When I decided I wanted to learn how to make quilts, I bought a book, “Country Quilts in a Day” by Fran Roen. It promised quick and easy techniques. My earliest quilts came from that book. Of course, as a beginner, I never accomplished a quilt top in a day, but I taught myself some of the techniques and over the years, bought more books and magazines and learned a lot. I did take a class offered at a quilt shop to learn how to do the “Stack and Whack” method of cutting identical shapes from several layers of fabric which I used to make several of the quilts in this show.
My early quilts lacked a lot in terms of choice of fabrics and precision, but I was quickly hooked.
I never had the patience to learn how to hand quilt, but in 1997 I bought a Long Arm quilting machine and was able to teach myself how to use it. That made the quilts look more like quilts and less like comforters.
I used “Quick Quilts from the Heart” by Liz Porter and Marianne Fons for Stars and Stripes Forever, Snoozin with Snakes, Hourglass, and Desert Mirage. Their magazines over the years gave me many other ideas. The Stack-n-Whack method is Bethany S. Reynolds’ and I got Maile’s quilt from her second book, “Stack-n-Whackier”. Because of my efforts at downsizing, I have given away many of the books and magazines I used over the years, and I did not do a good job of documenting as I went along, so have lost track of others I should be citing.
These quilts are not for sale. After the show, they will be returned to the friends and relatives to whom they were originally gifted.