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how her mother used to make dresses to
wear to Friday night dances as a young
woman. By seven, Pat had completed her
fi rst cross stitch, by nine she had made her
fi rst embroidery sampler book and once
she had fi nished primary school, she had
also learnt how to knit and crochet. Pat’s
desire to sew continued and, at the age of
13, Pat asked her mother to help her get
into an educational establishment where
she could train to be a seamstress (despite
being under the age typically accepted).
Through her perseverance and talent, she
was accepted and became a seamstress
by the age of 15. It was clear that
hand-craft in all its forms (knitting,
crochet, embroidery, dressmaking, sewing)
was a pivotal part of Pat’s childhood.
Fast-forward to 1989, Pat recalls leaving
Buenos Aires (at a time where there was
much political unrest and uncertainty in
the country) and moving to New York as a
young woman with her husband and baby.
It was clear from listening to Pat speak
about how incredibly diffi cult that fi rst
year was as she had to adjust to moving
to a new, much colder, city in a diff erent
country with a young child and being
unable to sew – due to leaving her sewing
machine in Buenos Aires. Around a year
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after moving to New York Pat’s husband,
Walter, arrived home from work with a
sewing machine. Walter told me “I knew
that she loved to sew and, you know, she
was at home taking care of the baby and
I knew that she was going to be so happy
with a sewing machine. That fi rst sewing
machine, we couldn’t aff ord at the time
so we bought it in installments, it was $12
per month.” This began to reignite the fi re
inside Pat to continue to sew, to create and
to make.Pat soon started going to Jo-Ann’s, an
American fabric and craft store, to buy
fabric. She recalls, “I remember going into
Jo-Ann’s and there was someone placing
fabric next to each other and going back
and forth between them. I asked, ‘What
are they doing?’ and the store employee
said, ‘They’re auditioning fabric for a quilt’.
That was it! I bought a mat, a rotary cutter,
and books... I still have that fi rst patchwork
book and I used it to start making
traditional patchwork blocks beforeNaomi Clarke
moving onto more modern and abstract
blocks”. From that point, Pat continued to
sew but moved into making watercolour and
art quilts. She adds, “With art quilts, you use
a lot of solids and marbled fabric to create
scenes so you need a variety of colours –
shades of green, blue, grey, brown, almost-Pat’s Indie Bohème collection.
Download this free quilt pattern at
http://www.artgalleryfabrics.com/projectsIndie folk pillow