Award winning quilt artist Nancy Rink has designed several quilt patterns using a variety of techniques.  Her patterns include piecing, applique and paper piecing.  From table runners to king sized quilts you’ll find beautiful designs, both traditional and contemporary. 

Today, Nancy Rink tells us how she got her start . . .

“As a young girl, my first attempts at sewing involved making clothing for my Barbies. My grandmother did a great deal of sewing and I would take her discarded scraps home with me and fashion them into what were in all likelihood horribly constructed doll outfits. But in my child’s mind they were beautiful and they were made with my own hands.  Later as a teen, I learned to sew and sewed most of my own clothes.  I was an avid seamstress until I completely fell in love with quilting.  However, I did not fall in love as some do – head over heels.  My love of quilting came on gradually as sewing clothes becase less of a focus and quiltmaking took over my time and ignited my creative passion.  “What was the event that triggered it?”  is a question I’ve been asked many times.  It’s hard to pinpoint one specific event as the trigger.  I think it was more like a confluence of events that came together and illuminated some things about quilting and about myself that I had not previously known.  One of those events was the Hoffman Challenge.   The fabric shop near my house closed down and I “discovered” a quilt shop across town.  A quilt shop?  Would they have dressmaking fabric?  When I walked in I was overwhelmed.  A display caught my eve.  It had the Hoffman Challenge fabric draped gracefully across a shelf and there with it were the entry forms.  The fabric reallly caught my eye – it was burgundy, green, and had shimmering gold streaks.  how would somone use that in a quilt? I wondered.  Up to that point I had used very traditional calicos, plaids, and solids that were characteristic of the early ’80s. and had used them to make ordinary everyday use quilts from simple patterns.

But that Hoffman Challenge fabric called to me.  I bought two yards.  I also bought a book about mariner’s compasses by Judy Mathieson that day.  I took that book home and must have read it cover to cover at least ten times.  Transfixed by the mariner’s compass, I was certain that that was what I would do with the Hoffman Challenge fabric.  And because I was on my own, learning by myself with Judy to guide me, I did not know that a mariner’s compass was a hard thing to make.  And so I made the mariner’s compass.  It was beautiful.  The gold streaks in the fabric shimmered.  But there needed to be more.  The compass was not enough.  It needed a border.  I drew several ideas out on graph paper and finally settle on one.  And that is when I became a designer.  I worked doggedly to finish the quilt – or wallhanging, actually, and my first one at that.  I filled out my paperwork and sent everything off.

Several weeks later, after I’d moved on to another project, I received a phone call.  It was from someone at Hoffman Challenge who wanted to congratulate me on winning first place!  For the life of me, I cannot recall my reaction.  I actually don’t think it registered.  Moreover, I know I did not understand the magnitude of the award.  I’d never seen any Hoffman Challenge quilts, and I’d never seen a quilt show other than the quilt exhibit at our county fair.  At that point I had absolutely no idea that a whole world of quilting existed beyond my doorstep.  But what I did know is that at that point quilting changed for me.  I realized that quilting could be art, that I could design my own quilts, and that there was fabulous fabric, books, tools, etc. waiting for me to put them to use.

Now, I’ve been to, and exhibited in, numerous quilt shows.  I proudly display my award ribbons on a wall in my “studio”.  But when it comes down to it, I’m just a quilter.  I decide on a quilt pattern.  I pick out fabric.  I cut, I sew, I quilt (these days on a APQS longarm).  And like many quilters, I enjoy trying out new gadgets, new tools, new techniques, new materials, new books, and new fabric.  When I get in a slump I look through some of my favorite quilting books for inspiration.  Judy Mathieson’s Mariner’s Compass book is still one of my favorites and I have designed many quilts using it, and her subsequent mariner’s compass books, as guides.  Or I get out that gadget I’ve yet to try and put it through its paces .  And now, thanks to the internet, I can browse websites, read blogs, and look at quilt photos on Webshots and Flickr.  Sometimes I am actually daunted by the wealth of materials and wonder how I am ever going to try all of those new tools and techniques, how am I going to finish all of my planned projects, and how am I ever going to use up my stash . . . especially when it seems that more goes in than comes out!

Thanks, Nancy, for sharing your story!

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