Quilting: A labor of love
Bursts of colors explode from Gyleen Fitzgerald’s quilts as she unfurls them one after the other, revealing splashes of vibrant reds, blues, greens, yellows and purples. Each quilt displays a different design, each as beautiful as the next. At twenty-three, Gyleen Fitzgerald took up quilting for one reason: she was bored. Having just moved to Joppatowne from Philadelphia with no local family or friends, she signed up for a quilting class. Thirty-three years and hundreds of quilts later, she no longer has time to be bored.
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- Sunshine streams through her studio window as Gyleen Fitzgerald gets her sewing machine ready to work on a quilt. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- For Fitzgerald, ironing the patterns is par for the course in making quilts. Gyleen Fitzgerald has made hundreds of quilts and created 4 quilting design tools and a fabric dye process. She has also written five books with three more in the works. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Pin cushions, spools and needles have been a staple of the quilting trade for centuries. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Gyleen Fitzgerald used the “pineapple tool” she designed to cut out fabric shapes to make a stylistic modern version of the pineapple quilt. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Gyleen Fitzgerald has been quilting for over thirty years, during a thirty-five career as a chemical engineer for Aberdeen Proving Ground from which she retired in January 2014. She has made hundreds of quilts and applied her engineering skills to creating 4 quilting design tools and a fabric dye process. She has also written five books with three more in the works. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Gyleen Fitzgerald has been quilting for over thirty years, during a thirty-five career as a chemical engineer for Aberdeen Proving Ground from which she retired in January 2014. She has made hundreds of quilts and applied her engineering skills to creating 4 quilting design tools and a fabric dye process. She has also written five books with three more in the works. As if that doesn’t keep her occupied, she teaches quilting and gives lectures around the country. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Fitzgerald designed and made this wedding quilt for herself and her husband, Ray McGowan, married two and a half years. Two-hundred and seventy well-wishers have signed her quilt: family, plus students that have followed her on Facebook or have taken her quilting classes. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Several cabinets are neatly organized above the sewing counter in Fitzgerald’s studio. Tins and baskets in her studio hold fabric and quilting notions. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- This quilt was in Fitzgerald’s book, “Quilts, Unfinished Stories with New Endings.” The central design of the quilt was already made (by someone else) but never stitched into a quilt. Fitzgerald created the rest of the quilt and dropped in the quilt blocks (circles). Her book on unfinished quilts, which included old black and white photographs and letters she wrote -which would have been typical of the time the quilts were made- won the Independent Publisher Living Now Book award in 2014. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Fitzgerald uses one of her smaller quilts to display pins she collects from quilt shows and quilting guilds. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Using the floor of her studio as a cutting board, Fitzgerald trims a quilt. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- The graphics on this polygon-shaped tool are copyrighted by Fitzgerald. The template makes the cutting easier and faster by using the rotary cutter at left instead of scissors. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- “Turning the binding” and pinning it is the last step before hand-sewing the binding. Gyleen Fitzgerald has been quilting for over thirty years. She teaches quilting and gives lectures around the country. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- For Fitzgerald, ironing the patterns is par for the course in making quilts. Gyleen Fitzgerald has made hundreds of quilts and created 4 quilting design tools and a fabric dye process. She has also written five books with three more in the works. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Gyleen Fitzgerald has been quilting for over thirty years, during a thirty-five career as a chemical engineer for Aberdeen Proving Ground from which she retired in January 2014. She has made hundreds of quilts and applied her engineering skills to creating 4 quilting design tools and a fabric dye process. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Fitzgerald signs all her quilts on the back and gives each one a name. This quilt mimmicks the squares and numbers in sudoku. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- This is one of four tools Fitzgerald designed to make cutting out fabric shapes easier, more consistent and less time-consuming. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- This is one of four tools Fitzgerald designed to make cutting out fabric shapes easier, more consistent and less time-consuming. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Tools of the quilting trade include a sewing machine, lots of thread, and pin cushions. Gyleen Fitzgerald has been quilting for over thirty years. She has made hundreds of quilts . She teaches quilting and give lectures around the country. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- Fitzgerald unfurls her “Modern Sampler” quilt which is a collection of blocks in a modern design. She has made hundreds of quilts and written five books with three more in the works. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
Her list of accomplishments is long: a self-publishing company; five quilt-related books published with three more in the works; copyrights for the graphics on four quilting tools, and lectures throughout the country on quilting.
Fitzgerald retired last year from a thirty-five-year career at Aberdeen Proving Ground as a chemical engineer. She says quilt-making and engineering have a lot in common: both involve analytical skills and creativity. Among other projects at APG, she worked on developing more durable fabric for soldiers’ uniforms.
Fitzgerald derives much joy from teaching her students the art of quilt-making. “Teach them to quilt and they can produce anything they dream of. I’m just the catalyst to make that happen. I see myself as their cheerleader,” she says.
She describes her online quilting community as a very supportive environment. When one woman shared her husband had passed away, there was an immediate outpouring of well wishes from her fellow classmates.
When Fitzgerald posted a message that she was making a wedding quilt for her marriage to Ray McGowan, nearly three hundred people sent in well-wishes on white fabric shapes which she then sewed into her wedding quilt. “To feel that kind of love from far reaches is very humbling,” she says.
The majority of quilts she makes are both hand-stitched and machine-sewn. She says quilting is not a profitable venture because of the time required to make a quilt. “You could watch somebody’s kid and make more money. You’re well under minimum wage,” she says.
Whether it’s fabric, words or photographs -or all three- Fitzgerald has a talent for combining elements into pleasing patterns. Two of her books have won international independent publishing awards.
One of the award-winning books, “Quilts: Unfinished Stories with New Endings,” showcases quilts she finished that were started long ago by unknown quilters. Based on her research of the time period during which the original pieces were made, Fitzgerald created personal letters to complement them. She also incorporated black-and-white photographs depicting universal scenes typical for any era: family portraits, military portraits; birthdays, and children with a favorite pet.
In another book, “Polygon Affair: So Easy You’ll Fall in Love,” wedding photos of happy couples are juxtaposed with quilt photos. She explains, “I wanted to translate how I felt about quilting to a non-quilter, so I included wedding pictures… When you look at a couple that’s newly married, that feeling is how I feel about quilting.”
Working on her newest quilt, her hands flutter over geometric shapes, forming them into a polygon of colors and forms as she prepares to sew them together. She says out of all the quilts her favorite one is, “Whatever I’m currently working on….”
For more information on quilter, Gyleen Fitzgerald, see her website www.colourfulstitches.com
Algerina Perna
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Jane Saqib
Feb 24, 2015 @ 07:07:45
Wow!!! Gyleen, it is wonderful to actually see you surrounded by all the colorful fabrics, you are in your true element.