Stitch Quilt

For this week’s #StoryBehindtheArt post, I am sharing the inspiration for my “Stitch” quilt, which was exhibited at World Quilt New England in 2019. I promise that it’s not the inspiration you are expecting. Though this quilt can be viewed as just a fun, graphic modern quilt, it technically belongs in my Protest Series. The […]

RIP RBG

Yesterday, I sat watching the Inauguration while I put the finishing stitches into my memorial to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In fact, I was tying the final knot as President Biden walked away from the podium after his speech. Seems fitting. At 65″ long, this quilt is slightly taller than Justice Ginsburg was herself, but the […]

2020 Year in Review

Oof. I don’t need to tell you that 2020 was a crappy year. With all of the stress of the year, the time spent making nothing but masks, and the months when I just couldn’t get motivated to create anything, I feel like I did no quilting this year. But, when I look back at […]

self portrait in fabric

“Fury”

Though there has been an awful lot lately that makes me so angry that I feel as if my hair is on fire and my head is going to explode, I actually began this self-portrait called “Fury” years ago. I was at a livestream event for TED 2018 where I saw Tracee Ellis Ross speak […]

Words "I can't breathe" embedded in rainbow stripes of crazy patchwork

Last Words 1

George Floyd, Eric Garner, and countless other Black people whose final moments went unrecorded, gasped out “I can’t breathe” as they died at the hands of police. The horror of that idea is only made worse by the knowledge that it is all too common, that the lives of Black Americans are not safe, and […]

Victims Quilt – Parkland, FL 2018

As we move into fall and past the back-to-school rush, it’s hard not to think about the most recent school shooting, the shooting in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day. Here is the finished Victims Quilt, memorializing those who died on that day.

Victims Quilt – Las Vegas 2017

I recently decided to change the way that I am doing the Victims Quilts. Rather than continue to create two enormous, unwieldy quilts that include multiple mass shooting events, I am separating out each event into its own banner. Here is the first, the quilt for the Las Vegas shooting in October of 2017. At […]

Victims Quilt – Sutherland Springs, 2017

Another long quilt hanging in my stair hall. I’ve finished the Victims Quilt banner for the victims of the Sutherland Springs, Texas church shooting in 2017. The quilt is 16″ wide x 102″ long and contains the names of the 26 people who died that day, including the six members of the Holcombe family.

Line in the Sand, 2017

Here’s the finished piece for the BirdZeed January Challenge. “Line” was the inspiration word.  For this piece, I began by thinking of phrases about lines: “Walk the Line,” “Tow the Line,” and “Line in the Sand,” which is the one that Robyn mentioned in her blog post about the Alamo in San Antonio. “Line in […]

Alternative Facts, 2017

Work on my unexpected protest series continued this week with a new piece called “Alternative Facts.”  I first created the letter blocks, sewed them together, and then slashed the top and resewed it over and over again. I captured the in-process pictures and created a 33 second video of them; if you’d like to see […]