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Paula
Hoeppner |
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My name is Paula Hoeppner and I am an American living in Doha, Qatar. My grandmother was my inspiration for quilting. I remember going to her house in Arkansas and seeing all the wonderful quilts she had made. She had even made one for each of grandchildren. I started quilting about 10 years ago when I moved to Dubai with my husband. My mom thought that I needed a hobby to “occupy” my time. I quickly became hooked on this fascinating hobby. My first quilt was a “Texas Star” which I made for my mother. The quilt involved hand stitching and the use of counted cross stitch blocks. Little did I know when I started this project that it would take me almost 5 years to finish this project - I guess the project was a little ambitious project for a beginner. However, the look on my Mom’s face was well worth my efforts. Over the last 5 years I have made a variety of quilts - I guess you could say I’ve become hooked on quilting. For the last four Christmas’ I’ve made a special quilt for one of my brothers and sisters based on a design that they selected. The challenge is to personalize the quilt for each person. However, it’s wonderful seeing their faces when they open their present! I enjoy making quilts for my family and friends. Over the last few years I’ve made T-shirt quilts, pattern quilts, photo quilts and embroidery patch quilts. Its fun and challenging to try new techniques and quilting patterns. I have found my patterns in quilting books as well as through the internet. It’s amazing how much quilting information you can find over the internet and frequently the information is free. My first sewing machine was a Kenmore. It was not made specifically for quilting but I was able to complete my first quilt using it. I’ve used other sewing machines since then and I recently acquired a Bernina 440QE sewing machine. The Bernina machine has been fabulous and I love quilting on it. I’ve been very lucky to work with excellent quilters in each of the cities we’ve lived in from the Connecticut Piecemakers to the Qatar Quilters Guild. We have an active Quilting Guild in Doha which meets monthly with smaller sub-groups meeting during the month. Recently we’ve introduced a number of new activities to encourage participation and to help our members become even better quilters. This has included Challenge Quilts, Fat Quarter Quilts and in the future we will be introducing mystery quilts. We also have training sessions following our meetings. I have found the Guild to be a wonderful source of inspiration and support and they’ve helped me in countless ways. One
of the biggest challenges we face in Doha is the difficulty in finding
quilting supplies. This includes a lack of “good’ cotton
fabric suitable for quilting as well as basic quilting tools. It’s
not uncommon to bring a suitcase back from our home leaves and trips
to Dubai full of quilting fabrics and supplies.
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