While Doris learned to sew from her mother, the lure to quilt began with her first child. She took fabric scraps from her parents’ North Portland home and fashioned her first quilt from fabric she remembered from her childhood. Then child-raising and teaching took over for the next 30 years. Retirement gave Doris the time, the space, and the leisure to finally develop and sustain the joy she felt from cutting fabric into little pieces and rearranging them into patterns of color. She has made many quilts and given them to family and friends over the years. She has found the most satisfaction in needle-turn appliqué, the slow, steady formation of color and design by hand. The process of appliqué is soothing and meditative in itself, but it is also practical—and Doris loves practicality. It utilizes the bits and pieces of fabric she has saved from her many other quilts, feeding her need to use every little colorful bit.
Flower Garden (appliqué; machine quilted by Leila More)
In the Style of Gees Bend (machine pieced; hand quilted)
Chickens for Kim and Dave (appliqué and hand quilted)
Shells (hand pieced; machine quilted by Robin Fouquette)
St. Vinnie’s Shirts (machine pieced and machine quilted)
