Artists
INVITATIONAL ARTIST: Sue Royer
Come view her artistry, with a display of beautiful quilts inspired by photographs
FEATURED ARTIST: Cindy Leen
My first experience with quilting was an Around the World pattern that my sister sent to me in
1991, out of the blue. I bought a used sewing machine, and made the wall hanging, with puffy
polyester batting. That was my first, and only quilt with a 100% batting, although now I use a
blend.
In 1992 I met my husband-to-be, and in early 1993 we moved into our new home in East
Berlin, PA. I was now a stepmother to two young boys and a girl, who stayed with us every
other weekend. The boys shared a room, and I immediately decided to make quilts for them. I
bought two fabric panels that were covered in dinosaurs, put on borders and a flannel backing,
and quilted them myself. Looking back, this surprises me more now than it did then. At that
point I didn’t know anything about long arm machines, or realize that other people would
actually, quilt your quilts for you! I assumed if you were making a quilt, you would do it all, from
start to finish. How things have changed since then! Anyway, I quilted one with a diagonal grid
and one with a horizontal grid, so the boys could tell them apart. Thirty years later they still
have those quilts. Not long after that my stepdaughter got her (very purple) quilt, which she also
still has.
I was pretty much hooked after that. I joined the York Quilters’ Guild, took classes starting with
simple quilt patterns to the more advanced, to learning different techniques, and eventually to
machine quilting. I continue to try to improve my quilting, knowing that there is a lot of trial and
error involved in first choosing and then implementing a design plan. Plans don’t always work,
for various reasons, so I feel it’s important to keep trying different designs, and to keep
practicing them. It is very gratifying to finish a quilt, knowing that the quilting design I chose
was just right.
Cindy Leen
Come view her artistry, with a display of beautiful quilts inspired by photographs
FEATURED ARTIST: Cindy Leen
My first experience with quilting was an Around the World pattern that my sister sent to me in
1991, out of the blue. I bought a used sewing machine, and made the wall hanging, with puffy
polyester batting. That was my first, and only quilt with a 100% batting, although now I use a
blend.
In 1992 I met my husband-to-be, and in early 1993 we moved into our new home in East
Berlin, PA. I was now a stepmother to two young boys and a girl, who stayed with us every
other weekend. The boys shared a room, and I immediately decided to make quilts for them. I
bought two fabric panels that were covered in dinosaurs, put on borders and a flannel backing,
and quilted them myself. Looking back, this surprises me more now than it did then. At that
point I didn’t know anything about long arm machines, or realize that other people would
actually, quilt your quilts for you! I assumed if you were making a quilt, you would do it all, from
start to finish. How things have changed since then! Anyway, I quilted one with a diagonal grid
and one with a horizontal grid, so the boys could tell them apart. Thirty years later they still
have those quilts. Not long after that my stepdaughter got her (very purple) quilt, which she also
still has.
I was pretty much hooked after that. I joined the York Quilters’ Guild, took classes starting with
simple quilt patterns to the more advanced, to learning different techniques, and eventually to
machine quilting. I continue to try to improve my quilting, knowing that there is a lot of trial and
error involved in first choosing and then implementing a design plan. Plans don’t always work,
for various reasons, so I feel it’s important to keep trying different designs, and to keep
practicing them. It is very gratifying to finish a quilt, knowing that the quilting design I chose
was just right.
Cindy Leen