Welcome to my blog about contemporary art quilts. I am new to quilting, having just started 4 years ago. I don’t want to restate my bio found elsewhere on this website but suffice it to say that after an 18 month run volunteering in dog rescue, still a cause near and dear to me, I decided I would rather be quilting….so here I am! Then I made so many quilts that my husband said it is time to sell as there is no more wall space available. I live in central Pennsylvania where the mere idea of contemporary quilting is foreign to most folks. Sometimes I take my contemporary wall quilts into a local fabric store for show and tell. They are very respectful and express kind words but can’t seem to wrap their heads around quilts without patches and corners matching following traditional patterns. It takes awhile for them to figure out even how I put my quilts together!
I’m self taught, compliments of several books which were invaluable. My favorite books in this journey into contemporary quilting have been:
Liberated Quiltmaking II by Gwen Marston
Quilting Modern by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pedersen
Rule Breaking Quilts by Kathryn Schmidt
New Cuts for New Quilts by Karla Alexander
I started by making similar projects from the books (I was never good at out and out duplicating). I always would think “well, what would happen if I tried this….” The freedom to think way outside the box fascinated and intrigued me as I’ve never been very compliant in my life. Sort of like the young child who is always asking “why not this way?”
Now that our adult children are successfully launched, I took over one of our upstairs bedrooms and turned it into a sewing studio. One year after retirement , about 3 years ago, my husband surprised me with a Bernina 230. This was a HUGE step up from my 35 year old Singer but as I explored quilting and especially free motion quilting, I decided I really wanted a different machine. Today I sew on a Bernina 750 and love it!! Of course, that local fabric store is also a Bernina dealer and lucky me, it is 3 miles from my house.
So that is a thumbnail sketch of how I got into contemporary quilting which is now a passion, a hobby, and a retirement business.