I started sewing as a teenager, making the clothes my parents could not afford to buy before eventually making clothes for my children.

Much later, when my children had grown up, and I was working for World Vision in Singapore, I met a woman who invited me to the end-of-year exhibition of her quilting group.  There, I saw a quilt featuring Steve Irwin by Lorraine Carthew, which inspired me to blend my childhood interest in sketching with the form of ‘art quilting’. 

After retiring and returning home to Canberra, I enrolled in beginner quilting classes before eventually joining the Canberra Quilters. There, I learnt of the endless possibilities of, and how high the bar was for, “art quilting.”

In 2012, I produced a quilt based on the street artwork of Martin E. Willis for my home, but I was then encouraged to enter it in the next Canberra Quilters Members’ Exhibition. After gaining permission from the artist, the quilt received three awards and was featured in the Best of the Best at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne. Since then, I have taken a serious approach to “art quilting.”