I love working on puzzles: crosswords, acrostics, cryptograms, and other teasers that challenge the mind. This sense of solving problems also extends to family, community, and the world at large. In my community, I help to make sure that those in need of quilts get them: flood victims, veterans, children, women's shelters, etc. I also donate quilts for fund-raising groups: my guilds, schools, San Francisco's Gay Men's Chorus, to name a few.
Quilt-making gives me that outlet to make poetic statements. Sometimes it's simply a way to provoke a question, such as: "Why is that pig in that quilt?" and the response is: "I date my quilts by the year of the Asian animal - made in the Year of the Pig." I may include other literary elements: puns, metaphors, riddles, personal history, rebuses, and plain ole jokes - do you know the joke about the three-legged pig? Ask me.
I also make rugs using the twining method. And I make tin people out of recycled cans, lids, wire: any tinware! On weekends I run a tasting room at a winery in Capitola, CA.
Back to quilt-making - sometimes I like using the block design. Sometime I layer fabric, and just cut out the block and mix the layers to recreate the blocks - no measuring. I also like to reinterpret a common block, such as Double Wedding Ring, Lone Star, Sunbonnet Sue, Pickle Dish, Broken Dishes, etc. People often ask me where do I get my fabric? My response: "It comes to me." And finally, I feel as though I've made a successful quilt if it makes people laugh, or if it makes people say, "Hey, that looks like kids made that quilt." I love kid art.