ERNESTINE BRYANT – I have been a New Yorker for 45 years (by way of North Carolina). I was introduced to quilting by my grandmother and mother who did not quilt for the beauty of it, but rather by necessity. My first quilt was a baby quilt using squares contributed by family members in 1996. Then in 2002, a Christmas gift for my daughter and son-in-law was such a hit, I tried a double ring wedding quilt. Although it was not quite so successful, I did not give up and that started me on this road which I have yet to master. I enjoy seeing the final project and the surprises along the way. I also love doing new things and am trying to create my own quilt patterns. I used to sew my daughters’ clothes, but had to give that up when they discovered designer labels. Now everyone gets bed quilts for holidays. I retired six years ago from teaching at Ossining High School. I enjoy reading, traveling and my “grands.” And, of course, quilting.
JULIE
CANNELL – My
late mother was a hand quilter and her exquisite work took on a special meaning
upon her death in 2001. I was finally able to embark on my own quilting journey
last June in a class at the Country Quilter. As a long-time garment maker it
felt as if I’d come home, and within a few months a sitting room in our home
was transformed into a custom quilting studio. Time in this wonderful new space
truly brings me joy and I’ve been able to complete a 4-patch as well as quilt
tops of a triple Irish chain, a Kaffe Fassett design and a stack-and-whack. Now, to polish my
machine-quilting skills sufficiently to quilt my own creations! Growing up I
had the opportunity to live in the U.S. and Europe, but New York has been my
home since 1976. I am blessed with a terrific husband and three sons. After 20
years working on Wall Street, I started my own consulting business working with
the electric utility industry on investment matters. Small wonder that I’ve
gravitated to quilting!
JUDITH
HOFFMAN CORWIN – I am a graphic designer and author/illustrator of children’s
books. Creativecommunication has been the basis of my
career – everything from corporate identity for Xerox, NBC, the NYC Parks
Department, the UN and UNICEF to logo designs, greeting cards, posters, book
covers, as well as dolls and other designs for women’s magazines. Several of my
children’s books are illustrated with small quilts and sewn and appliquéd work.
I use machine and hand embroidery, hand-painted fabric and antique trim and buttons
in my work. I love creatures and usually include them in my designs. I use a
straight stitch as a drawn line and embroidery stitches for emphasis. I design
by feel and reason with a sense of delight and love to experiment with color
and design to transform fabric, thread, beads, buttons and embroidery into a
magical space. I am a professional member of Studio Art Quilt Associates and
Empire Quilters, Allied Artists and the Center for Book Arts. I currently have
a watercolor in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden exhibit and a quilt in the Williams
Club in an exhibit that celebrates the 10th anniversary of The City Quilter
shop in NYC.
NANCY
HEFFERNAN –
Although my mother was a quilter, she did not teach me to quilt, but obviously
instilled a love of fabric. As a result, the adult education class I took some
twenty years ago started me down this wonderful path, and I have been quilting
every since. I consider myself a traditional quilter and use all techniques in
my work. My colors are usually chosen on the basis of my current project and
its intended recipient. I am a freelance real estate paralegal, wife and mom of
two, Girl Scout leader, and my other passion is reading. Not too surprisingly,
there are never enough hours in the day to do all the quilting I would like.
BARBARA
POWERS –
Quilting is a very big part of my life in retirement. My four children are
grown and are raising their own families, all out of town. After taking some
classes in 1993, I set a goal of making a bed quilt for my three siblings (done),
my four children (done) and my eight grandchildren. I am presently working on
the third grandchild quilt and promise to bring the completed top in for “Show
and Tell.” I was slowed down by four major surgeries during recent years, but I
am happy to be able to come back for more fun at Village Squares. (Note:
Barbara won the Viewer’s Choice award at VSQ’s Quilt Celebration VI in 2000 for
her beautiful yellow reversible quilt-as-you-go quilt.)
MARION
GRAY started
sewing at age 11 and quilting in 1989. She loves everything about our craft,
but has a particular love for making very large quilts (king size) with very
small pieces (3½” squares). For the last few months she has been working on
emptying a closet full of scraps. She is a retired registered nurse and nursing
instructor and has one son. Welcome back, Marion.
It seems
appropriate to honor Viola Lull whose 89th birthday is coming up on April 20. Our Viola was born
in 1919 in South Dakota at which time only boys’ births were registered. When
Viola needed a birth certificate, affidavits were required from her mother and
aunt vouching that she really existed. Her life on the farm ended in 1926 when
the family moved to Nyack and later New City following the financial crash.
Married in 1922, Viola had 4 children and then became a teacher at a private
college prep school where she taught all grades except the first. Her final
working years were spent teaching high school math. Viola began quilting in
1980 and she has been making quilts ever since, many full-size, for her own
children, 6 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren (not to mention the dozens
she has made for VSQ Outreach). Her most recent was a Sunbonnet Sue for her
latest great grandchild. She was a founding member of the Village Squares, served
as Treasurer and participated in the Bedford Babies program for some years. In
addition, Viola has found time to knit, crochet, weave baskets, serve as an active member of the Memorial Union Methodist
Church and Interfaith. Her advice to us: Stay active and keep learning new
things. Her biggest problem now: How to say no to pleas for help!
Congratulations, Viola. We are very
lucky to have you.
Rosemary
Jordan: I grew up in Omaha, NE and eventually wound up in
New York where I met my husband, Richard. His boyhood friend married Theresa
Reilly (a former member of Village Squares). She became my best friend -- more
like a sister. She got me interested in quilting back in the 80's, and I've
been quilting ever since. I'm also a member of the Hudson River Quilters. I've
made bed quilts, crib quilts and wall hangings. One Christmas wall hanging was
in the December 1997 Quilter's Newsletter Magazine along with the article
"Looking Beyond Tradition" that I wrote about it. In the past I
always did hand quilting, but I'm now doing machine quilting. I think machine
quilting is fun and really lovely as well as fast. The speed is important to me
now. We have six married children. Five have their quilts, but I still have one
to do. And so far I've done only one full size quilt for our soon to be 16
grandchildren. I also love to read, and when I was younger I was a tutor in
English and Writing for SUNY's Empire State College. Now I play with
grandchildren and I quilt -- a lot!
Sandra
Parrott: Sandra is a transplanted mid-Westerner who has
lived in Westchester since 1979. She has been creating art as long as she can
remember and has studied (and done) printmaking, watercolor, photography,
collage and sculpture. Teaching at Westchester Community College and in various
adult education programs also has been a part of her life. Since discovering
quilting, less than a year ago, she has completed 8-20 art quilts and has been
accepted into the Mamaroneck Artists’ Guild as a fiber arts member (she has
been a member in other art fields for some time). Sandra has very quickly
become a dedicated art quilter and loves working in what is a new medium for
her. She is married and has one son and two grandchildren, 4 and 6.
Nancy Rice: Sewing and knitting have always been hobbies of mine, but it is fairly recently that I have started quilting, which I am really enjoying. Cary Lou Canfield and Viola Lull are friends of mine (that I met at Memorial United Methodist Church) who invited me to join the Village Squares Quilters. I am probably more traditional at quilting, although I am interested in learning and trying new things (as I said, I am so new to it that I am just learning). I like to use a variety of colors. I have mostly done smaller projects and have recently done some Christmas pieces — all of which have gone on to someone else! My paternal grandmother and aunt had great talents in sewing and at times used this talent as their means of support. I think my grandmother may have done a bit of quilting. I have lived in the White Plains for 24 years. My husband is a retired Methodist minister who hasn‘t learned to retire and who is currently doing an interim pastorate at the Park Avenue Church in Manhattan. We have 4 children (2 boys, 2 girls) all married and living across the US and 9 grandchildren. I am a retired registered nurse (last working at White Plains Hospital). We also have a family cottage on Cayuga Lake where we spend part of the summer. I like to travel — our most recent trip was a cruise through the Panama Canal, which was very exciting.
Linda Goldberg: Here it is! My life in rotary cutting! My first quilt, for my first grandson, I thought would be a snap...a few months later it had taken on an amoeba-like quality, the top and bottom separating inside creating an amorphous, deflated balloon. I tried to amend it, and the baby didn‘t mind my un-handiwork, but later (after several revisions), when the poorly chosen material (read: soft knit backing) started to shred, I had to de-struct, reconstruct and hope that the grandboy would like the =new‘ blankie which contained only a piece of his original one. Fortunately, by this time, I had taken a quilting course or two and had given up trying to quilt the way I drive: this can‘t be too hard, let‘s see where this takes us. To my relief, he loved it. Born in the Bronx, raised in Queens and a Westchester-ite for coming on 40 years, I have always done crafts. My mom started me on knitting while I was in elementary school and after a great sewing teacher in junior high, I made almost all my own clothes and had an alterations business locally in college. Since then, I‘ve done pottery, stained glass (another way of putting together pretty colored pieces), jewelry, scrapbooking, macramé, etc. For a while I tried to make my living doing pottery and stained glass, but found that turning a hobby into a business made it much less fun. Besides, I was just tooooo slow at them. I am a retired ESL (English as a second language) teacher and enjoy gardening, reading, and the usual spectrum of now- I‘m-retired activities. I found VSQ because of a flyer at the Mamaroneck Quilt Cottage advertising the 2008 quilt show at Solomon Schechter and ran into Paula Shamoian, my former BOSS from Mamaroneck Adult Ed. I‘m delighted that she encouraged me to join and look forward to more involvement over time.
Tamar Drucker: I‘m so happy I joined the Village Squares Quilters. It was fun to participate in the last quilt show and be honored with a ribbon — thank you. I was born and grew up in Israel and always loved to draw and sketch. After starting to work with young kids and starting my own family, I found myself drawn to work with fabrics. Back then I did something like appliqué and embroidery. Shortly after coming to the USA I met a friend who taught me the basics in quilting. I‘ve been quilting for the last 20 years. I‘m so happy that I have this hobby and a world of friends who share this passion. It is like oxygen to my life. I enjoy the process of researching and creating an idea, looking for the right fabrics and the sewing, and often have more than one project going. I mostly work with appliqué, traditional and/or raw edge to create pictorial wall hangings. I love hand quilting but find myself using machine quilting mostly because there‘s never enough time.Thank you for letting me join the group.
Toni Bernstein: I'm called
Toni, though my proper name is Antonia, and since I learned to knit at age 8, I
have always done craft stuff. I knitted for many a year, often designing as I went
along, tried my hand at weaving at The Penland School
in North Carolina, and began drawing classes until my arthritis blew out first
my right hand, and after I switched to drawing left-handed, blew that one out
too. Finding machine piecing has really done wonders for me and I'm still very
much in the learning stage. I began quilting with a group of friends with whom
I tried to form a book group. It turned out that they wanted a quilting group
instead, and I thought, “What me? Cut up big pieces of fabric into small pieces
so I can sew them back again into big pieces? Not me, thank you.” Our group
started in 2001, and since several members were good friends already, I gave it
a try, despite what I considered the totally ridiculous process. A couple of members
(we had eight then) taught me a couple of steps, and to my surprise, I really
loved it. I love looking at fabric, picking up a piece and thinking about what
it might be placed next to, and then, after tearing out several clumps of hair,
replacing it many times until I think the combination “sings.” The quilts I
make tend to have references in them, either to events in the lives of the
recipients, or to experiences I've had or want them to have, but often the
messages are not blatant. For my first granddaughter I put in indications that
she should not follow known paths in life, but should go out and try things
that nobody expected her to do. She isn't six yet, so we'll have a way to go to
see if she “got it.” My grandmother, who came from Russia in 1907, made her
living in Russia sewing uniforms for Czarist officers. Because she thought
being a tailor had such a low status, she refused to teach my mother how to
sew. Somehow, the instinct came down to me, and I passed it to our son who can
knit and weave and do some hand-building with clay. At the moment he is in the
business world but that interest may come back to him in later life. Two things
go together to form the texture of my adult life. My husband, David, is a
professor at Sarah Lawrence, and as academics (I taught History at Fieldston and other places) we've been able to live in a
few other parts of the world (London, Hawaii, Boston) and travel around either
for just plain old fun or fun cloaked as academic pursuits. We've visited
family members who never left Russia and still keep in touch with them. My one
big quilt, finished in the fall of 2008, was a wedding gift for our “Russian
daughter” who is actually a second-cousin to my husband. I may show it at the
next Village Squares show. Since moving to Dobbs Ferry in 2007, I’d been
thinking of a quilt guild, and when Nancy, at The Quilt Cottage, mentioned your
show, I went to it, saw the varied levels of quilting on display, and thought
I'd pop in to see what your group was like. I liked it and joined in January.
Cathy Johnston : I’ve been in
Westchester four years, quilting for twenty years and have two grown daughters.
I am the manager of the Townhouse Association property where I live, but am
otherwise “retired.” Mark and I love living here and being able to get into
Manhattan often.
Eleanor Schmauser : I attended a
VSQ show in the early 80’s and after sewing clothes and for the home for many
years became hooked on quilting following a class at Hartsdale Fabrics in the
90’s. I retired in 2001 when I became a member of VSQ and have since made
quilts for everyone in my family (12) plus 5 lap quilts sent to Germany. In
addition to quilting/sewing, I enjoy playing bridge, reading, lunching with my
friends, traveling as much as I can (I am now in Australia or New Zealand), and
I still enjoy going down to the city for shows and museums.
Helen Supcoff : I am a retired
high school biology teacher living in Rye for over 30 years and have been a
member of VSQ for at least 6 years during which time I entered several shows
and won a couple of ribbons. My hobbies include just about any handcraft
(except tatting but including clay and wood) which I still try to do between
quilting projects as well as teaching knitting and crocheting part time. I
limit my cooking and all types of baking to special occasions as I find I, and
my family, eat too much.
Maxine Shaines : I began quilting after retiring as a
director of IT (information technology) and have found the analysis and
precision required to design computer systems lends itself to creating quilts.
Spending the winter in warm Naples, Florida has given me time to quilt, sew a
lot of home decorating projects, and visit with family and friends. I look
forward to getting back to VSQ whose members and community-oriented activities
have become very important to me.
Pat Julian : In 2000, after
more than 25 years in the corporate world developing, maintaining and managing
financial systems, I decided that it was time for a change. Travel became a
larger (you could say, huge) part of my life and, after a class with Joan Jones
in 2001, so did quilting. I joined VSQ in 2002 and since then have been quite
active in guild activities - particularly the show (show committee 2004 &
2008 with a stint as show chair for Quilt Celebration IX in 2006) and the
raffle quilt (member of the past three raffle quilt
committees).
Barbara
Wexler has taught art and art history locally for 30 years and serves as
a volunteer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Nolen Research Library. She
has just returned from South Africa where she’s worked with IKAMVA LABANTU an organization that
teaches the skills to become self-sufficient. Barbara is looking forward to a
great year a great year with the
Village Squares Quilters.
Jeannine Fetsco - I am looking forward to handing in my first
project, the blocks given out (at the October meeting). So far I have the center done. It is with honor and pleasure to be a part of
VSQ and be entrusted with a project block on day one. I feel confident I'll do a good job. Now as for the name tag, OMG, after I took
one look at the pieces and directions, I wished I had opted to have it
made.....LOL (laughing out loud).
Sharing this with my boyfriend Jerry, his words echo "you can do it
sweetie" as I look over at the packet sitting on the coffee table. I guess I could bring it to the Sit & Sew
session next month. This is year two of
dabbling in quilts (do it when I can).
As a novice, I look forward to how my quilt style and knowledge will
evolve in the next few years surrounded by such gifted talent in the room. I am looking forward to doing more projects
and attending ongoing events.
Danielle Perillatt
and Deborah Uhlfelder. Danielle shared this about herself: I worked
as a Photo Editor for 18 years and just recently left the industry. I'm relatively new to quilting - only 5 years
under my belt. I like kits the best
because I am color-challenged. I met my
best friend, Deb, at a quilting class.
Now we do quilting road trips together and dream about going on a
quilting cruise without the husbands or kids!
Marietta Douglas - I am thrilled and thankful to finally be
able to attend meetings at VSQ! I am a
beginner and the October meeting I attended was my very first quilt meeting
ever and I learned so much! My mother
was an avid quilter for many years (in the Albany area) and has drawers full of
squares and I must admit that I have made many quilt kits. I now feel like some might even get done!
Ellen Belson - My mother taught to me sew as a child. My first project was making clothes by hand
for my Alice in Wonderland doll. I still
have the clothes in my attic though the doll is long gone. I made my first quilt for my daughter in
1981. I drew pictures of cartoon and
book characters on large squares of fabric with fabric crayons and sashed them together.
I didn’t know about machine quilting so I just hand
tied the quilt together. Unfortunately,
the only material I could find at the time was some kind of non-cotton, satiny
fabric and the quilt fell apart after several years. I didn’t return to quilting until I
semi-retired in 2006 and took my first quilting class at Hartsdale
Fabrics. Since then I have taken many
classes, joined two guilds and enjoy making charity quilts with Comfort Quilts
(a subgroup of the Northern Star Quilters Guild) and for the Village Squares
Quilters.
Veronica O’Connor – I first want to say that I have felt very welcomed since the first of
my two meetings with the guild. Thank
you all for that. I first tried quilting over 30 years ago when I made a crazy quilt
Christmas stocking for my daughter. At
long intervals, that stocking was followed by a Christmas tree skirt (easy, 4
inch squares) and then a quilt with appliqué for my youngest son. That quilt hung on the wall of a hospital room
for three weeks – brightened the room and presented a topic of conversation for
those who entered the room. An
icebreaker sorely needed by the five year old.
I tried to venture onward, but templates, correct,
precise cutting and I did not get along well together. I bought a kit to make my first granddaughter
a quilt – started before she was born and finished for her first birthday
(1998-99). If I had known that machine
quilting was “allowed” I think I would have finished it faster. It remains my only hand-quilted quilt. I made a few more, struggled with quilting on
a Singer student model, with no walking foot, making a few Project Linus quilts, and small gift items. In 2003, I upgraded to another machine, and I
was off and running.
I’m excited to be able to take part in the Cuddle
Quilts Project. As a quilter and as a
pediatric nurse this activity is very dear to my heart. The quilts make a difference not only for the
families and the children, but they also brighten up the world for the nurses
and other care‑givers. A colorful
quilt in the midst of all that white linen is sunshine after a week of rain. But to see the faces of the parents when we
pass the quilts around is the best feeling there is. They are so astounded that people who don’t
even know their children care enough to make the quilts. For me, the kinds of quilts that people make
are astounding – not simple thrown together blankets, but intricate patterns
and lovely fabric. It’s easy to see that
each stitch is a prayer or a thought for the recipients, identity unknown. How could I not want to be a part of this?”