Deborah’s love of colour, sewing and textiles started when she was a girl growing up in the family textiles business in Sydney which specialised in hand dyeing laces and beautiful fabrics.
Deborah studied colour and design at college before commencing work in the textile printing industry, but her true passion was found later when she spent time at home with her young family and fell in love with quilting. Deborah started her own domestic machine quilting business, quilting over 600 quilts for clients, which developed her skill in both traditional and contemporary design. Inspired by the river and natural bushland of her Sydney studio, and by her life and love of colour and design, Deborah believes quilting is a labour of love, and each quilt is a beautiful piece of textile decorative art to add to your home or a gift for a special friend.
As an acclaimed and multi award winning quilting designer and tutor with over 25 years of happy stitching, Deborah loves nothing more than to create new designs and teach quilting across Australia. Deborah’s designs challenge quilters of all skill levels and help them to really make the best of the wonderful capabilities of their sewing machines!
Some highlights of Deborah’s quilting journey include:
- Domestic machine quilting business from 1995-2001 quilting over 500 quilts for clients;
- Regular exhibitor for QuiltNSW since 1996 including special exhibitions Colours of Australia, Australia Dreaming, Evolution-Change-Challenge and yearly challenges;
- Exhibitions including a matter of time and Whispered Threads group challenge;
- QuiltNSW has awarded students of Deborah’s for Excellence in Domestic machine quilting, and machine appliqué;
- Deborah mentors over 110 quilters in regular once-a-month skill building classes in Sydney;
- Multiple award-winning quilts including Excellence in Domestic Machine Quilting Professional, First, Second and Third place awards, Best Contemporary Award, Hangers Prize, Judges Choice awards, and Excellence in Machine Appliqué awards;
- An accredited tutor through Quilt NSW in Special Techniques;
- An ambassador for BERNINA Australia;
- Teaching throughout Australia and New Zealand for symposiums, conventions, guilds, patchwork shops and groups since 2000;
- Columnist for Quilters Companion magazine including advice for domestic machine quilting and production of several highly popular DVDs;
- Self-publishing many skill building books on machine quilting and machine appliqué;
- 3 comprehensive On line skill building classes;
- Teaching for BERNINA Canada 2023;
- Author Glamorous Clams BERNINA Special Edition book sold world wide;
Author of Machine Magic a beautiful decorative stitch applique book published by C & T Publishers US.
