Meet One of Our Members!
You can tell this about Rosemary Sanza, whatever she is doing, she is totally all in. Reluctant to be interviewed because she has not yet made many quilts, Rose was persuaded to let her hair down at a meeting of her bee, the Fabric Fondlers, and told this story: My family took a vacation to Hawaii when I was 13 and we took a trip to the Honolulu Moo-moo Factory. They had these squares precut and I bought them as my souvenir of the islands. In true quilter fashion, it took me a few years before I put it together. I think I was 17. Somewhere along the way the quilt earned the name "the party blanket." It has been on enough concerts, picnics and camp outs to have its own Facebook page.
Growing up in Arlington Heights, her mom taught both Rose and her brother to sew on a grown-up machine when they were big enough to operate it - no toy sewing machines at her house. From that beginning she made her own costumes for figure skating, her passion as a teen-ager which she says she wasn’t particularly good at but loved doing. She was not into quilting until she was invited by a co-worker to attend the Riverwalk quilt show in 2013, after which she quickly joined the guild. Now she is chair of the guild’s annual quilt auction in October.
Growing up in Arlington Heights, her mom taught both Rose and her brother to sew on a grown-up machine when they were big enough to operate it - no toy sewing machines at her house. From that beginning she made her own costumes for figure skating, her passion as a teen-ager which she says she wasn’t particularly good at but loved doing. She was not into quilting until she was invited by a co-worker to attend the Riverwalk quilt show in 2013, after which she quickly joined the guild. Now she is chair of the guild’s annual quilt auction in October.
Different quilt techniques are what pique her interest in trying something new. When she first tried paper piecing, she was pleased to see how precisely her pieces went together. When she attempted machine quilting a small quilt for last year’s auction, she was pleased with the result. But one technique she does not see herself using any time soon is hand quilting. She especially enjoyed Pat Bishop’s presentation for RQG (www.patbishop.info) and sees herself striving to be more of a fiber artist like Pat.
As Rose observes the work of other quilters, she admires landscape and pictorial quilts as well as the confetti technique and imagines herself making quilts that incorporate those methods. She has a strong organizational and design streak that she plans to put to good use in her quilts. She tells of making a group of fabric clothesline bowls that her family was happy to receive as gifts, and adds that her brother is a talented wood-turner and also makes bowls. "It’s in our blood, I guess," she says with a chuckle. "Thanks to Mom’s instruction on that old sewing machine, we love to create new things!"
As Rose observes the work of other quilters, she admires landscape and pictorial quilts as well as the confetti technique and imagines herself making quilts that incorporate those methods. She has a strong organizational and design streak that she plans to put to good use in her quilts. She tells of making a group of fabric clothesline bowls that her family was happy to receive as gifts, and adds that her brother is a talented wood-turner and also makes bowls. "It’s in our blood, I guess," she says with a chuckle. "Thanks to Mom’s instruction on that old sewing machine, we love to create new things!"
Thanks, Rosemary!
March 28, 2015
March 28, 2015