FIFTHSTONE LLC
SANTA ROSA BEACH, FLORIDA

on Craftsy just waiting to teach me! My family may have given me the initial foundation, but my quilting skills are the product of the internet age. Our online community provided me with free and paid resources that were invaluable in my journey and learning process. My mother taught me to sew on her machine when I was around 5 years old. I began helping her sew clothing and my early independent sewing while in elementary school was for my dolls. I learned to make clothes and eventually made most of my clothes while in college and in my early professional career. My first piecing project was to cut squares of Pendleton wool scraps and sew them together to make a maxi-length skirt. My first quilting project was to hand quilt a whole cloth doll quilt I had made for my mother’s antique doll bed. I later sewed clothing for my daughters and a variety of home decorator projects. After our oldest daughter, Rachel, returned from a deployment to Iraq and began quilting, it didn’t take me long to catch the quilting bug. I was three years out from experiencing an aneurysm rupture in the basilar artery of my brain and was still struggling with being unable to work. As a retired college professor and former executive director of a professional academic organization, I needed something to give me a creative outlet. I needed to be productive. I fell in love with Rachel’s modern quilting projects. My sweet husband, Joel, helped me convert our sunroom into a quilting studio where I currently store my quilt fabric library, plan and piece quilt tops, and sometimes quilt on my favorite sewing machine, the Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.2. On our periodic trips to Rachel’s home, I enjoy using our wonderful Innova 22 to do edge-to-edge quilting on my recent quilt tops. It’s so satisfying to select a quilting pattern that enhances the pattern and fabric of my quilt top to complete its message of love.