You can read my speech which gives you a little bit more of who I am!

What an afternoon.  Look around at all of this Arizona talent here in this room!!

I am truly humbled to among the artists and supporters of our wonderful quilting community.  Community is a word I covet as it’s a very important part of my quilting and life experience.  If it weren’t for my communities, I wouldn’t who I am.

So, Jan Hackett said to me in a recent conversation:, “We don’t know who you really are.  You need to tell us.” 

I know I only have a few minutes to give you an overview of 46 years with a needle and thread, but here I go.

Unlike many of my fiber friends, I can’t say that I sat with family who taught me everything.  But they did pass along the sewing gene from a distant uncle Jakie who was a tailor in Russia in the 1800s.  Suffice it to say I was self taught after I asked for a machine when I was 11. 

So my mom and I can’t remember why I wanted that 1972 Singer but I taught myself to sew.  Then I took a break, headed for Penn State,   majored in Logistics which was transportation and warehousing then worked for a truck leasing company.  Everyone hopes they use their degree and I am happy to say I certainly did:  Transportation helps me get from LQS to LQS and warehousing? Isn’t that another word for Stash???

Then came 25 years of being a stay at home mom and moving from Philadelphia, to Cleveland and then here in Arizona .  (sewing along the way of course).   When I landed here in the desert, my daughter and son were in school full time, so I looked up the fabric shops in the phone book.  Yes, the phone book, it was 1999, you know!  

I found the Quilted Apple “all the way down on 24th street!”  to buy material for my functional sewing. Then Sew from the Heart and Bernina Connection. I saw these shops as fabric stores not quilt shops.  I didn’t quilt.

Quilts weren’t something I really had any interest in. it wasn’t even on my radar. I was a purely functional sewer, Home dec and girls clothes.  I bought a little stack of cute squares once but didn’t know why!

After seeing some of the bags and knitting accessories I started to make,  a friend encouraged me to sell at local craft markets, and then at Tempe Yarn and Fiber where I designed my first pattern.   Then one day while having my machine serviced, I popped into a presentation by Marla Hattabaugh and I saw a different kind of sewing. This was Quilting??? No "matchy matchy"?  Pandora’s box opened!

So I said “ I can do that!”   After a class with Judy Danz at Sew from the Heart,   I took another with Joan Salik at Bernina Connection.  Joan was my game changer!! The first one was a nine patch,  but I couldn’t just do this a nine patch.  I had to change things up a bit  -   improvised/broke the rules.  With her encouragement, of course!  (Still one of my favorites.)

But then came the class she taught with different way of thinking.  A little more relaxed.  No Rules at all?  Really? There were many things Joan had taught me , but the first was when I was trying to choose colors and which pieces to use, when she said, “Just throw the fabric  on the table and grab!”  The beginning of the beginning!  (also not to be forgotten was her advice to  “never put that ironing board near your machine.  Get your..self up !)

Then I began to teach myself the quilting skills.  .   Sometimes 5 lap quilts in a week and learning something new with each one.   Divine intervention connected me with the wonderful charity Quilts for Kids which has become the recipient for my giving quilts and for those created at my annual outdoor RV charity event every New Years holiday.

Since I brought up RVing, I want to tell you about my New Years event:  Picture this:  50 trailers, no power except for 4 outlets under a shared ramada space.  3 days of sewing in the outdoors Piecing quilt tops for charity.  Sometimes in the sun, two times in the cold with fingerless gloves, all times with smiles and fellowship.  One of my most proud of projects.

Another would be the Scottsdale Public Library partnership. In 2015 I was approached by the Scottsdale Library to present a one-day presentation on the Modern Quilt movement.  Along with Danny Heyen and other local artists and business owners including Alyssa Lichtner of Pile O Fabric we had a great night.  This led to my Co sponsored monthly meeting of “Not your mama’s Quilting”  where I led quilters through discussions, demos and sharing of more contemporary quilting themes and, most importantly, have made lifelong friends. 

Which leads me to the guilds.  Where would we be without them.  Fellowship, sharing, education! Guilds are my communities.   The first guild I actually joined was the Tucson Quilt Guild and I must admit that I joined this one initially because I wanted to take a workshop with Carol Taylor in 2012. 

But after the library program, the girls said, “YOU need to come to DELIGHTFUL!”

After I saw Marla’s Quilting and had Joan’s introduction to this new kind of quilting,  I looked up Phoenix Modern Quilting and somehow found a small group of seven women meeting in a house in Arcadia.  I popped in and knew it was a match.  From that point, this group of quilters has morphed at least 6 times in 6years and now has become a chapter of over 75.   I am so proud to say that I have been with them each step of the way.

I’m also proud to now be with the wonderful Delightful Quilters of the AQG and with the exceptional artists of the Mavericks.  (Oh, just a side bar of the AQG: they had a little quilt show this last spring where my first entered quilt won an Honorable Mention and Judges Recognition!)

And my newest guild.  Like every quilter here, and we all are artists, we make what we love and we create from our soul.  I am fortunate to live in a community with a thriving chapter of the National Pomegranate Guild for Judaic Needlework.   In this guild we aim to take our knowledge and traditions and share and pass them  from genereation to generation.

In between all this, my friend Danny introduced me to Carrie Bloomston our local phoenix artist and fabric designer 3 years ago. Carrie has included me into her village of sewists  where I’ve created patterns promoted by Windham Fabrics at Quilt Market.  One pattern was published in Quilt Scene Magazine.  Carrie also featured my RVing outdoor creativity in her Generation Q Magazine column.      “GO CREATE INSPIRE”, a subscription based blog, featured me as their monthly highlighted artist, too!

Have I gotten to the teaching part?  I have taught 8 year olds, teens as well as their moms feeding their love of sewing and showing them the excitement of sewing first,    skill second.    

Skills can be learned but interest and love for the art comes with exposure and enthusiasm from those who teach us.  I know I’m one of those who get really passionate when I’m teaching,    sometimes, too much.  .  There is nothing more amazing than seeing the faces of the more traditional quilters and piecers who take my improvisational piecing class and about an hour after they begin they get this “AHA HA “ moment and then kick into high gear!  It LOVE it!!

And here I am today, pleased to share that I will be joining amazing roster of international teachers at the Quilt Festival in Houston next month.  Doing what I love :  doing demos on the convention floor in the Open Studios!

My community is ever expanding! Let’s not forget about the wonderful people that I have met through social media as well as through my etsy shop where I’ve sent out many custom quilted bags  as well as kept our local yoga studios stocked with mat holders

I’ve realized that I haven’t really talked about my quilting, the art, how I see it, what makes me do what I do.  Here it is in a nutshell:  It’s the people around me.  They have such a profound influence on what I do.  Many times it’s from a challenge, from a request, for a charity or a show I’ve been asked present.  Even yesterday when  a local bike shop saw my items on etsy and asked to partner with me to make give-a-ways – keeping it local.  Connecting our communities once again.

What I do just seems so organic to me, this interaction, with friends, with fabric.  It just always seems to fit.  We all have that connection with something in our lives.  It just fits.  Yes, it can be like an addiction, a drug, the need to hear the machine hum or feel the thread or the nap of a fabric.  But it’s good.

What’s even better it when you have been given the freedom to do it. 

My mom and dad bought me that machine (with not lessons mind you! But I think that was a good thing!) They let me hang so many curtains in her house and hang little mini pillows on my bedroom walls!  And, of course, there was a string attached – a lifetime of free alterations!

And my husband, who like most of our partners, don’t mind when they turn at every corner in their homes, or RVs, and see something stitched, molded, welded, knitted, and, of course, quilted!    But most importantly,  he sits in those chairs or waits in the car when we say, “I’ll only me a minute, I promise!” 

And most of all, I thank him for the privilege to be a stay at home mom to our two creative children. He let me  hide in the basement sewing and  I would hear him say to Allison and Mitchell, “No, Mommy’s not home” and walk them past that closed door.

And to my friends, I thank you for being my biggest cheerleaders.

I’d like to thank Mary Lucille and Jan Hackett for their patience during this wonderful process and making me feel welcome every step of the way.

Thank you so much again for allowing me to be a part of this fantastic Arizona quilting community and the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame.

But I will leave you with a few of the mottos I share to all my fellow sewists: 

Don’t always plan your work…You can always wait to see happens when the needle hits the fabric.

Batiks and browns can be modern!

Patterns are merely a suggestion!

And

Don’t fall in love with your fabric…fall in love with your work.

Thanks you so much again!

Speech - AZ Quilters Hall of Fame                                                          September 26, 2017