About
Sarah learned to sew at about age 6, on her Mum’s 1964 Bernina Record. Mainly making clothes for herself and others, she also dabbled in home dec projects. On her 18th birthday she was given her own sewing machine, a Bernina 801 Sport.
During her college years, Sarah didn’t do much sewing, but she did earn a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Brighton in England.
After a brief career in England as a Software Engineer, Sarah moved to the United States in 1998 and continued to work as a Software Engineer and Project Manager.
With the birth of her first daughter, Heather, in January 2002, Sarah became a stay-at-home Mom and rediscovered her love of sewing, making many tiny outfits for Heather on a borrowed sewing machine. When this had to be returned to its owner, she was able to purchase her own machine again – a Bernina Artista 165 – and fell in love with quilting and embroidery.
Sarah soon discovered digitizing, and put all her software experience to good use in creating her own embroidery designs. Her first major work, “Life as a Labyrinth”, was part of the 2003 Husqvarna Viking Gallery of Quilt Art: Masterpieces of Spirit and Strength. It was quilted entirely on her Artista 165 embroidery module, with a total of 108 hoopings of her original quilting designs. Upgrading to a Bernina Artista 200 gave access to the larger Mega hoop, which opened up all sorts of possibilities for Sarah’s unique and original embroidery designs.
2008 brought some changes for Sarah and her 2 daughters (Jasmine was born in February 2006) as she became a single mom. Regrouping in early 2009, Sarah got in touch with her purpose in life – to create beauty, inspiration and infinite creative joy – and decided to channel her energy into doing what she loves, making quilts and spending time with her daughters (the inspiration behind the quilts).
In January 2009, Sarah entered a brand new creation, “Jewels in Chocolate”, into the Annual Show of the Arizona Quilters Guild, winning 2nd place in the Machine Embroidery category. Fueled by all the positive feedback that came flooding in, Sarah embarked on the creation of “Heather Feather” – The ‘Be You’ Quilt”. This quilt was born from a desire to design an embroidered appliqué for the Jumbo hoop of the new and amazing Berina 830 sewing and embroidery machine. Containing a little over 1 million stitches of embroidery, this quilt is a labor of love! If a village is required to raise a child, the same could be said of what it took to make this quilt. Various “quilting angels” stepped forward throughout the process, helping with cutting the large number of appliqué pieces, lending not just one but two 830 machines, donating materials, and generally providing lots of love and support for Sarah.
Sarah is delighted to be sharing her love of quilting and embroidered appliqué through her original designs, and also loves to teach. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, she is building a following locally and across the State. She is looking forward to her designs and teaching taking her further afield.