Katherine Ferrier

Umbrella Prints is the beautiful collaborative endeavor of textile designers Amy Prior and graphic designer Carly Schwerdtan. The Australian textile house specializes in organic printed fabrics that feature sweet and simple hand-drawn designs in unusual colorways.   As part of their focus on sustainability, they save every bit of their beautiful fabrics, even the smallest pieces (known as "trimmings") that are left over when cutting out patterns for various projects. Every spring, they throw down a challenge to artists, designers, quilters, thinkers and makers of all tpes to create and share something they've made with a Trimmings Pack.  

There's a special category for quilters, with Maura Ambrose of Folk Fibers at the helm as the industry judge.  I've been in love with Umbrella Prints since I first discovered them at Nido, in Burlington, VT a few years ago. As an improvisational quiltmaker, with a love for juxtaposition and count...

Today is World Poetry Day.   A day to celebrate and recognize the power of poetry to arouse, enliven and awaken us to that which asks to be expressed. It is also, as I discovered when scrolling through my Instagram feed this morning, International Quilting Day, or Worldwide Quilting Day, depending on whom you ask, a day to honor the art of joining many pieces into one.  And it is also, in spite of what it feels like outside, the first full day of Spring. 

Beyond being a convergence of three of my favorite days, the serendipty holds special meaning for me. 

Throughout my entire adult life as an artist I have felt the pull of several distinct creative practices: dancing, writing and making things with my hands. In the past 10 or so years, most of my handmade work has taken the form of making quilts, almost exclusively improvisationally.  I fnd myself moving through seasons, with each form taking its turn at the wheel.  Perhaps it has to d...

When the winter will not end.  When you wonder how you'll make it.  When you've forgotten what it feels like to be warm, and you haven't seen the sun in weeks.  This, my friends, is when you need to lean into any practice you can find that can offer you comfort, that can offer you hope.  For me, this winter, it has been hand quilting. 

 The over and over, the again and again, feels like a lullaby.  
Like a way to say:
"Everything is gonna be all right.  
Even if you can't see your way to the end just yet...

keep going...keep going..."