Profile of Barb Cowan

I developed a fascination for quilt-making in the late seventies. We were living in my husband’s home town of Melbourne and although our two small children kept me busy, I felt the need for some form of self-expression. There seemed to be a buzz about patchwork, everyone I met had a connection to the craft in some way and beautiful quilts were everywhere.

I had made my own clothes and experimented with soft furnishings but when I discovered that the local community centre was offering 'An Introduction to Patchwork – Hand Piecing' course, I booked myself in. As a class of six, we were all enthralled as each person's choice of fabric and colour came together in such a different array of blocks and each came away completely satisfied with our my new found knowledge about hand-piecing. I had taught myself many crafts over the years but patchwork truly captured my imagination…. I was hooked!

In 1983 we were relocated to Brisbane and so with, now, three small children we packed up and moved back to my home town and settled in the northern suburb of Geebung. It was then that my quilting journey really began. The quilting bug had well and truly bitten and I had become a ‘fabriholic’!

I studied books from the library and was intrigued to learn about the history of quilt-making. I gained some insight into the history of patchwork and how the tradition of this craft reflects the changing lives of generations all over the world.

I enrolled in another community course titled ‘Machine Piecing’. It was in these classes that I learnt the basics of machine-piecing and how to prepare the three layers of a quilt for hand quilting. I have attended many, many more courses over the years, met many more kindred spirits become a regular attendee at gatherings of Queensland Quilters even started an affiliated patchwork group called, “Maberley Quilters”.

After hand quilting two quilts, I moved onto machine quilting. The experience of machine quilting a few smaller projects on my domestic sewing machine taught me much of the fundamentals of machine quilting. However, I greatly admire those people who labour over a huge quilt with the limited throat space of a domestic machine.

In July 2001, I was introduced to the world of ‘longarming’ at the Australasian Machine Quilting Conference at Penrith NSW. The machine quilting systems I saw at conference opened my eyes to all sorts of possibilities. I had to have one! Three months later I took delivery of a Gammill Classic, set up The Quilt Connection at Aspley, and since then have quilted hundreds and hundreds of quilts for many happy clients. In January 2006 I sold the Gammill and bought a Prodigy 24” (Maggie).

I am motivated by pride of achievement and the feedback I receive from my clients indicates they value the work that I do in helping them complete their “treasures”. My work has been recognsed with prizes and awards.

As a founding member of the Australian Machine Quilting Association Inc., I have contributed to the establishment of the first organisation representing Australian machine quilting professionals. Along the way I have helped newcomers to set-up their own business as machine quilters for hire, by hosting several machine quilting gatherings at The Quilt Connection and conducting demonstrations and one-to-one tutorials about machine quilting techniques.

I taught at the 2005 Australasian Machine Quilting Conference at Mittagong and at the 2008 New Zealand Machine Quilting Conference. (See the Machine Quilting Workshops page for more information about my teaching services.)

You can also read about my latest news and studio happenings on my blog: www.thequiltconnection.blogspot.com