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Taiwan Quilt Festival – Taipei – November 2025 – Intro
2025 was such an amazing year. I was so honored to be invited to show my work as a featured artist and speaker, at the Kyoto Quilt Festival in March 2025. This opened more doors and I was again honored to show my work in a gallery at the Taiwan Quilt Festival in November 2025. At both events I spent time with talented artists from Korea, Taiwan and Japan. After so many years attending the Tokyo Quilt Festival at the Tokyo Dome (since 2008, to the last event in Jan 2020), I missed seeing those beautiful Asian quilts, and I missed my beautiful Asian quiltmaker friends! So these 2 trips…
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2025 – Annual Review
Today we had our annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest and Holiday Party for staff at eQuilter.com. We feel so lucky to have such a great crew to help us run the company. Plus they are a lot of fun during the holidays. This is not the whole staff, but it includes those who pulled out their Xmas sweaters for the annual event today. 2025 has been a busy year. As I have pursued more of a full time art career, on top of still having some duties as owner of eQuilter.com, my schedule has been very full. This year I gave 7 lectures, attended 2 weeklong retreats, was the featured…
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Pro Tips for BERNINA Q 20
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I sew on a BERNINA Q 20 and I just love sewing on this machine! Over the last year with the inevitable trouble-shooting that comes with pro-level sewing, I have learned a lot about how to keep my machine happy. I make art quilts with fusible applique, and I live in a dry climate, so I’ve had to experiment and make some adjustments to how I work on this machine. I compiled this list of tips for another pro quilter who works on a Q 20, and I got permission from BERNINA to share this list. Here we go! 1. Tune Your…
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Proud to be a BERNINA Ambassador
I am proud to be a longtime BERNINA Ambassador. When I joined in 2003 I met people like Libby Lehman and Yvonne Porcella, who befriended and mentored me. Over the years I’ve had 10 different BERNINA machines, and currently I sew on a B 790 and Q 20 – the sitdown model. 2003 was my first year in the BERNINA Fashion Show. Imagine my delight when my entry ended up on the cover of the show book! In 2006 I was invited to attend the ambassador trip to Switzerland, where we toured the factory, had cocktails at the owner’s villa, traveled to textile and lace museums, and….ate a lot of…
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World Animal Day
Last week we lost an angel on Earth – Dr Jane Goodall. Then Netflix released the interview with Jane – “Famous Last Words”. I am sure you have heard about it by now, and I hope you can take the time to hear the final interview with her. The first half she talks about her early life. The second half she speaks plainly about what is happening on our precious planet. And at the end she looks straight into the camera and gives us a message that will resonate differently, but deeply, with each of us. The interview was recorded with the knowledge that it would not be shown until…
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Kyoto Quilt Festival – March 2025 – Part 2
In March 2025 I was invited to show my work in a solo gallery at the Kyoto Quilt Festival, which was held in the Miyako Messe – the Kyoto International Exhibition Hall. This large building also houses the Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design. Adjacent to the entrance to the quilt show, was an exhibit of kimonos presented by the craft museum. The exhibit was named “Enjoying the Seasons #14”. Quilt and textile artists are always keen to study kimono exhibits, because the traditional techniques are such an inspiration to us. Shibori detail of plum blossoms in this cream, gold, red and black kimono. The Japanese color aesthetic is often…
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Two Quilts for Durango
I have just returned from Durango Colorado, where I attended the opening reception for the SAQA “Balance” exhibition. My art quilt “Stardust Mothers” is in this exhibit, which will travel to other venues over the next couple years. “Balance” will be at the Durango Arts Center until August 30, 2025. Originally this piece was made for Sacred Threads in July 2022. Then it traveled to a quilt festival in France, another quilt festival in Birmingham U.K., and then spent 9 months at the DAR Museum in Washington DC. It was part of my solo gallery at the Kyoto Quilt Festival in March this year, and now will travel with “Balance”.…
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Kyoto Quilt Festival – March 2025 – Part 1
This is the first of a 3- part blog post about my trip to Kyoto. Last fall I started getting mysterious messages on Facebook from someone in Japan who I had never met. Eventually these messages were inviting me to show my artwork at the Kyoto Quilt Festival, which I had never attended. Fortunately, due to my many years of attending the Tokyo Quilt Festival, I was able to find a mutual friend to communicate with the show organizer Reiko to translate the messages. I didn’t want to presume….but I must admit I was delighted when I could eventually accept the official invitation…..and received the event flier listing me as…
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Kyoto Quilt Festival 2025 – Prologue
Having recently returned from the Kyoto Quilt Festival, I wanted to share some of this experience with you. But also I’d like to share the context of this event. During the early 1980s when I lived in Hong Kong working as a fashion designer, I often went to Osaka to source textiles. I did not have a chance for sightseeing, and mostly experienced a male-centered industry in smoke-filled offices. Starting in 2008, I started to travel to Japan again, to attend the Tokyo Quilt Festival. Honestly, it became an obsession, and I saved up my Star Alliance points all year to get a ticket to Tokyo. Eventually there was a…
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The NASA Connection
In 2016 I made two quilts for the exhibit “Fly Me To The Moon“, organized by Susanne Miller Jones. They premiered that Fall at the Houston Intl Quilt Festival. The quilts traveled 2016 – 2019, but the exhibit I remember most was when a small group were chosen to hang at the NASA JSC Visitor Center, along with artworks by rocket scientists and astronauts. It was at this venue that I met the quilting astronaut, Karen Nyberg. We had our photo taken together with a couple guys in patchwork astronaut suits. Later I met NASA seamstress Jean Wright, who has recently published a children’s book about her work. (Which we…