After receiving my degree in Graphic Design, I took a job as a textile designer for a major kitchen towel manufacturer in Los Angeles. I had never thought of a career in textiles, but, it turned out to be a great job. I was being paid to draw and paint all day. What could be better than that?

While there, I worked with a designer who had a line of needlepoint canvases and was being represented by JB Designs. Janet Fenton, the owner, was looking for someone to reproduce her nutcracker canvases. After she saw my portfolio she suggested I try my hand at needlepoint design. Janet taught me how to paint the canvases and gave me direction on which designs would do well. So began an avocation and a friendship.

Janet distributed my canvases until she passed away. During this time my husband retired from the Marine Corps and we moved to rural Ohio, then on to North Carolina and finally settled in Tennessee, where we live on 10 beautiful acres on the Cumberland Highlands. Even though I was a Southern California girl, I love the country life, but I found it challenging to get work in the commercial art field and it became slowly apparent that my avocation should become my vocation: it was time to take the leap. With that as my goal, I quit looking for a “day job” and spent the next couple of years concentrating on my needlepoint designs.

I have had a life-long love of the needle arts. My mother taught me to embroider and crochet when I was a child and I taught myself to needlepoint. For most of my life I have had a paintbrush or a needle arts project in my hands.

Since moving to Tennessee I have become a member of the Embroidery Guild of America, Iris Chapter.

I have been blessed to be able to spend my days planting flowers all around our property (I never saw a plot of ground that I couldn’t imagine flowers growing on it), designing a needlepoint canvas, or working on a needle arts project. I get much of my inspiration for my designs from my gardens.