Hi and welcome to my website. I’m glad you are here and hope I can entice you into the world of Foundation Piecing.
My friend Dixie Haywood and I have written five books about this old-made-new technique. We wrote the first book on Pineapples and have been known ever since as ‘The Pineapple Queens’. We had so much fun writing that book that we branched out into other patterns that haven’t usually been foundation pieced, figuring out how to break up blocks into segments so they could be pieced on foundations. We even tackled Pieced Borders. And we have a new book coming out next year in the C&T Tools series...foundations of course.
New book
My new book, The Experts’ Guide to Foundation Piecing is now available. It is a compendium of foundation piecing today, drawing on the expertise of 14 teachers. Twenty years ago, there were basically two or three methods. Now, with so many quilters exploring the technique, it has been improved, modified, and sometimes completely changed, but it still works to stabilize and give absolute accuracy to your piecing. In the book, there are more than a dozen ways to work, each slightly different, and perhaps more than one will be right for the project you have in mind. I can send you a signed copy, just go to the Books page and order it.Foundation Musings
As one of the early ones in the revival of this wonderful technique, I’ve thought a lot about the process. This is not just paper piecing. We all use a lot of paper of different kinds. We use lightweight tear-away interfacing and sometimes even fabric. I consider a foundation to be anything you piece ON or WITH, which opens the genre to include almost any pattern you choose to piece. (I even use foundations for Strip Piecing, to keep those long lines straight.) I really am somewhat evangelical about this method of piecing….it almost guarantees success, whether you are a rank beginner or a tried-and-true piecer, and whether you are working in traditional or innovative or art quilt mode. The technique has been around for more than a century, and is constantly being updated. Precision, speed, and stability…what more can you ask?I do occasionally work other than on foundations! I have been a hand-quilter for almost 30 years, and while I have joined the ranks of machine quilters, I often do both hand and machine quilting in the same piece. I judge quilt shows, large and small. And I am an appraiser for both antique and contemporary quilts.
Of all that I do, I love best to teach …infect others…with this art of quilting. I cannot think of anything within my ken that gives as much pleasure to so many people, with so little outlay of effort, time, and money. It is artful and historic and very fulfilling from all sides.