Artist Profile

I am a fiber artist, quilt pattern designer, and quilting teacher.

Quilting started as my hobby, but has turned into a passion and a business. I teach quilting classes for quilt groups, and online at Joggles.com, and have published patterns for my original quilt designs through my company, Blue Moon River. Some of my patterns are carried by Moda/United Notions, Keepsake Quilting and Clotilde catalogs, and FatQuarterShop.com.

I love traditional hand quilting and needleturn appliqué, but have embraced innovative machine techniques. I started making “art quilts” — works of art executed in fabrics and fibers — in 2005. My quilts have won national as well as local awards, and have been exhibited at national and international venues. I have won six Best of Show awards at three different quilting guilds, with five different quilts.

My work has been featured in several national magazines. I am the author of Appliqué Petal Party (C&T Publishing, 2009) and have produced two DVDs with Quilting Arts: “Master Machine Quilting: Free-Motion Stitching and Thread Sketching” (2009) and “Master Machine Stitching: Thread Sketching Beyond the Basics” (2010). My series of six articles on thread sketching are running in Quilting Arts magazine throughout 2010.

I grew up in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, and earned my B.A. in English at Allegheny College (Meadville, Pa.) and my M.A. in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I now live near Charlotte, N.C., with my husband, Rob,
and two daughters.

See more on my website, http://www.bluemoonriver.com
and my blog, http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com