People often ask me how and when I became interested in quilting. It is a long story that began when I was a small child my mother showed my older sister and me her self-taught sewing methods. Although her methods were irregular, her products were good and she could sew anything: clothing, aprons, curtains, and re-upholstered furniture. I spent many hours making clothing and accessories for my dolls and animals, then for myself. From my dad, I learned to measure, take apart and recombine materials. He was a self-taught woodworker and Mr. Fix-It. My interests became eclectic.

My 9th grade high school class was required to take vocational tests, choose an occupation to research and report on it. I discovered Occupational Therapy, an area that combined my love of using my hands to create and my interest in working with people. A lifelong career was born. My college curriculum included working with a variety of media. The more tactile ones like clay and weaving, were far more satisfying than others like metal work and drawing. I found it easier to adapt a design than to create a new one.

In the mid-eighties, when I was working as an Occupational Therapist in the Belmont School system, a kindergarten teacher organized an Eleanor Burns Quilt In A Day workshop. I arrived with my array of red, white and blue fabrics to make a Trip Around The World quilt for my then 9-year-old son. I was hooked even though the twin size quilt was NOT a quilt in a day! That quilt, polyester filled, backed with a flannel sheet, and tied, was lost during my son’s 2002 move back to Watertown.

Since that time I have branched out. Being curious and distractible, I have tried many techniques. I have learned to hand and machine piece, hand and machine quilt, hand and machine appliqué. I have tried paper and foundation piecing, appliqué and reverse appliqué, and stained glass.

Over the last few years I have been working in, and teaching classes at a quilt shop and I love to see the excitement on the faces of the customers and students as they create something, often for the first time. Quilting brings out a variety of emotions; frustration, joy, awe, a tremendous feeling of satisfaction.