Artist's Statement

I learned my craft mostly thanks to some amazing women: costume designers, women with sewing businesses, my mom. I love color play, hate waste.

I started Elisabethan in 1996 using mostly vintage fabrics, but my growing awareness of the mountains of unwanted secondhand clothing made me want to work with this potential resource: it needed to be recycled.

I use mostly secondhand cotton t-shirts, cashmere & wool sweaters as "yardage". I design and make all of my patterns & strive for surprising & playful combinations thru piecing, applique, & dying. 

During its first 25 years in Colorado, Elisabethan grew to include design, production & employees. I sold my work at juried art fairs, to stores, on my website, and in my own brick & mortar store.

In 2023, I relocated back to my home state of Massachusetts. I landed in Somerville in fall 2025 and am relearning to PLAY with my materials, to make things that aren't necessarily products. My love of making useful things continues to surface, so I am learning what a new balance of purpose and creativity looks like.

Recycling is central to my work. My design inspiration comes from the challenge to find raw materials in the sea of STUFF that surrounds all of us;  to make something new that isn't MORE; to take the unwanted and make it into the “must-have.”