I was born and brought up in Mississippi, at a time and in a place where sewing was an everyday activity. I learned embroidery at age 8 in an after-school class taught by a friend's mother, and by age 12, I had learned simple dressmaking techniques from my mother and in summer vacation classes sponsored by Singer. I carried these skills, and my sewing machine, with me to New York when I left college, but left both behind temporarily when I moved to London to live in 1972.

Making curtains for the first home my husband and I purchased there led me back to sewing, and I began a long run in an adult embroidery class, which focused on the history of the craft as well as teaching technical skills. Patchwork and quiltmaking followed in a natural progression as I decided I needed a more challenging pastime. Soon, after several years of editing craft books, I found myself, in another natural progression, writing about quilts and their history. The merging of the two overwhelming interests in my professional life has led me on a fascinating journey.