“Quilting is the funnest part! My biggest goal is to encourage quilters to get over the fear and jump into free-motion quilting!”

For as long as I remember, I have always loved to draw. Nothing is more exciting than the unlimited possibilities of an empty notepad and a brand new pencil. I never took formal art lessons, I mostly just sketched things that I saw and “doodled” obsessively. But I put aside the pencils and paper when I became addicted to machine quilting.

My husband’s grandfather taught me how to quilt when I was 21, and he is the person that encouraged me to buy a quilting machine. Soon I was “drawing” with thread instead of pencils, and using my quilting to add a layer of art to a different kind of canvas, a quilt. I have been machine quilting ever since, honing my skills and reveling in the quilts that I am so fortunate to work on.

But my pencils were never too far away. In order to practice new quilting designs, I would draw them over and over again, filling sketch book after sketch book with different designs. Soon, it was less about practicing and more about creating new and different quilting designs. As that evolved, so did the little whisper in the back of my mind, “could these be fabric designs?” That little whisper became louder and louder until I finally used my quilting inspiration to create works of art that were able to stand on their own.

I so completely fulfilled, being able to express myself creatively through my quilting and through surface design. When I am not working away in my quilting room, I can be found with my husband and three kids. They keep me busy and laughing…sometimes at the same time. I am excited to travel down this next step of my creative journey with them. My life motto…..”The best is yet to come!”