The Worms Crawl In...

I wanted to experiment with dimension on this quilt, and see what would happen if things broke the surface and went through the quilt. There are wholes in the quilt that the worms crawl through, you can see this clearly on the back of the quilt.


There are also a few shapes that are stuffed with several layers of batting. My good friend and surface designer Kathy McTee from Austin referred to one of these shapes as a cosmic steak. My worms really resemble nematodes, but that would not have made as nice a name.

26 1/2”x 28” 2000

Green Tea & Plum Wine

I made this quilt so that I could have a good surface to experiment with machine quilting. To avoid putting a binding on it I satin stitched the outside with thread. I like the look, but it took a long time to sew and a lot of thread. 32”x 34” 1999

Recycled Nine Patch

I had read about annealing metal and wanted to try it. I cut up several coke cans and held the metal over a candle flame outside (bad fumes). The aluminum became smoky and gold. When you heat metal evidently it goes through a molecular change and it becomes softer. So I took an old ballpoint pen that no longer wrote and drew on the metal. I poked holes down the sides so I could sew it. Using wire and beads I wove the metal squares with the quilted squares that I had sewn jump rings onto. 11” x 11” 1999

Wheel of Time

When I made this quilt, I wrote this prayer to go with it.

Mother Earth, Queen of Heaven,
we celebrate with your many names.

Within the earth that is your body,
the waters of your living womb,
the air that is your sacred breath,
and the fire that is your radiant spirit
life is born, grows, dies and is reborn.

Instill in us an awareness of
the cycles and rhythms of nature.
As seeds sprout in the spring,
so should the inspiration of new ideas.
From summers fiery heat we shall
harness positive energy and
celebrate the abundance around us.
When the days grow short in the fall
we will listen to the wise intuitive inner voice
and honor our feelings.
During winters cold days and long nights
we will acknowledge our bodies wisdom
and the healing power of dreams.
The moons celestial light and sacred dark
keep us in balance as our bodies cycle in harmony.

We will dance around the tree of life
listening to your leaves whisper words of wisdom,
and celebrate your abundant beauty.

this quilt is machine appliqued, hand dyed, hand painted, and machine quilted. 59" x 59" 1999
This quilt was used as the theme of a March of Dimes benefit in Austin, TX called A Stitch in Time, as the featured art is was auctioned off and half the proceeds went to the March of Dimes. I am very happy that it is in the collection of my good friend Frances Holliday Alford.

Joan of Arc

I think Joan of Arc was an interesting figure in history; courageous, spiritual, devout, used for political gain and wrongly condemned. Joan and the angels are painted with textile paints and colored pencil. All of the cloth is either painted or hand dyed, It is machine appliquéd, pieced and quilted.
42” x 49” 1999

The Create-her

Prior to the introduction of Judeo-Christian mythology in Europe, the early
agricultural peoples worshipped a god in female form. The creation myth of this early culture describes a Mother Goddess who creates a serpent to be Her mate, and tells the story of how they created the universe together. The four elements of creation are represented by the earth, water, air and fire around Her. Within Her womb the creation of the universe takes place

Appliquéd, and pieced hand painted quilt
40”x76” 1998

The making of There's a Place called Mars...

I thought I would share a kind of a step by step process of creating my Martian quilt. My last few quilts I have worked up my initial designs on the computer. I start by scanning in line drawings then arranging and scaling them on Photoshop. Once I have things the way I want them I decide on the size and print out the image full size by selecting tiling in the print dialogue box. I join all the sheets together using clear packing tape, this makes it nice and strong. I lay my PDF fabric over the top and tape it securely to the top edge of the paper. I can see quite clearly through my white fabric to trace the design in pencil onto the fabric. I leave my design under the fabric while I do my painting.

On this quilt I wanted it to have a soft atmospheric quality, so I decided to try the D’uva chromacoal powders. I cut freezer paper templates of everything on the quilt. I ironed down a freezer paper template around the weird rock shape to protect the surrounding fabric. Using a stiff stencil brush I applied the chromacoal powders.


I put in the reverse freezer paper templates to color the background. This all has to be heat set when done. I put it in the oven for several minutes at the suggested temperature.

I inadvertently got a grease spot on it from the oven and then had to paint in another floaty alien thing.

This orb is painted with tsukineko inks and the jellyfish below is painted with Jaquard Lumiere, and Setacolor textile paints.

After the painting was completed. I layered the quilt with wool batting and a hand dyed back fabric. Next I hand basted the heck out of it. Wool does not have a scrim and things can shift very easy while machine quilting.

I outline quilted the painted type to help it stand out. Silver paint didn't seem like enough for the space ship so I foiled the window.
I did not want a traditional binding framing the quilt so I chose to sew the binding on and turned it to the back.
Then I had my husband take some slides for me. When the slides came back the colors were more vibrant on the reds than the actual quilt. And I liked it better! It really started to bug me and so I put the quilt back on the table and pulled out a red Shiva paint stick. I found a sample scrap of fabric that I had used to experiment with the chromacoal powders for the planet surface and tried out the paint stick. It seemed to give me the color I wanted so I bit the bullet and re-colored the surface of my finished quilt. SCARY.

Then I got so bold as to pull out a purple Shiva paint stick to enhance the shadows on the Martian woman. I tried beads on the quilt in various places but decided the only place I wanted them was on the Martians helmet and one large one on the eye of the snake lying next to her.