Meet the CQMagOnline.com Staff

Nora Creeach

Nora is a founding member of the CQMagOnline.com staff.  She served as Editor for many years and kept the magazine alive through sheer force of will.

Nora has been married to the same man for over 35 years and they have 2 sons. Her sons have made Nora and her husband grandparents nine times and great-grandparents four times.

Fifteen years ago she designed and they built their dream retirement home, a log cabin, in East Texas in the resort area of Lake Tawakoni. They've since retired and are enjoying country life.

Nora's been a crafter as long as she can remember. In her family it was considered an insult to purchase gifts. The feeling prevailed that if you didn't care enough to make something for someone you shouldn't bother with a gift at all. She was raised in Canada where she was taught by French Nuns. Because of the harsh winters they had a lot of indoor activities which included learning many of the different crafts and needlework.

Knitting, crochet and tatting never "took" with her. It seemed the more she tried the more nervous it made her and the tighter her work became until she could no longer insert the needle to make the next stitch. Conversely, embroidery was something that relaxed her and she loved it from the very beginning.

Silk Ribbon Embroidery is Nora's own personal love. She's taught "in person" classes in the past and now teaches at Crafty College. Nora invites you to join the fun and learn Silk Ribbon Embroidery. It can be a very useful and lucrative addition to your crafting portfolio.

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Rissa Peace Root

Rissa, a full time Fiber Artist residing in Mississippi, took over as Editor and Publisher, when Nora was diagnosed with cancer.  She has been actively stitching most of her life and has studied a wide variety of beading, embroidery and quilting techniques over the years. She has participated in needlework seminars across the country, where she has taken classes from many nationally and internationally known teachers; Susan O'Connor, Marie Yolande, Judy Jeroy, Lynn Payette, Bobbie Chase, Vickie Adams Brown, Carolyn Standing Webb, Barbara Jackson and Catherine Jordan among them.  

In 2002, she began Mississippi NeedleArts, a non-profit educational organization, and got it chartered as the first chapter of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America (EGA) in her state. She now serves as Education Chair and Newsletter Editor. Rissa is also the President and Region Representative for CyberStichers. In addition, she still finds time to serve as the Education Chair for the Tennessee Valley Region (TVR). Rissa was honored to receive EGA's Gold Thread Award for the TVR at the National Seminar in October 2006 and again in 2008.  She was also nominated for the South Central Region's Heart and Hand Award. 

Rissa is also an Exhibiting Member of the Craftsman's Guild of Mississippi in five categories: embroidery, knitting, crochet, handspun yarns and needle felting. She has a large web site devoted to the needle arts, complete with a stitch dictionary. (http://www.prettyimpressivestuff.com)

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Allison Aller

Allison was a design major at Cornell University, and this fundamental education has served her well in her 30 years of quilt making. She has been involved in pieced bed quilts, landscape wall-hangings, stained glass quilts, and crazy quilting, and is interested in combining all those genres in contemporary ways.

She lives in Washougal, Washington, where the beauty of the Cascade foothills and the Columbia River Gorge have a major impact on her palette and her subject matter. Gardening is her second love after quilting, and that plays a role in her work as well.

Allison has been happily married to husband Robert, a retired airline pilot, for 27 years. They have two boys, both of whom are computer experts, aged 18 and 21.

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Barbara Blankenship

Barbara’s love of art developed in early childhood. Her Mom was an excellent seamstress and taught her many forms of needle art at an early age.

Her ten-year love affair with crazy quilting began with a class taught by Jan Campbell of Lake Jackson, Texas. Jan organized a Crazy Quilt Bee from those students taking her classes and Barbara is a long-standing member.

At the Crazy Quilt Convention in Omaha, NE she met Victoria Adams Brown and credits her for her love of silk ribbon embroidery. She designed four ArtBras for Victoria’s breast cancer foundation and enjoyed the process of creating solely from the imagination. In her ArtBra “Grape Expectations” all but one silk is hand-dyed with hand painted highlights. The grapes are individually created and hung in clusters with seed beads.

She also enjoys sharing the beautiful art of crazy quilting with others. With the help of many international online friends she has created wall hangings for juvenile AIDS and breast cancer research.

Barbara currently designs for Artemis/Hanah silks. You can see her love of silk ribbon reflected in the flower designs she has created.

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Sharon Boggon

Sharon Boggon is a textile artist living in Canberra Australia who holds a Masters of Arts, has exhibited work throughout Australia and has works held in private collections and the Canberra Museum and Gallery. Sharon has taught in the Textiles Workshop and the Digital Media Studio at the School of Art, Australia National University since 1997.

After life time interest in embroidery Sharon has recently returned to her studio to pursue a long held interest in the art of embroidery and crazy quilting full time. With hopes to develop a second career Sharon is following another key interest in her life that of assisting those who are currently in the field of recreational textiles to develop self expression and their creative abilities.

Sharon Boggon has a stitch dictionary which has been online since 1997. In January of 2004 Sharon Boggon started a blog under the title In a Minute Ago. Originally seen as a place to keep track of the numerous sites she has become interested in, it demonstrates how this technology can link up and assist creative communities online.

Home page and stitch dictionary & In a Minute Ago – a textile weblog

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Dean Deerfield

Dean Deerfield is an artist, writer, teacher, and designer, who lives in West Texas . Her work has been exhibited at art and quilt shows and private exhibits. She has presented programs for quilt guilds, taught classes during quilt shows and for guilds, and teaches in area quilt shops. Art quilts and crazy quilts are her first love, but she also teaches sane quilting, silk ribbon embroidery, beading, felting, and traditional quilting. Dean has been teaching since 1980. She has a strong connection with fabric and fibers and uses fabrics the same way she uses paint.

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Jakkie Lease

Art has always been woven in and out of Jakkie’s life. Her mother was a tailor by profession, and accomplished needlewoman by desire. When she and her sisters were small girls, she would let them use the sewing machine to make doll clothes. They were so small that she moved the foot peddle to the sewing machine top. She taught them to use the foot peddle with their elbow!

Her love for specialty quilting was a gift from her Mother; she was taught that patience and the finished product were the reward.

Jakkie is a member of Watercolor Workshop, Wet Canvas, Allegany Arts Council, Allegany Area Art Alliance and several Yahoo groups focusing on crazy quilting. Some of her paintings and crazy quilt needlework is currently showing at The Gallery in Oakland, Maryland, Arts at Canal Place, Culinary Café, The Studio on Greene, and Rocky Gap Lodge in Cumberland, MD.

Her fondest joy is sharing the love for needlework and painting.

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Kimber Pekora

Kimber Pekora is a founding member of the CQMagOnLine Staff. She has been doing Crazy Quilting for about six years and has won awards for her work. She has attended classes with Carol Samples, Victoria Adams Brown and Irene Kerr. Kimber and her husband Joe live in New Jersey, have a boating business, and are the proud parents of twin boys. She enjoys Silk Ribbon Embroidery, Beading, and her newest venture, Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery. Kimber is a member of the Jersey Cape Atlantic Chapter of the Embroiders Guild of America and the South Jersey Crazy Quilters Guild .She is also a licensed Cosmetologist.

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Lynn Schoeffler

Lynn Schoeffler is a long time resident of Southern California, and actually admits to enjoying the urban sprawl with its many opportunities to experience textile art in a myriad of cultural and historical formats.

Growing up surrounded by the dedicated and loving homemakers of her family, she came to appreciate and understand the art that was practiced by her Grandmother, Aunts and Mother—that of beautifully crafted and well made clothing, household furnishings, toys and dolls. These women could turn their hands to anything.

Her own path into creative needlework started with embroidered doilies and huck towels as a child and progressed into most forms of embroidery and needlepoint. Learning Brazilian Embroidery from some of the first practitioners in this country, Lynn began to teach classes and to design and sell BE projects to local stores. Crazy Quilting was a natural and inevitable next step, encouraging growth and exploration of many fiber art disciplines.

Lynn and her husband of 35 years own and operate their own business and have raised two great kids in the meantime. She jokes about how crazy quilting has involved all members of the family—her daughter and Mom scout antique and bead shops, her son dispenses computer and camera help, and her husband handles much of the framing and finishing work.

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Cherie M. Thompson

A true blue Aussie, she has adored creating since her feet reached the pedal on Grandma's Singer treadle. Sewing for her family and home was part of life and after graduating with a Sociology degree 2003 she looked to renew her handmade skills. Gorgeous bags, wall hangings, framed blocks, and book covers are treasured by many with hours spent dyeing silk ribbon and motifs as she ponders the next, and next projects. Along with her love of CQ, collecting, writing and a natural healthy lifestyle contributing to CQMagOnline tops her already blessed life!
 

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Pat Winter

Pat Winter also joined the CQMagOnline.com staff in December 2003. 

Pat lives in Indiana near the Dunes and beautiful Lake Michigan with her longtime husband and son, who is a student at Purdue University. When she is not strolling along the shoreline, she can be found working and stitching in her flower garden. All aspects of her crazy quilting are influenced by her love of nature.

She has been a “gatherer” since childhood; collecting laces, her grandmother’s buttons, beads, and her mother’s broken jewelry. She had no idea that one day these would be put to good use. She is a self taught crazy quilter who is very passionate about her craft. She tries to sew or embellish every day. Her favorite handmade items are always the useful ones; such as purses, jewelry, eyeglass cases, or fiber books.

Although she has been doing a variety of needlework for most of her life, she discovered crazy quilting when she read Judith Baker Montano’s books almost two decades ago. Pat immediately identified with JBM’s style and knew that she had found her niche. Her work has been published in Quilting Arts, $100,000 Quilting Challenge Magazine, Belle Armoire, Kreinik threads website, and in Erica’s Sewing Center newsletter. Her hope is to show others that crazy quilting does not have to be dark or cover a bed.

Currently, Pat teaches crazy quilt workshops and classes. She is trying to do her part to revive interest in crazy quilting, which is why she contributes articles to CQMagOnline and recently published a book about her crazy quilting journey. She enjoys contributing to many fund raisers and special interest groups. In 2007, she started the Comfort Doll Project, which provides Art Dolls to women’s shelters worldwide, along with a message of support. It is wonderful to be able to do what you love, while you help contribute to worthwhile causes.

Pat believes that for crazy quilting, one should toss the rulebook aside, not take it too seriously and have fun. Sometimes it helps to walk away for a day or two, and then pick up a needle and continue in a new light. Keep several projects going, because it is true that “Happy hands make happy hearts.” Maybe it will help you to know that even Pat still has moments of uncertainty. Her work can be seen on her blog at http://gatherings100.blogspot.com .

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Julie Yonge

Although born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Julie’s family was always on the move as she grew up; she attended eight different schools. Her teen years through college were spent in and around New Orleans, Louisiana. She moved to Houston in the early 80's as a single mother, but now lives about 40 miles south of Houston, in the country happy as a clam with her dear husband and a menagerie of animals. She is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, although her sewing has now taken priority. She has grown twin sons, both graduates of the University of Texas, who live in Austin. She is unofficially retired from Amoco Production Company where she was a Remote Sensing Technologist for fifteen years, doing computer processing of digital satellite imagery for geological, geophysical and environmental interpretation. Along with sewing, reading, gardening and church activities, she enjoys taking “road trips” with her stitching friends, going on stitching retreats and maintaining their humble home and acreage.

She began crazy quilting and SRE only six years ago when she visited a local quilt guild and heard a wonderful presentation on crazy quilting. She knew instantly it was what she had been looking for, a wonderful artistic outlet combining so many techniques, fabrics, embellishments and textures. She took a CQ class and immediately began pulling together stash (definitely a large part of the fun of crazy quilting), practicing stitches and reading everything she could on crazy quilting. She joined a local CQ Bee and has taken numerous classes in Dallas and at the Houston International Quilt Festival on crazy quilting, beading, embroidery and mixed media with amazing teachers and artists such as Victoria Adams Brown, Mary Jo Hiney, Helen Gibb, Judith Baker Montano, Lesley Riley, and Nancy Eha to name just a few. She networks with fellow CQers and stitchers as much as possible, joining in group projects when she can. She has totally fallen in love with the "world of crazy quilting" and all that that entails...from the wonderful fabrics used to its history and being able to pull little pieces of the past into the work; and the amazing and talented women she meets along the way. Goo-gah is now an important word in her vocabulary! Being creative each and every day in some way is very important to her well-being as well as continually stretching her mind and learning – being receptive to new ideas. It is always such a joy for her, and yes, sometimes a delightful surprise to see a creation come together and even more of a joy for her to share it with others.

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Rita Ellison Goff

Rita Ellison Goff, a founding member of the CQMagOnline.com staff and a retired registered nurse, lives on a 15 acre mini farm in West Virginia.

After 30 years in Texas, she returned to her native state West Virginia. Once home, she took a class in quilting, and quickly learned that she loved piecing but dearly hated the repetitiveness of 'sane' quilting. On a fateful day in 1995, a fellow nurse brought a Crazy Quilt her Grandmother had made, all velvets with the most exquisite embroidery work. Rita fell in love immediately and began looking for any information on CQ that she could find.

Using a borrowed copy of Penny McMorris's book and a purchased Victorian Patchwork & Quilting by Arlene Deltore and Beverly Maxvill, she got out her rusty embroidery needles and began twelve 15-inch square blocks. At the same time, she purchased a computer and joined several online CQ groups. Through them, she participated in many round robins and learned so much seeing the work of others and reading the accompanying journals.

Along with learning this multi-faceted art form, she branched out and taught herself needle tatting, re-learned crocheting, learned Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery (BDE) via the internet, and began the accumulation of her vast stash. Throughout it all she found that she prefers to do all hand stitching.

While attending two Crazy Quilt Conferences in Omaha, Rita took classes with Betty Pillsbury, Judith Baker Montano, Nancy Eha, and Valeri Bennett, learning Crazy Quilt, beading and dyeing. At the Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery Seminar in Washington, she learned more about BDE. She's also taken several internet classes. Rita began teaching Crazy Quilting and Embellishing two years ago, and this year she added teaching BDE to her repertoire.

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Linda Gibbs

Linda was born and raised in Long Beach, California (home of the Queen Mary). She worked in aerospace for many years and was fortunate to meet many of the astronauts of the Apollo space program, (they would come to CA for flight simulation testing before going into space). Linda also met many of the Shuttle astronauts, and worked on the Space Station although her company did not win that contract.

In growing up, Linda was always involved in the arts and after being laid-off in aerospace, she went into teaching at local collages, galleries, and specialty shops. She enjoys all facets of art - paper making, painting, textile and needle arts, embellishing, lampwork and glass fusing, just to name a few . Her talents are diversified and she teachers a variety of classes.

It is a privilege to be able to re-introduce "lost arts "out-of-the-past to a new generation. To be able to pass on the heritage of our ancestors To observe the progression of new students as they learn to design and create "one-of-a-kind" art pieces.

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Editor: Published by: Pretty Impressive Stuff