It really shocks me when someone asks me how long I've been making quilts and I do the math in my head and realize it's been 40 years.  When I began making quilts in the 1960s I made traditional patchwork designs.  In the eighties I began making crazy quilts and I began making fulled wool quilts in 1997. 

I've always wanted my quilts to be used and to be sturdy.  My mother still has the first quilt I made when I was twelve (and it is UGLY!  Or more specifically, the fabrics in it are ugly.  Not much variety back then like we have today.)  And I've always loved my sewing machine, so from the very beginning I made machine sewn quilts, sometimes machine tacked or machine quilted.

Over the years I've developed my own style of quiltmaking; I call it low stress quilts.  I call a quilt design a low stress design if it is
     easy to figure the yardage,
     easy to cut the fabrics,
     easy to sew,
     easy to change the dimensions of the quilt (even if you are halfway through it),
     easy to care for it (durable) and
     easy to repair it.

Usually I make scrappy quilts (stash-slashing quilts I call them).  A scrap quilt is easy to figure the yardage, easy to increase the yardage if you want to make the quilt bigger and they are easy to repair (since you don't have to match specific fabrics).  They also tend to show wear and fading less than quilts with just a few fabrics in them.

I also like designs that can be easily varied to look radically different.  I tell my students to make each quilt design 3 times.  The first time you will encounter most of the problems, the second time you make it you will be familiar with the construction and it will go quicker and easier.  But it's the third time you sew it when you will get adventurous...maybe try a more expensive fabric, vary the design, change a border or somehow change it to make it your very own. 

An example of my “make it three times” philosophy is my Almost Amish Trip Around the World quilt to the left. I have made six variations on the classic Trip Around the World to date. In this variation all I have done (simple sewing remember!) is to insert a narrow black strip between all the rows of squares. I have left the corners areas open, a large black area, where I have done intricate feather stitching quilting in multicolored thread.

If you want a peek into my designing process, click here.

I will be posting more photos on this page as I get better at using my digital camera and at working these webpages!