During this time, I was also
teaching myself to quilt, one
technique at a time. The turning point
in my career as a quilter came when
I made a portrait of my husband’s
great-grandfather in 2013. It was a
gift for my husband and his family
to celebrate 100 years of the family
business, which Dada Ajoba had
started. The quilt was made with
more than 3,500 pieces, painstakingly
appliquéd over a period of three
months. It was then that others—
including myself—started taking
my quilting more seriously than ‘an
expensive hobby.’
But in my heart I knew that if
it took that long to make a portrait
quilt, I would never make another. I
had to experiment and fi nd a method
that would make an equally beautiful
quilt, but faster. That led me to
develop a reverse appliqué technique
to make a portrait. ‘iQuilt,’ a picture
of Steve Jobs, was the fi rst quilt I
made using that technique. It took
just 7 days.
I was so happy with my technique
that I had to share it with the world.
I hosted my fi rst online self-portrait
quilt-along in January 2014 with a
group of Facebook friends agreeing to
be guinea pigs. I was so happy to see
that my instructions made sense not
just to me, but to others as well. That
experience led to writing an eBook,
ABOUT FACE: PORTRAIT QUILTS USING
THE REVERSE APPLIQUE TECHNIQUE,
which is now sold in my Etsy shop.
Another quilt that changed my
life was ‘Apsara Aali,’ made in 2013.
It is a portrait of a woman clad in
the traditional attire of my region in
India—the nine-yard sari. I used 3-D
appliqué technique to make that one.
It was the quilt that made it possible
“My Heart’s Delight:
Portrait of Aadi” • 40" × 40"
“Dada Ajoba” • 33" × 48"