About Mary

Like most women I learned to sew under the watch of my mother. I made doll clothes and then I made my own, starting with a hand crank machine, which I still own. I made my prom dresses and my wedding gown, but then it all was put on hold for a career teaching about the Environment, and when motherhood gave me 2 boys I stopped sewing. It wasn't until I purchased a memory quilt from the Cancer society in 2006 that I seriously looked at quilts. As my father taught all his children I immediately said “well I can do that!” After I made a quilt for everyone I knew, (and bought a long arm at Creative festival) I ventured into free motion quilting on the domestic. That evolved to sketching trees and animals.

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I love colour and I love nature. I've tried many techniques, self taught over the years. I had to learn to deconstruct a scene in order to put in the details I wanted. I created short cuts for thread painting to control the deformations that plague that method. Though it took a while, I fully embraced raw edge appliqué in all its forms from large pieces to snippets, collage to confetti. I paint a lot of my own fabric. I started doing that for background scenes but now the fabric is often featured in my work. I still make quilts, but now I look for hand quilting projects. When I think I'm getting stale, I have a great fibre arts group of women who love to push me to try different things.