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Like most of us, Julie was born. This even occurred in 1951 in Geneva, Switzerland, where her father spent a year working for the International Labor Organization and her mother spent a year producing Julie. She grew to adulthood in a little brick cottage in the backwoods of Falls Church, Virginia, while her father eked out a meager living working for a small, nearby company called The US Government.

Around 1970 her parents, no longer able to support her at home, made the momentous decision to ship her off to Philadelphia to be educated. While at the University of Pennsylvania, studying anthropology, she met a strapping young engineering student who was interested in radio astronomy, stars, planets, galaxies, and other heavenly bodies. He immediately recognized Julie as one of these, and after a wild, whirlwind courtship, they were married in a little chapel in the countryside of Arlington, Virginia, in May of 1972.

That summer her husband landed an internship position at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Little did she know, as they packed their little Ford Pinto to the bursting point, that that summer would change Julie forever! As they rumbled out of Virginia in the long-suffering Pinto, she realized only dimly that West Virginia is to quilting as the Mother Lode is to prospecting. She was setting out not only on a journey to Green Bank, but on a journey to the rest of her life.

In West Virginia Julie quickly learned that everyone was a quilter. She met a lady known to her only as Mrs. Wyatt. Mrs. Wyatt lived in a little farm house at the edge of the woods, with ceilings so low that even Julie, at 5' 2", had to duck to go through the doors. Mrs. Wyatt, a farm wife, spent every available moment quilting. She showed Julie her entire operation, and Julie bought one of her quilts (a beautiful Double Wedding Ring design). She was hooked! While in West Virginia Julie also bought an antique treadle-operated Singer sewing machine; this machine, so appropriately, produced her first few quilts. That summer, the anthropologist in her blossomed. She saw a side of America that few city folks ever experience: mountain villages hidden in mist, rickety shacks with wood-fired stoves, kitchens full of home-canned jars of vegetables, quilts on all the beds, and walls papered with wrappers from Mountain Mist quilt batting. She attended auctions of farm machinery, household items, and quilts. She saw quilts in homes, quilts, on beds, quilts on sofas in the living room. Quilts everywhere. She came home and wrote her senior thesis, The Family in Rural Southern Appalachia. Alea jacta erat! The die was cast!

After a long odyssey through Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Mexico, Julie, her husband, and their first little rug rat finally landed in California. There she fell in with a group called the South Bay Quilting Guild, where she eventually rose to be President (for two one-year terms, no less!) Under the blue skies and whispering palm trees of Southern California, she honed her skills on a variety of new quilts. At first, with the influence of West Virginia still strong, she concentrated on traditional patterns and color schemes. Her experiences in Pennsylvania led her to experiment with Amish quilts as well. Eventually, however, she branched out into the wide variety of styles you see in this site.

Julie now lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband Steve and one son, David. Her older son, Benjamin, a musician, has flown the coop, but still lives in the LA area. Of course, she is still quilting. Keep an eye on this site for her future work.