I
started quilting around 1978. Nearing completion of my Master Degree
in Psychology, a friend invited me to take an Adult Education class
with her in Orange County. We learned to piece a sampler quilt using
the lap quilting method, and I loved it from the start! Later I
taught classes from my home and made baby clothes and quilts on
consignment. My business was named The Calico Mouse. My favorite
projects were those making baby buntings for the newest member of
the family using an older siblings outgrown clothes. When I moved
north to Santa Monica for a "real" job I let the business go but not
my desire to make quilts.
All quilting ended when I returned to graduate school for my
doctorate in Clinical Psychology in 1983. Life became even more
demanding doing post-doc internships. Quilting was far far from my
mind until March 1989 when I passed the California State Boards.
Shortly after that I moved from Santa Monica to to live in Ventura
County and begin my practice there too. I met another psychologist
there who invited me to a local quilt guild meeting. It was here
that my quilting activities returned albeit once a month at first
and no other time was attributed to quilt making. At this guild an
opportunity to join a newly forming Quilt History Study Group came
about and I jumped on it. We met for half a day every month. Our
group was started and led by Shirley Bertolino from 1990-1996. I
give her the most credit for introducing me to this wonderful side
of quilting. Thank you Shirley. Today she is a certified judge and
long standing member of AQSG.
I began to collect antique quilts and textiles with intention to use
them as study pieces in 1990. By 1997, I began speaking about
antique quilts and women’s textile history and writing for
magazines. I have stopped counting the number of guild and museum
audiences I have had the pleasure to speak and teach with
nationally. A big moment for me was being invited to lecture on
quilt dating at the American Textile History Museum, in Lowell,
Mass. 2002. I have guest curated for small museum quilt exhibits and
subsequent learning programs for staffs and the public. For the
Stagecoach Inn Museum, Newbury Park, CA. , I developed and curated a
nine month series of antique quilt exhibits, showing a total of 212
quilts between Feb. and July, dating from the 1850-1950s. I did an
all day training on quilt dating for a chapter of a general antique
appraiser's organization's CEU program in 2006.
My main interest is quilt and fabric dating, and the history of
times corresponding to the quilts being considered. In 2000 I
developed educational tours and lead groups of women to New England,
Montreal, PA and NY, to visit museums and learn the history of the
quilts in America. Starting that same year I wrote the ongoing
column, "Quizzing the Quilt Historian" for Traditional Quiltworks
Magazine, where readers sent in pictures of their quilts for dating
and discussion. 2001 brought my bi-monthly history column for the
online AOL newsletter Nine-Patch News, and the start of my own
educational website www.antiquequiltdating.com. I have a broad range
of style interests when making quilts, from reproductions to
art. My antique quilt collection is much greater than the number I
have made, or ever will, but I squeeze in a few a year usually. My
first blue ribbon was for a quilt juried into a fiber arts show in
Ojai, and the next was a machine quilted art quilt shown at Ventura
County Fair in the early 1990s, and another art quilt received a
ribbon from Pacific International Quilt Festival in 1997. A 1830s
reproduction quilt I made for an AQSG challenge was on exhibit at
the Primedia Gallery, Nov/Dec. 2002, the home office to Quilter's
Newsletter Magazine, Quiltmaker, and McCall's American Patchwork &
Quilting. The Challenge quilts traveled to several galleries and
shows around the US.
Researching quilt and fabric dating, collecting textiles and
studying quilts and women's history takes precedence over sewing for
me, but my ever growing stash would tell a different story!
Reproduction fabrics available today are just too wonderful to pass
up and when they are gone, they are gone, making new textiles as
precious as the old ones!
I
started quilting around 1978. Nearing completion of my Master Degree
in Psychology, a friend invited me to take an Adult Education class
with her in Orange County. We learned to piece a sampler quilt using
the lap quilting method, and I loved it from the start! Later I
taught classes from my home and made baby clothes and quilts on
consignment. My business was named The Calico Mouse. My favorite
projects were those making baby buntings for the newest member of
the family using an older siblings outgrown clothes. When I moved
north to Santa Monica for a "real" job I let the business go but not
my desire to make quilts. 
art. My antique quilt collection is much greater than the number I
have made, or ever will, but I squeeze in a few a year usually. My
first blue ribbon was for a quilt juried into a fiber arts show in
Ojai, and the next was a machine quilted art quilt shown at Ventura
County Fair in the early 1990s, and another art quilt received a
ribbon from Pacific International Quilt Festival in 1997. A 1830s
reproduction quilt I made for an AQSG challenge was on exhibit at
the Primedia Gallery, Nov/Dec. 2002, the home office to Quilter's
Newsletter Magazine, Quiltmaker, and McCall's American Patchwork &
Quilting. The Challenge quilts traveled to several galleries and
shows around the US.