Sara Sharp

A lifelong love of color and fabric led me to my current career as an art quilter. I have always been attracted to subtle details in nature. Because of a passion for bird watching, birds often appear in my quilts. Since I also enjoy photography, my bird and nature photos are often used as reference material. Whether depicting birds, interiors, figures, or landscapes, I benefit from an understanding of color and composition which I developed during my earlier art education and as a professional painter. These skills are also used as I paint, dye, and print fabrics that I use in my quilts. One of my favorite techniques is thread painting, in which I stitch with scores of colors and layers of various threads on my domestic sewing machine to convey the desired hue, value, and shading for each area. I use hand guided free motion quilting to enhance background spaces and contribute texture to the whole creation.