Blog — Children's gifts RSS

I was born in Leeds and though I have travelled a lot in the past, my home is now in Ilkley, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.  My friends would say that I have a fairly strong Northern accent and I see myself very much as a Yorkshire lass: I am pretty hardy in cold weather, I love a brisk walk on the wild moors just like the Brontë sisters many moons ago, and I drink a lot of tea.  A lot of my recent quilt art has been directly inspired by the landscape that surrounds my home.  First up are the very famous Cow and Calf rocks on Ilkley Moor. These huge formations are made of millstone grit and...

Many of the pictures that I create show animals fast asleep in their bed, snuggled beneath a cosy quilt. The original inspiration was a nursery rhyme I sang to all of my 3 children at many of the local playgroups I used to go to. The words tell the story of a bunny who lays down and goes to sleep (the children all copied this and were deadly still) and then wakes up and hops around (they all then jumped wildly around the room).  It was basically everybody's favourite and was very sweet to watch, and I sang it hundreds of times so it is ingrained in my mind.  About 4 years ago I made some quick sketches of sleeping bunnies.  I...