Meet Peggy Martin

San Diego, California, USA

Photos courtesy of Peggy Martin

Hi Peggy.  Why did you start quilting?

I started quilting in 1981 to make a quilt for our queen-size bed. I was a stay-at-home mom, suffering from cabin fever. Our local adult ed. offered quilting classes with child care! It was a perfect opportunity to get out of the house, learn some new skills and make something useful for our home.

Tell me about your family.  What do they think about your quilting?

I am married with two grown sons. The men in my life are not interested in quilting for themselves, but put up with my mounds of fabric and stacks of quilts everywhere. My husband and sons are helpful about giving me their opinions when I ask for their reaction to a particular color scheme or quilt. My husband is also great about helping me come up with names for my quilts.

Where do you live?

I have lived in San Diego, California for 23 years. I was born and grew up in Ohio.

What other hobbies do you have besides quilting?  How do these interests affect you quilting?

I have a degree in music, and enjoy playing the guitar or folk harp and singing when I'm not busy quilting. I find that music often helps me to relax, and gives me another creative outlet, especially when I'm stumped at some point on a quilt. Playing and singing for awhile helps to recharge my batteries, and I find when I get back to sewing I often can approach the problem with a new perspective.

What were your favorite arts and crafts projects as a child?

I always loved coloring and - (I hate to admit it!) I also loved paint-by-number kits. There was something so exciting to me as a child, filling in the colored areas and seeing how all those solid colors blended and produced a picture - not unlike combining fabrics in a quilt, now that I think of it.

My grandmother taught me to knit when I was quite young, and I knitted many sweaters for the cold winters in Ohio, where I grew up.

When I was 8, my mother got a sewing machine. She and my older sister Mary took the sewing classes to learn the machine, and Mary would come back from the class and show me what they had learned. I made most of my own clothes from that time until I began quilting. Having that great sewing background made learning to quilt much easier.

Where in your home do you quilt?  What do you call your sewing space? 

I have a "studio" set up in our large master bedroom - a lovely sewing machine cabinet, a big table for cutting and an oversized ironing board for pressing. I have a huge white wall to play with blocks so I can look at the emerging quilt from across the room. There is one drawback, however; I'm a night person and my husband is a morning person. He wants to go to bed early, just when I'm getting ready to sit down to sew. So I often set up another machine in the dining room, with a small ironing board, or I sew in the family room so I can watch TV while I sew. I often joke that I have sewn in practically every room in the house except the bathroom!

What is your favorite part of the quilting process?

Choosing the colors and fabrics and putting together the blocks, then designing with the blocks and setting the quilt are the most exciting parts of the quilting process for me. The anticipation of seeing how the colors and fabrics work together really gets my adrenalin pumping, and the time flies as I piece the blocks. Playing with the blocks to try different settings is equally fun for me. I often discover completely new designs that appear when the blocks are set in different ways.

What inspires you creatively?

I seem to find inspiration almost everywhere. The colors in flowers, all the shades of blue and green in the ocean, the vivid sunsets - all of these colors affect me daily and influence my quilts. I love looking at art books, quilting books and magazines for inspiration, too. Folk art has been a big influence on me as well. The vivid colors used in Mexican, Guatemalan and African textiles always inspire me.  When it comes down to making the quilt, the fabric itself is what really gets the process going. We are so lucky now to have such a wide variety of fabrics, colors and styles available to us. It is so different than when I began over 20 years ago, when the only cottons available were small calicos! I have a real love for off-beat, unusual prints, and I love using fabrics that have a lot of movement and large prints in my quilts. 

How many quilt projects do you have in progress right now? 

I always like to have more than one quilt in progress - it just seems to be more fun and stimulating that way. Right now I'm working on five quilts for my next book, finishing the tops and getting ready to machine quilt them. I'm also finishing a wedding quilt for my niece, and in the planning stages for a guild's opportunity quilt for next year. I always like to have several quilts in different stages going at the same time (but sometimes it is a bit chaotic when I have so many going at once - especially when deadlines are involved!)

How many UFO’s do you have? 

Because I taught for so many years, I find I still have a lot of quilt tops (close to a hundred!) in my closet waiting to be quilted. I also have a lot of blocks and semi-finished projects from classes and workshops over the years. Projects that I really love, I know I will eventually finish.  Even if I don't ever finish everything, I still feel it is worthwhile to have tried something new. I store the blocks and unfinished projects in boxes in the closet. Someday I will probably donate them to the guild for an auction, or finish them and give them away as charity quilts.

Please tell me a funny story about your quilting.

As I already mentioned, I have a love for unusual fabrics. One time I was speaking at a guild, doing a trunk show, and the members of the audience were whispering and giggling to each other while a certain quilt was being held up. I asked them why they were laughing, and they told me that the fabric I had used in my quilt was the fabric they had just used in their "ugly fabric" challenge the month before! I like to share this story because it really proves that one person's trash is another person's treasure! We all have different tastes, which just make the quilting world richer.

Has quilting ever helped you through a time of struggle or heartache?  Can you share about that?

I have been quilting for 24 years. During that time I have had many family troubles, illnesses, deaths, and other problems. For years my father suffered from Alzheimer's disease before passing away. Quilting was a tremendous help during those times. I found that working with color, particularly clear, bright colors, really gave me a lift when I was feeling down. During the process of making blocks or designing a quilt, I would somehow "lose" myself, and my problems seemed to melt away for a little while. Hand work is also very soothing; although I tend to quilt my quilts by machine now, during hard times in years past I found the repetitive motion of hand quilting to be very comforting, almost meditative. Also the wonderful support of fellow quilting buddies and my students over the years has been wonderful! I sometimes wonder how I would have gotten through some of those hard times without quilting and the quilting community. Quilting is therapy!

Has quilting taught you any lessons of life? 

One thing I have learned as a quilting teacher is that people do learn in different ways. I could always learn by reading the directions and looking at diagrams. I have had many students over the years, however, that found it impossible to learn from just reading a book, and that is why they took classes. Some people can learn by just watching someone; others need to physically do the movement to understand it; some learn best by hearing the directions. Just because you learn in a different way doesn't make you any smarter (or less smart) than any one else; we're all wired a little differently! Learning this has made me much more patient as a teacher, and also helps me realize that if someone isn't "getting it" I need to present it in a different way to try to get through to them.

Do you belong to a guild or quilting group?

I belong to two quilt guilds (Friendship Quilters and Canyon Quilters) in San Diego. I also belong to a small group, the Loose Threads, which meets weekly. There are ten of us in the group, and it is a wonderful group of women. We all support each other, both in our quilting projects and in our daily problems. Many of the members of the group have entered national shows, and we often inspire and challenge each other to try new things. Suggestions are given, but the group is very positive and non-critical - it is a great experience!

Do you plan out your whole quilt before you begin or do you start with an idea and let it develop on its own? 

I usually have an idea about a quilt, how I want it to be designed and how it will look in the end, but when I actually begin working on a quilt, often those original plans don't work out. One of the best lessons I've learned in quilting is to let go of that original plan and be willing to try other approaches and ideas until I find the one that works for that particular project.

Do you ever work from patterns?

I now try to design my own blocks for the most part, or adapt traditional blocks. I still enjoy making traditional patterns, and trying out other quilters' new ideas as well. I guess I really enjoy just about all the options that are out there in quilting.

Do you prefer to piece or appliqué your quilts?

I love the look of appliqué quilts, but find I'm really a piecer by nature. I don't have the patience for all the preparation time in appliqué. I'm happiest when I'm assembly-line piecing, "pedal to the metal" and those blocks are just streaming out of the machine. When I get the blocks done quickly, I have more time to play with their arrangement.

Do you work in a series with your quilts?  Please explain.

"Working in a series" is the artsy way to describe what I do. Basically, when I begin a quilt, so many different possibilities of different color schemes, block setting arrangements and variations go through my mind that I always have a hard time settling on the final quilt arrangement. I pick one that I like at the time, and then often go back and make other quilts exploring all the other ideas that came up with the first quilt. I feel I have trouble deciding which one I like, so I want to make them all! So I guess I can call that "working in a series", though I seldom set out to do that in the beginning - I just can't make up my mind, so have to make more than one!

Have you developed any special quilting techniques or products?

I have greatly enjoyed learning and also developing my own faster, easier techniques to make quilts. I particularly enjoy strip piecing and assembly-line methods. I found many of my students either didn't like paper piecing, or were frustrated by how slow it was. I developed an assembly line approach to paper piecing, making multiple units at the same time along strips. I eventually wrote my first book "Quick-Strip Paper Piecing", published by C&T, using this technique. The patterns in the book are mostly original designs, but some, like the New York Beauty, are adapted from traditional blocks.

This year, I wrote a chapter for a book authored by Jane Hall, "The Expert's Guide to Foundation Piecing", which will be released in the late summer or fall of 2006. It has 12 different foundation piecing quilters' techniques, including chapters by Caryl Bryer Fallert, Ruth McDowell, Cynthia England, and others.

I am also currently working on my second book using the Quick-Strip Paper Piecing technique, which includes a chapter on how to design your own blocks for paper piecing, as well as many projects with different design options for each project. It is still in the early stages, and doesn't have a title yet, but will be released in early 2007 by C&T Publishing.

Do you ever teach classes?  What is your favorite class to teach?

I love teaching quilting classes! Whether it is at guilds, shops, or seminars, I always enjoy working with students and creating a fun, non-critical atmosphere where people feel free to learn. I especially love it when I have classes that continue for several sessions. I'm really delighted this year that I've been asked to teach at the Empty Spools Seminar in Monterey Bay in August 2006! It will be 5 days of working with the same group of students, exploring designs using the Quick-Strip Paper Piecing method. I really love teaching this method, because people who previously had problems with paper piecing find it so much faster and easier.

Do you have any tips or advice for beginners? 

Don't be too critical of yourself! I still have problems with this one - I always try to do too much in one quilt. Relax and have fun with it! You'll have time to make lots of quilts. They all won't be masterpieces, but you will learn something with each one, and hopefully have fun in the process. Give yourself the opportunity to play: with color, fabrics, blocks, and the quilting itself. Keep an open mind and if something doesn't work, give yourself permission to change your original idea and try something else.

Thanks Peggy for sharing your story with us.  Your quilts are stunning!   

For more information about Peggy, check out her website:

www.peggymartinquilts.com



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