.

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