Submitted by Joan Brisley
The Chatham-Kent Quilters’ Guild was privileged to have Nora Boyd from the Sarnia Quilt Guild as our guest speaker for the September Meeting. Nora retired from public health nursing in 2013 and quickly found passion in quilting to fill her time. As Program Chair for the Sarnia Quilt Guild, Nora was able to bring in international quilters. She admits she wasn’t the best at quilting or piecing, but was guided along by some fabulous mentors and master quilters.
Nora presented an incredible trunk show of her amazing projects. She has taken on challenges such as: a snowball quilt, a log cabin quilt, a California king double wedding ring quilt, a Bargello quilt, and has successfully completed fussy cut patterns, modern quilts, postcards, ribbon paper piecing and quilting using rulers and computer codes for patterns. Her accomplishments are too many to mention here, however, her most inspiring works of art came after completing a 5 day class with David Taylor. Using his technique, she received “Best in Show” at her guild with a quilt of a humpback whale (350 pieces for the whale/175 pieces for the ocean) and a loon (250 pieces for the bird). Recently, she completed a 350 pieced hand appliqued quilt of a polar bear family. Astonishing!!
Nora states she is drawn to colours of blue and greens, circular quilting, rounded lines and likes to arrange quilt blocks on point. She was having her quilts sent out to be finished, but now has mastered quilting her own projects.
Nora’s recommendations, “Take as many classes as you can and learn from many teachers and mentors.”