My sisters and I have been sewing since childhood. Today we challenge, critique, and propel each other artistically. My sister Patty Pirog created wool art inspired by Deanne Fitzpatrick’s “Two of Us.” I imagined Patty’s creation into Inspired by Sisters.” It depicts our journey of strength, support, and friction-but always there is love. My quilt is machine pieced and quilted, with felted wool embellishment.

My husband’s second niece asked me to make her a heirloom quilt. She picked to pattern and colors. Quilt pattern used: Snowflake by Laundry Basket Quilts, Edyta Sitar

Main Fabric:
Ballerina Fusion by ArtGalleryFabrics and misc purchases from Etsy
Background and binding from Quilter’s Dream Loveland and Stitches of Johnstown
Quilting Design: Verdant by Christy Dillon, mycreativestitches.net
Machine pieced, appliquéd, quilted by Jerri Huval

This Healing Art Quilt was submitted as a Stitched2Heal collection, to our Ohio Art Council jury for registered approval as a research and studio artist. Pictured is my Godfather, an Alabamian Scholar and graduate of a historical black college as a football athlete. He has aged to 91 in this photo, and was incapacitated  after a series of knee and hips surgeries. It was sized to serve as a lap quilt wrap, about the lower body, and to cover the area of the rehabilitation unit bed. It was inspired from the four generations of healing quilt traditions, from my childhood years with my great grandmother. Two authors have published and documented similar traditions, and contributed to my research statements presented before the Ohio Arts Council juries. I included the research and work of Gladys-Marie Fry (Stitched from the Soul), and Lisa Gail Collins (Stitching Love and Loss), for my art program narrative.  The “Jesus Peace Garden”, quilt textile choices and colors,  reflect his African identity with native Ghana Clothes, and the plants and flowers of his beautiful home, he shared with my Godmother. Now, deceased, the healing art quilt is shared and traveled with his second generation and friends. It is a joy to age in my retirements with healing art quilt traditions and events with my parents sacred elder friends and various community art programs.

This quilt is a reimagining of an artwork I made in college. Inspired by the idea that we are all made up of the hurts and repairs of our past, the original Imperfection, Trust, Takotbuso Cardiomyopathy was a glass anatomic heart that I intended to break and then bandage back together. I spent so long making the glass heart perfect that I couldn’t break it. Instead the glass heart was exhibited with a gold bow on it. As I have delved deeper into quilting, I came up with the idea for this quilt to better reach the intended message of that project. I found a pattern for an anatomic heart and then made it out of pieces of jeans that I had visibly mended and which had worn out again. In this way, the heart is made up of all the pain and repair of the past. The quilting is all by hand in little Vs which I would often doodle in my notebooks in college.

If asked to share my story, my response would be, “which one?” I have many stories that relate to my many identities. I am a female scientist (specifically in the fields of geology and oceanography) and an educator. I am someone that enjoys researching maritime history and recording oral histories. Beyond my professional life, I am a crocheter and quilter, and a huge fan of national parks and basketball. And there is so much more about me that just didn’t make the cut into this quilt. But none of these identities are separate – all are woven together to represent just a small snapshot of me and my stories.

Childhood for me was marked by moves around the midwest; pinpointing memories by where I was and what I read. Between the ages of ten and fourteen my best friend lived on Plover Lane and I lived on Swan Avenue. During Laura Loewen’s “Mind’s Eye View” workshop I mapped out the importance of this place and time. A way of seeing things for how lucky I was instead of how shattered life had become.

I was at work when my phone rang
“Mom is in the hospital”

Doctors told me
Mom showed signs of

“Cognitive decline.
She cannot live alone.”

I packed Mom’s suitcase,
Put her cat in a carrier, &

I drove Mom and her cat
To my home in Virginia.

I became Mom’s caregiver.

This quilt describes how my journey as a caregiver began in the summer of 2015. My mom was on a road trip with friends when her behavior became erratic and she was admitted to hospital.

Becoming a caregiver was a sudden event, like a car crash. As a wife and mother, I juggled home life and a full-time job. The additional role as caregiver suddenly became a priority. I faced several challenges and I had so much to learn about navigating senior healthcare and managing mom’s finances which consisted of social security income – there was usually more month than money. After a series of tests, mom was diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia.

Over time, I learned how to advocate for my mom’s care. In 2019, mom passed away at the age of 77.

Being mom’s caregiver fundamentally changed me. Now, I’m more aware of senior citizens when I’m out and about. If I notice an older man or woman in a parking lot with a facial expression that says ‘now, where did I park the car?’ I make eye contact, approach softly, and offer to help.

I had donated a few quilts for Ukraine through “Wrap the World With Quilts”.

When browsing YouTube, I found Olta’s Quilts (she Ukrainian) online and loved her work. I particularly liked her “Askania” quilt. I had never seen the free form method she used before.

I wanted to use my geologic fabric, and thought it would be a good fit, so I tried it. It was challenging as it was freeform cutting the fabric, and I set it aside several times, but finally finished it late 2025.

I’m so happy I pushed myself to try something new and to find her wonderful YouTube videos! I honor her strength as she continues with her quilt art in the midst of the war.

I learned to quilt 20 years ago when I retired and moved to North Carolina. I always
enjoyed sewing clothing and home decor, but back then I knew nothing about 1/4 inch
seams or fat quarters! I soon discovered a “tribe” who could teach me endless
techniques and I genuinely feel that learning how to quilt was instrumental in building a
wonderful group of like-minded creative friends.

“Birds of a Feather” was made as a challenge among members of my quilt bee and I
think it represents my growth as a quilter and also the concept of developing skills
supported by community.

Our South Asheville Bee has been in existence for over 15 years. Of course, members come and go with life changes, but it’s been a wonderful way to share encouragement and creativity. Everyone is generous with their time and talents, and through the years have become dear friends.

“Birds of a Feather” is my own design and represents my preference for making small
wall hangings instead of bed quilts. Fusible appliqué, machine quilting, embroidery and
other embellishments add to the whimsy of this little piece.

In the late 1990s I set out to create an Indian Orange Peel Quilt using Karen K. Stone’s foundation-pieced pattern. I pulled together scraps collected from every corner of my creative life: fabrics from quilts made as early as 1983, pieces from children’s clothes, bits leftover from competition quilts, and colors that once lived on my sewing table. By 2005, the quilt top was nearly complete—just one last border waiting patiently for its turn—when life called for a move. I packed the quilt top, the pattern, and all the carefully chosen border fabrics into a box.

In 2025, nearly forty-two years after the oldest fabrics were first stitched into other creations, I finally decided to let the project go. I decided to donate it to my quilt guild.  However, a friend had other plans. When she found it in the donation pile, she said, “You can’t donate that! Take it home and finish it.”
In September 2025, I unfolded it again for the first time in twenty years. The moment the fabric opened across my hands, a wave of emotion washed over me. Every print, every color, every tiny stitch unlocked a memory. Quilts I had made and gifted. Clothing I had sewn for my children—children who now have children of their own. Prize-winning show pieces. Experiments. Triumphs. Quiet moments. All of it stitched into this single waiting quilt.

By the end of October 2025, the quilt was finally complete.  As was a piece of my life.

When my sister-in-law, Susan Lau, went through her mother’s estate, she selected linens that held memories for her and asked me to make a quilt out of them. The items included a damask table cloth, assorted napkins, thin hankies, doilies, and table runners. I selected an assortment of items, fussy cut sections, and appliqued them to a section of the damask tablecloth to create a quilted wall hanging. I suggested that she use the piece to display some of her mom’s jewelry and/or her own pins. This is her thank you note:

November 28, 2019

Dear Margaret,

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the beautiful wall hanging made from my Mom’s treasured linens. I will think of her, and of you, every time I see it hanging on the wall.

Love, Susan

I made this quilt as a hopeful response to my own long experience of chronic illness, but I don’t think the quilt’s text applies only to me.

The piece borrows from Kantha and Boro traditions of patching treasured but worn fabrics with more fabrics, which then over time and with more use, become more worn and require more patching. The cycle goes on: with enough care, there is no such thing as “worn out.”

Designed and created for Sherri Lynn Wood and South Florida Modern Quilt Guild Make Do Quilt Challenge.

Machine pieced using denim saved over 30 years from my college years added to denim from my youngest son’s high school castoffs when he went to college. The legs of the jeans are perfect to make the long diagonal strips.
Butterflies improv pieced with elongated triangle leftovers from paper piecing with Moda Ombre Fabrics.

Hand Big Stitched using #5 Artfabrik hand-dyed variegated thread by Laura Wasilowski purchased many years ago. Butterflies quilted flying every which way reminds me of our visit to the Santa Cruz Natural Bridges Butterfly Preserve.

Wide binding pieced with denim and ombre fabrics. Wider on the back so big stitch stitched closed from the front.
Back pieced with butterfly stash fabrics and larger Ombre butterflies. Hand embroidered label so it will last forever.
Received Judge’s Choice award at 2018 QuiltCon.

When thinking about this challenge I wanted use words that would describe me as a person to someone that may not know me. I also wanted to incorporate things that I love using as an artist, such as bright colors, embroidery stitches, hand quilting, and using embellishments. I have a Koi pond which gives me enjoyment and peace. I also have cats and they are very important as they are my constant companions.

I have been very fortunate as an artist to be able to express myself in my art quilts.