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1. Your quilts have a lot of detail and wonderful surprises to catch the viewer’s eye. Can you explain the process you go through when designing one of your quilts?
 Hiding little details for viewers to discover is like a game to me. It helps wile away the 400-800 hours I spend on making each quilt. Design is one of my favorite classes to teach. After factoring in basic design principles, it is all about the story telling for me. I start making my major characters first. (Most people start in the background first.) Then I think about the supporting cast or landscape accents. After I have all of these free objects made, I begin appliqueing small sections together. This is the same approach most piecers take when attaching one block to another.
2. What applique techniques do you use?
 I am passionate about hand applique. All my edges are turned under and appliqued usually with silk thread. In my workshops I teach machine, fused and hand applique. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. Hand applique is my way of honoring our tradition and the women who have gone before us. The serenity of hand work brings me a lot pleasure and I can take it anywhere.
3. What techniques do you use other than hand applique?
 My favorite embellishment is hand embroidery. I occasionally use beads, shells and feathers. Silk organza makes a wonderful overlay to create shadows and shading. If I love a particular print, but it comes in the wrong color, I will try over dying it with diluted fabric paint to get the color I need. I can sew simple piecing but generally piecing intimidates me.
3-D thread sculpture is a wonderful way to make branches, bushes and hair.. out of thread. Hoop up two layers of Tulle, with a water dissolvable stabilizer between the layers, draw an outline of the shape you need ( i.e. dragon fly wings) and then fill in the space with free motion thread work. Cut out the object, give it a bit of a wash to remove the stabilizer. Now iron or starch it into the shape you desire. Voila- a three dimensional sculpture.
4. Do you machine or hand quilt your guilts and what sort of patterns do you use?
 I am a scrappy quilter. Maybe the scrappiest of the scrappiest, as I go dumpster diving in others garbage cans. Thousands of tiny pieces simulate all the high lights and shadows you would create with brushstrokes. Sometimes I trim up the backs. Sometimes I don’t. Hand quilting would be hard through all of those layers, so I quilt on my Bernina. It can sew through anything. (Including my finger-twice.) In pictorial designs, the object is to enhance the natural contours and definition of your characters. Because every quilt has a story to tell, quilting adds one more place that you can add to the story line. Traditional Sashiko patterns are one of my favorite designs. Feathered Friends has 1/2 inch gridded basket weaving. NEVER again!
5. Where do you find your inspiration? Do all of the quilts just come out of your head?
 When I was young my favorite thing was to go out in the woods and draw pictures from my fairy tale books. Being a child of the forest, Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me with her diversity and wide-ranging color pallet.
Many people keep written journals of their lives. My quilts are a visual journal of many of the events in mine. I start with a sketch, enlarge it to the size of the finished quilt and begin making patterns for my individual characters.
6. Can you explain your Front to Back Approach to quilting? Most people start with the back ground first.
 The FRONT TO BACK approach has many advantages and works for hand, machine or fused applique. (For fused applique just fuse together the pieces of your focal objects. Leave the backing paper on, or use a pressing sheet and let the adhesive dry before peeling them off, ready to fuse later).
With Front to Back, you will NOT be committing hours to creating the background only to discover that your focal point gets eaten up by the background scene you spent hours creating. “ Not enough contrast” is the common culprit. The flip side is that the background has been made so lavishly that it upstages your star character . In a pictorial scene, ideally, everything compliments and sets off your focal point just as it would in fashion or home decorating. Finding fabrics for your focal object is a matter of luck and availability. When you have this figured out, begin auditioning the rest of the composition fabrics against your main idea. If you do not want to create an entire scene, consider elaborate quilting designs as a supporting cast. In Landscapes there is generally a focal area.
Another advantage of the front to back approach, is that the individual character elements are made as free objects (reminiscent of those felt cutouts on the flannel board). They are free objects, with the edges finished or raw depending on your technique of applique. Move them around on your design wall until they start talking to you. Mine always develop a mind of their own and move a bit from my original sketch. After making the gander for my star character, I started on simple elements of their habitat. No background muslin is used. There will not be any slippage between layers to bunch up during quilting. For landscapes, decide what will be your focal area. Start here first!
7. Many of your quilts have Silk backgrounds. Is it difficult to work with Silk?
 Working with silk presents challenges, but they are far outweighed by silk’s dramatic effect.
My favorite silk is Dupioni. It is a medium-weight silk, woven from two different threads creating an iridescent shimmer. Viewed from slightly different angles, it magically changes color. That shimmer enhances heirloom- style quilting when light bounces off the quilted texture. Less expensive than you might think, it comes in a wide range of jewel tones and is readily available online or at large fabric stores. Dupioni has a nubby irregularity to the weave that makes it more stable for quilting than lighter weight silks (which may need to fused with lightweight interfacing). For precision piecing, I recommend pinning silk to tissue paper first. Lay your template over the tissue and silk, creating a sandwich. Dupioni has a color “nap” so adjust your pattern layout to prevent color variations. To cut, use very sharp pinking shears or a rotary cutter with a new blade (straight or pinking) to prevent torn edges. To further reduce the risk of raveling, cut seam allowances slightly larger than one quarter inch and finish the edges with a small zigzag stitch. French seams or serged edges are also options. When sewing, use a single-hole throat plate and a new needle. The microtex sharp needle size 70/10 will slip easily between the fibers and create only a tiny hole. Never use a ballpoint type needle on silk. Even universal needles have a slightly rounded point, which can damage the fabric. Silk pins are nice but any sharp pin will work. If you pin your quilt sandwich prior to quilting, use new, small sharp safety pins. I have a box that I save just for pinning silk quilts. If your silk fabric slips during sewing, leave the tissue paper pinned to the pattern and sew the seams with the tissue paper in place. Gently remove the paper after sewing. Dupioni silk can be washed in cool water, preferably prior to cutting, as there is considerable shrinkage. Be sure to test for color fastness if the silk will be used for a bed quilt. Dupioni can also be dry cleaned. To avoid problems, give your dry cleaner a sample piece of the silk to test. But be aware that washing or dry cleaning will change the feel and shimmer of the silk.
Silk quilts beautifully! Avoid marking your top with any wax-based marker. No-mark free-motion quilting techniques or tear-away tissue paper are better options than marking. I use silk thread and low loft batting for best results.
8. How can I be more creative and more original?
 The Creative Process only works when you don’t allow yourself, or anyone else to make judgments about your work. It is a process! That process requires that we break rules, not make assumptions and try things in a whole new way. Creativity is closely associated with how open we are to new experiences. You cannot be creative if you hold on to perfection!! Give yourself one challenge for every quilt. Pick something you want to work on, i.e your quilting, depth and perspective, etc.. Push your self out of your comfort zone in that one area. It is only fabric. If your screw it up you will have learned something on the way. MORE often than not, a happy accident will occur and you have figured out something new.
Make time for that Creative process. It is proven to reduce Stress. While losing yourself and relaxing, you lower your Heart rate and Blood pressure, and you raise your Serotonin levels, which is like taking a slug of anti-depressants. That is why I quilt 50 hours a week, because it is healthy. Tell yourselves -you are doing it for yourself, your family and grandchildren. It’s true.
9. Are you still working as a nurse?
 Yes, there is much about nursing that I still love. I no longer work at the hospital because I cannot take my share of emergency call and be available to teach around the country for quild’s and conventions. So now I work per diem at a short stay surgery center in Everett, WA. Unless I am out of town teaching, I usually work one or two shifts a week.
10. How can you bear to sell your quilts, after spending hundreds of hours on them?
 They are like children to me. When they are raised and have taught me as much as they can, I let them go out into the world to someone who loves them as much as me. It is the process of discovery, tearing your hair out and the ah-ha moments of inspiration that compel me to keep quilting. My house would be a wash in quilts if I did not let them go. This is my first Grand baby, Hailey Joon.
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