About Nina

Nina started making quilts when she was pregnant with her daughter Miriam in 1975. She was a weaver at the time and realized she wouldn’t have time for weaving anymore, so she checked out quilts.

 

Nina had a friend named Billie Street that taught Adult Ed. at Mission Hill Jr. High, and she went and started learning from her. Nina then joined a little group and took all the classes she could. She said it’s been a long time learning.

 

When she first started quilting there was only one [quilting] magazine. All it was was black and white squares, blocks, and you could look at that and go, well, I could take that and take off with it. Now people come into the store and say I want this fabric right here and nothing else. That’s how it’s changed.

 

She made her first quilt with a yardstick for the ruler, and drew it with a  pencil on the background fabric, and then had to cut every piece out with scissors. It took a very long time.

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She said people always want to know how long it took to make a quilt, but she didn’t ever keep track of time because her favorite part is the process, so while she’s doing that she’s quite happy. She enjoys quilting because she finds it very peaceful and really focused on beautiful things. She said it’s been fun being able to be creative with things that otherwise might get thrown out.

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Nina has made quilts from probably a couple hundred patterns, and some patterns that are her own that she makes up. She said she just looks at grid paper and sees what she thinks it might work into.

 

The last quilt she made was one of her favorite patterns she’s done. She always gets comments on her political quilts.

She loves the way her African quilt turned out, taking a basic pattern and twisting it and turning it was fun.

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Nina said when she is starting a new quilt it just kind of pops into her head, and that’s how it’s going to be. What’s hard about that is sometimes there is one pattern she wants in there, and there isn’t a fabric with that pattern in it, and that takes a long time to work out. She’s almost always finished everything she started. Nina says if you can see it in your brain, you can do it, there’s always a way in quilting.

 

She taught a sewing class for thirty years at different quilt shops in the Santa Cruz area, it eventually became known as “Nina’s Nuts”. She always tells quilters go with what’s in your head, don’t question it, don’t argue with it, just do it. Her advice to new quilters: just do it. You’ll either love it, or say I made one, I’m done.