MEET THE NIGHT QUILTER

9. What’s your 3 favourite quilts that you’ve made that reflect who you are as a quilter?

I think that my three favorite quilts now will definitely change as I make more quilts “for me”. So far, the vast majority of my quilts have been gifts, which limits my design and style influence a bit. I try to make quilts that the recipient will love, even if their style is different than mine. That said, here we go.

The first is the Irises wall-hanging I made for Grammy June. She was the quilter in the family, and a key influence in getting me quilting. She always told me, “Don’t you ever let anyone tell you what you can’t do. They don’t know you. They don’t know you can do anything.” She gifted gorgeous quilts to everyone in the family, but I never remembered her receiving a quilt. I really wanted to make her one, but knew my time was limited (both due to my motherly duties and because she was sick at the time and as she said, “on her way out”). She loved the color purple, and born in June I though irises would be the perfect flower for her. This wall hanging was my first paper piecing attempt, my first time doing free motion quilting, and my first time using a piping binding. She loved it and I loved that she loved it. It reflects the gift-giver side of my quilting. I love putting my love into something a loved one can touch and see and snuggle. Their face when they open it, especially my mentor quilter grammy, makes it allllll worth it.

My second favorite quilt is still a work in progress. It’s the first quilt I’ve ever made for myself, and therefore I think it reflects my “style” well. I love the play of color, as well as the balance of low volume/white fabrics and primarily black fabrics. I can’t wait to finish it, but of course it gets put on the back burner any time I’m working on a gift, or at the moment, Halloween costumes! It’s called Star Crazy, and it’s (in my opinion) a modern twist on a traditional pattern.

My third favorite is a tie (am I allowed to do that?) between my lupine paper pieced block, which I designed and pieced, and the quilt I made for my friend’s baby girl Lillian. I’m proud of the Lupine block because I think it’s a fairly advanced paper piecing pattern made simple and it turned out exactly how I had imagined it. Lillian’s Quilt is a good representation of my FMQ potential. It is the first “large” (at 50”x50”) quilt I’ve fully FMQed and I went crazy (seriously, crazy. Check out the detail shots on my blog).

10. If you weren’t a quilter, what other creative endeavour would you like to master?

I would love to master photography. Even as a quilter, I’m hoping to improve my indoor photos. If I weren’t a quilter, I’d love to master portraiture and pretty much all photography. Beauty is everywhere! I already love to take photos, especially macro photographs of nature. I include my photos in my blog as added quilt inspiration in the form of Color Inspiration Thursdays. I would LOVE to learn more about photography and fine tune those skills!

Is there anything else that you would like to share with my readers?

I think I’ve babbled quite enough. A tad bit more about me is that I’m a wife & mom to two darling children (with another on the way!). I grew up in suburban New Jersey, but now live in rural Maine on 9 acres with a bunch of chickens and a big garden. I LOVE the country and gorgeous Maine, even the snow!