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LEARNING CENTER
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Designers' Workrooms
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Sara Nephew's Workroom
Sara's Life Story
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SARA NEPHEW'S LIFE STORY
Meet
Sara Nephew, author of Easy & Elegant Quilts, Building Block Quilts,
and Sensational 6-Pointed Stars!
Sara Nephew is the queen of the 60-degree-triangle quilt. But she didn't set out to be. She began her career with jewelry.
After majoring in art in her Milwaukee high school and then earning a liberal-arts degree, Sara landed a post-college job as a commercial jeweler. She soon added diamond setting to her painting and cloisonné-enameling skills. Then she married and moved to Seattle, Washington, where she continued to create original cloisonné designs and gold and silver jewelry at home, selling her pieces at local art fairs.
Sara and her husband, Dale, eventually bought three country acres in Clearview, north of Seattle. Sara planted vegetables, raised chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys, milled her own grain, baked bread from scratch, and even made her own soap. Quilting seemed like another "country" kind of thing to do—and an economical way to decorate her 1930s home. By this time Sara had three small children, and a quilter's sewing machine and beautiful fabrics seemed far more child-friendly than a jeweler's torches, kilns, and acid. So she joined a local quilt guild and began to learn.
When it became obvious that two of her children would be in college at the same time, Sara began making quilts for sale, to "bring in a little extra money." "Quilts for sale" quickly became "wall hangings for sale," because wall hangings could be produced faster and sold faster than full quilts.
At first Sara specialized in Log Cabin designs. After making 50 or 60, though, she began looking for variations. She also needed a way to use the basketsful of one-inch wool and cotton strips she had piled up in her workroom. So she bought Jeffrey Gutcheon's Diamond Patchwork, which explains how to turn any quilt square into a 60-degree diamond, and set about making a 60-degree design from a Log Cabin block.
The wall hanging she made remained small, because it was difficult to set in the foundation-pieced Log Cabin diamonds, but it looked great. Then Sara thought, "What if these were triangles?" It was the proverbial light bulb.
Sara hit the stationery store to buy paper covered in little green isometric (equilateral) triangles, plus two of every size of 60-degree plastic triangle she could find. She taped two angles together and drew lines up from the base . . . and there was a tool for rotary-cutting 60-degree triangles from fabric strips!
That was the beginning of Sara's first book, Quilts from a Different Angle, published by That Patchwork Place. It was quickly followed by My Mother's Quilts: Quilt Designs from the Thirties.
Sara has since written seven more books about 60-degree triangle quilts, as well as six books on other quilt-related topics. Many of her books have been published by her own company, Clearview Triangle, which also manufactures five isometric (60-degree) rotary rulers of Sara's design.
Sara has exhibited her quilts in many venues and taught her techniques throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia. Her work has been featured in magazines and books by other authors. Sara will appear on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson this fall to promote one of her latest books, Sensational 6-Pointed Stars, and her newest tool, the Super 60 ruler.
The glamour of travel . . . in Sara's own words!
"I enjoy getting to know people in my classes. Everybody has a story about the work they do, where they are from, what kind of life they have. People are interesting. But traveling a lot to teach really isn't fun.
"One of my first trips out was to Spring Quilt Market in Boston, to help publicize my first book. That Patchwork Place was having me give a demo of my cutting techniques in the Schoolhouse series of lectures for shop owners. The first night, I ordered the fisherman's platter in the hotel restaurant. I went to bed early, but woke up about 11:30 with a very uncomfortable feeling. After a while I left the room so I wouldn't keep my roommates awake. Every hotel has restrooms in the lobby.
"About four in the morning I asked the bell captain if they had a hotel doctor. Over the phone, the doctor diagnosed food poisoning. He thought enough time had passed that it was probably almost over, and I'd be able to go back to sleep. I went back to the room and let my roommate, Marsha McCloskey, fuss over me and get me a can of Coke to settle my stomach.
"Then it was time for my demo. I was an accomplished rotary cutter by then, hadn't cut myself in years. But I proceeded to run the rotary cutter right into my thumbnail, in front of a room packed with people. Luckily it didn't bleed too much, and somebody had a Band-Aid, so I was able to finish my demonstration."
And picture this . . .
"I am a bit obsessive sometimes, can't get an idea out of my head. When I was teaching at a conference in Canberra, Australia, a group of us toured the nearby Botanical Gardens. I didn't get enough photos, and wanted to go back.
"One night I had about an hour between the end of class and the evening lecture, which happened to feature me. Because the temperature had dropped and I didn't have a coat, I decided to wear layers. Looking decidedly unconventional, I walked the four blocks to the gardens.
"The sign at the gate said the gardens were closing in fifteen minutes. I figured a few pictures of that bottlebrush bush wouldn't take long, and besides, there were still lots of cars in the parking lot. Twenty minutes later I found myself back at the entrance. Most of the cars were gone, and the gates were really, really locked!
"The steel fence was high enough to keep a kangaroo from jumping into the gardens. The gates went all the way to the ground. I couldn't roll and squeeze under. And there was no one in sight. Wondering who would give my lecture, I ran back and forth near the gate, looking for a solution to my problem. I had visions of my picture in the newspaper under a headline that said, 'Visitor almost freezes to death, locked overnight in the gardens!'
"Finally, I found an emergency phone. The person who answered was not at the gardens, and didn't have a key, but he said his wife was still there, and she would be leaving eventually. About five minutes later a truck drove up to the gate, and it contained a person with a key.
"I managed to get back to the college without too many people seeing my eccentric layered look, changed my clothes, and gave my lecture, with a few minutes to spare. As for the photos, I was using a brand-new camera and subsequently discovered that the 'automatic' switch had been turned off. None of the photos I took in Australia turned out!"
Continue on to:
Learn Sara Nephew's Designer Secrets
See Sara Nephew's Quilt Show (in the Community Center)
Print Sara Nephew's Free Patterns (in the Design Center)
Purchase Sara Nephew's Products