about cuckoo quilts

I started Cuckoo Quilts! in 1995 when I was pregnant with my second child (hence the name). I was a stay-at-home mom and wanted a way to justify the amount of money I was spending on fabric (and maybe make a little money). At first, I made quilted clocks and "sold" them at craft fairs and at my quilt guild's show. Most of the people who were interested in my clocks were quilters and at every show I would hear them whisper to their friends . . . "I could make that myself" . . . and at every show I would sell one clock.

Eventually I got wise and decided to sell patterns for the clocks instead of the actual clocks. The clocks were my only pattern for a number of years. Then one year I wanted to go on my guild's retreat. I didn't have any money and my husband wasn't keen on watching the kids -- I'd added another one by then -- for me to have fun. He was okay with me going on a retreat if I was going to be working. So my friend Marianne suggested that I design a pattern that I could teach at the retreat (teachers went free at that time) that way I could have fun while still working. "What's Bugging You?" was my first non-clock pattern and the real beginning of my pattern business.

My patterns are hand-appliquéd using needle-turn  (but you can use any method, including fusing) and many of them include some machine-pieced backgrounds. I think of them as whimsically-realistic folk art. I love to walk in the woods (or swamps or fields or gardens or other wild places), so most of my quilts are flowers or other things like birds or nests or bugs or frogs or suns and moons . . . you get the picture. To get the patterns go to the pattern tab (coming soon) or email me. I'd love to hear from you!
My newest pattern . . .
.  . . based on the trumpet vine.

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