Josie’s Studio and Garden

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Josie came to quilting with a background of sewing all her own clothes. “Funny how back then I never saved any leftover fabric, so didn’t have a stash,” she says.

 

She needed something to do while her husband worked long hours, so after making painted bird houses, she came upon quilting. “It all started in the year 2000 when I picked up Jennifer Chiaverini’s book, The Quilter’s Apprentice. I was intrigued with all the little snippets of how to make quilt blocks. While on vacation up the coast, I dropped into Arroyo Grande’s quilt shop, bought Alex Anderson’s Start Quilting book along with a packet of fat quarters, and set off to the park to read the book. I quickly learned that I needed a rotary cutter, ruler, and cutting mat. So back to the store I went,” she recalls.

 

Josie’s first quilt was a flying geese quilt and she was hooked! It was one quilt after another. She says, “For a while I kept track of the number of quilts I made and quit counting after 4 years—175 quilts.” Having enough of her own quilts, she made quilts for co-workers and baby quilts for her pregnant co-workers.

 

Josie loves to learn new techniques—she feels it adds to the “toolbox” of quilting knowledge and enables her to tackle most anything. She describes her work as traditional with a modern twist, liking to tweak each quilt to make it her own. She has been recognized with several “Viewer’s Choice Awards” and a “Best Use of Color Award”. Now that she is no longer working at a full-time job, she mostly makes memory quilts for customers and quilts tops for quilter friends. Be sure to see her upstairs quilting studio!

 

Don’t miss Josie’s backyard garden where a wrap-around wrought iron fence will have a display of quilts to view.