• Quilter
• Fibre Artist
• Garment Maker
• Knitter
• Teacher

I have a very long academic CV – of absolutely no relevance for this blog. I’m a former teacher educator and university administrator. I briefly taught high school biology and special education classes. The futility of my being a classroom teacher was obvious from the get-go. I had more to offer teachers which I did for more than 20 years. I taught at Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent University; I was Dean of Education at University of Manitoba. I published quite a bit during my academic career. I worked with teachers and teacher educators in many countries.

Before becoming an academic, I studied classical guitar at the Faculty of Music U of T but at the time it was unthinkable for a woman to make a career as a solo performer. My real calling was to be a stage manager, I was very good at the organizing and juggling to keep a production on time, but in my youth there were no professional women stage managers. I attempted to become a hang gliding, later a paragliding, pilot but my osteoporosis put an end to that ambition.

Although I’ve sewn garments most of my adult life, I became a serious fibre artist in 2006 after I bought my first embroidery machine. My early quilts were simple baby quilts but it wasn’t long before my work became more complex.

My quilts are “modern” — I use a wide range of strong, colourful, mostly batik fabrics. I also experiment with large and small scale prints as well as solids and textured fabric. I use traditional quilting techniques (4-patch, 9-patch, half square triangles, drunkard’s path); however I use these methods of constructing quilts in non-traditional ways, turning the quilts into works of functional art. 

For me, quilting is improvisation — I start with some fabric and then explore ways of using it to create a composition built on colour, texture, design. Each new quilt is a challenge – an opportunity to extend my sewing, quilting, embroidery and design skills.

I also create fibre art. There are countless ways of doing both representational and abstract art using fabric and thread. Many of my wall art pieces are based on my own photographs. Each photograph is enlarged, sketched on paper, then the work is constructed from background to foreground using fabric as the medium. Each piece of fabric is stitched and thread painted as it’s added. Then I print the subject of the photo on fabric, fussy cut it, and finally appliqué it to the compiled background. The whole, once completely assembled is stitched even further to increase the density of the colour and to add texture.

In addition to photograph-based works, I do fused appliqué, thread painting, as well as other fibre art technique and styles. Flowers, landscapes, abstract themes all feature in my wall art constructions.

I love fabric and creating with fabric. I love the complex decision-making fibre art involves. I enjoy the challenge of using my sewing machine to create unexpected effects. I still find time to make embellished garments for myself, but most of my time is spent creating quilts and fibre art.

And I love passing on what I’ve gleaned about quilting and sewing and fibre art and garment making to anyone who wants to learn.