About me (2/2010)

I'm a 30 year old quilter from the south side of Chicago. I live with my Greek husband, Costas, and our son George in the suburban expanses of Long Island. I'm a full-time mom, full-time housewife, and part-time grad student in Hofstra University's Applied Linguistics program. I love being able to stay home with George but I know I can't do it forever. I hope to finish my masters in the next 2 years and then go back to teaching ESL.
My blog tells about my creative ponderings, stitched efforts, my travels and sources of inspiration. If you have any questions about what I'm making, the tools I use, or where I got my inspiration from, email me at jessicaintheforest (at) yahoo (dot) com.  I try to link back to books or other blogs when I can.
I have loved quilts since I was quite young, having first been exposed to the quilts made by my great grandmother. She passed away when I was 10, but I can still remember the time she asked me to thread a needle for her. I started my first quilt in 1994 when I was 14 -- 3" squares in a random scrappy pattern. It's still in my ufo pile I finally finished in in December 2009. In college I met Lexi (1998) who taught me that it was ok to tie. I made 3 quilts in college, all simple, all tied. It was Lexi who also introduced me to my first quilt shop-- Portsmouth Fabric Co. in Portsmouth, NH. After college I went to Japan on the JET program and met Mrs. K (2002), who taugh me how to quilt the Japanese housewife way. Everything was done by hand and the pieces were soooo tiny! My first project consisted of drunkard's path blocks measuring 5cm square. I moved back to the States and joined the Intown Quilt Guild in Atlanta in late 2002. I started teaching classes at the Intown Quilt shop in 2003, and mentored under Helen Thompson until we moved to Massachusetts in '04. It took me a while to find quilters I was comfortable with in MA, but in '06 I joined the Silver City Quilt Guild in Taunton, and served as their President from '07-'08.
George came along in October '08, shortly after we moved to NY, and for a while I thought I couldn't quilt and be a mom at the same time. Then Shannon Baker came back into my life, and her weekly phonecalls have helped me find balance and the itch to sew since then. I'm sure it's obvious from the blog, but I love scrap quilts, one patch quilts, and improvisational piecing. I don't think I have a "style" yet, I'm still trying out a bunch of things..
On the non-quilty side of things: I got my BA in East Asian Language & Literature from Smith College in 2001. I lived in Japan for 2 years, one spent studying at Doshisha University in Kyoto, the other teaching English in a high school in southern Hokkaido. I started my Masters in Applied Linguistics at UMass Boston in January '08 and transfered to Hofstra University in Sept '09. I love teaching English and studying about languages, and I'd love to get in touch with other ESL teachers, let me know if you're reading!
(backdated, updated 2/8/10)