My Story Part 1: The Treeline Quilting Origin Story
Where It All Started (and Where the Name Came From)
If you’ve followed along on social media, you’ve seen bits and pieces of my story in short videos. But there’s only so much you can fit into 90 seconds, so I wanted to sit down and tell the whole story of how I started quilting, right here on the blog where it all began.
When purchasing through links on this site, I may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you.
A grandma, a box of dolls, and a lot of shows
Sewing has always been in my family, just not quilting at first. My grandma sewed doll clothes. One of the ways she earned a little income was picking up dolls from places like Goodwill, the ones that came with no clothes at all, and sewing them brand-new outfits.
Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, there were doll and toy sales everywhere, at event centers and even in the mall.
My grandma would set up at those shows, and I was always right there helping her. I never actually sewed as a kid. But I grew up around a sewing machine, handmade things, and a grandma who turned her craft into a little business. I didn’t realize until much later how much that stuck with me.
How I started quilting: valances and a first quilt.
When I got married, I married into a quilting family. My mother-in-law is a quilter. My husband and I built our house early on, money was tight, and so I got a sewing machine and started making little things for our home, like valance curtains and small practical projects.
A couple of years into our marriage, I sewed my first actual quilt. Honestly? I don’t remember much about it. I think it was flannel. I don’t even have it anymore, which makes me a little sad.
I was completely self-taught. This was before you could pull up a tutorial on your phone, so my teachers were library books and wandering the aisles at Joann’s. I’ve been sewing off and on for over 20 years now.
Giving myself permission
For a long time, the key words were “off and on.” I’d take long breaks from sewing because I had this rule in my head: if nobody needed a quilt, I shouldn’t make one. I shouldn’t spend the money. I shouldn’t spend the time.
I eventually broke myself of that. Enjoying a hobby has value all on its own, whether or not there’s a bed waiting for the quilt. Once I let that go, I sewed so much more. Over roughly the last eight years, quilting went from something I did occasionally to something I did constantly.
“Enjoying a hobby has value all on its own, whether or not there’s a bed waiting for the quilt.“
If you’re someone who still feels like you have to justify your sewing time, consider this your permission slip.
The longarm (it wasn’t a career move, I promise)
Once my kids were in their later high school years, I really dug in. I was making so many quilts that I bought a longarm so I could finish my own quilts from start to finish. That’s it. I didn’t buy it to start a business. I just wanted to quilt my own tops instead of waiting or sending them out.
You can probably guess how that turned out.
Something for me
By 2023, my son had graduated and gotten married, and my daughter was in her last years of high school. I’d homeschooled my kids for 12 years, and I started feeling a real pull to do something for myself.
That’s when I started this blog. Part of the reason was practical. I was making quilts so fast that I thought slowing down to photograph them and write about them might be good for me! But mostly I wanted to share what I knew: how to make a half-square triangle, how I tackle different techniques, the little things I’d figured out over years of teaching myself. I spent a lot of time learning WordPress and Pinterest, and I loved it.
So, why “Treeline”?
I get asked this a lot, and the answer is an inside joke more than 20 years in the making.
When my husband and I were newly married and in our early 20s, we took our first trip to Maine. We live in Indiana, which, if you’ve never been, is very flat. But we were young and active, and we figured we could hike a mountain, no problem. We picked Mount Blue. It was only about a mile and a half up and a mile and a half down. How hard could three miles be?
Very hard, it turns out. We were huffing and puffing the whole way. It was humbling. (Especially when an older gentleman and his dog went breezing right past us, then came back down to let us know we were almost there.)
The entire climb, my husband kept saying, “We’ve got to be getting close. We’re almost to the tree line.” Over and over. Finally I turned to him and told him that if he said “tree line” one more time, I was going to throw him off the mountain.
We made it to the top, we made it back down, and we survived. But “tree line” became our joke. Any time he wanted to push my buttons, he’d let me know we were almost to the tree line.
Years later, around 2020 or 2021, we bought a piece of land intending to move our construction business there, and we needed an LLC to hold the property. We didn’t know what to call it, so we went with the joke: Treeline Properties. Then, when I started the blog, I tossed around a few names and landed on Treeline Quilting. It’s short, it’s easy to say, it’s memorable, and it carries a little piece of us.
And that piece of land? Hold onto that thought. It comes back into the story later.
Next time: how a shop hop, a trade show, and Joann’s closing turned “I could do this” into “I’m doing this.”
