Published 9/14/2007

Local quilter tells stories with fabric and love

By Beckye Randall

Walking into Kathy McNeil’s warm cedar home on the shores of Tulalip Bay, there’s an immediate feeling of tranquility.

Maybe it’s the lucky Korean dragon, hand-painted by McNeil, that graces the foyer, or the soothing sounds trickling from the Zen-inspired water garden framing the living area. Or maybe it’s McNeil herself, her warm hospitality and generosity evident even to strangers.

Kathy McNeil is an award-winning quilter, but that is only the tip of the story. Her work is unique and personal, and each piece she creates tells a story.

As a young girl, McNeil was enchanted by stories of fairy tale castles, magical forests, handsome princes and mythical creatures. She loved to escape to the solitude of her back yard, surrounded by the beauty of Mt. Baker National Forest, and draw pictures to illustrate the books she read.

Her other childhood hobby was caring for others. As young as two, she would rescue birds that had suffered at the hands of boys with BB guns, feeding them bits of worm as they recovered from their wounds.

That nature of caring translated into a lifelong career in nursing, and today McNeil provides comfort as a recovery room nurse. But as much as she loves being a nurse, thriving on the precision and detail in her work, the busy mother of four was also searching for a creative outlet. She tried going back to drawing and painting, creating a fantastic wonderland on the walls of her bedroom that features the landscape and creatures of the forest and mountains. The project was challenging, but didn’t provide her with an outlet for continued expression.

Ten years ago, when her oldest daughter Shona was headed off to college, she asked her mom to make her a quilt. McNeil had never worked with fabrics, but she agreed to give it a try. At the fabric store, McNeil had a revelation: she saw a “landscape” quilt and was excited by its beauty and fluid nature.

Shona’s quilt was a traditional geometric design, and it is still a treasured memento. But McNeil admitted she was “intimidated by all those tiny points” and the precise calculations required to create traditional quilts. She decided to go back to what she knew, and began to “paint” with fabrics.

McNeil uses appliqué to create sculptured images in fabric, a technique used by relatively few of the 23 million quilters in the country. Even more unique, she hems each edge of every scrap of fabric and meticulously stitches the tiny pieces together by hand. Most quilters using appliqué methods either glue or fuse the materials together, leaving raw edges on the fabric pieces. While that gives the design a lively textural look, McNeil wanted to create scenes in which the elements flow together naturally.

McNeil has had no formal training in quilting, which she says allowed her to experiment without preconceived ideas of what was right or wrong. Instead, quilting became a way to recapture the joyful imagination of her childhood. “Since I didn’t know any better, I was free to figure out what worked for me,” says McNeil.

She starts each design with a pencil sketch, then adds color to determine the quilt’s primary elements. She usually pieces together the “main characters” first, then later fills in the background scenery. Depending on the finished size, creating a quilt requires an investment of 400-600 painstaking hours.

Rather than piecing fabric together on a muslin base, like traditional quilters, McNeil uses the “flannel board” method. A massive styrofoam base is attached to the wall of her work room and then covered with a bed sheet. The quilt edges are marked with blue masking tape. The artwork comes alive on the wall as each new piece is pinned in and then stitched.

McNeil considers the time spent in quilting a gift of health to herself and her family. As a nurse she understands the benefits of creativity and its connection to stress reduction. “When you’re in that time-out-of-mind zone, focusing on a creative activity, your heart rate and blood pressure go down, and the production of serotonin goes up.”

Teaching others is also one of Kathy’s joys. She relishes the “connection with centuries of women” who have practiced the art of quilting, and enjoys sharing that connection with students. There is only one rule in her studio: there are no rules. Students are encouraged to discover their own favorite techniques and materials, and McNeil supports them with gentle guidance and praise.

McNeil explains, “Quilts have been the medium for many centuries and in many cultures for women to express their own artistic vision, to give their life color, to make political or social statements, and to preserve family stories. My work is energized and inspired by this rich tradition.”

A member of The Applique Society and several local and regional guilds, McNeil has won many prestigious awards, including a first place prize at the 2007 Applique Society show. Her quilts have been featured in museums, magazines, calendars and the American Quilters Society Web site (www.americanquilter.com). Four of the country’s top quilt museums have exhibited her work in solo shows, including a current display at the Tillamook Textile Museum in Oregon, and many of her quilts are in private collections.

There’s no doubt that Kathy McNeil is talented, driven and creative. Her nursing background contributes generosity, empathy and caring to her personality. And somehow, she manages to convey all those traits in her designs and in her nurturing approach to teaching.
To find out more about Kathy McNeil and her beautiful quilts, visit www.kathymcneilquilts.com.