Joining us today on the QuiltWoman.com Blog is Joy Duke of Joyous Applique Designs.
Hi, I’m Joy Duke with Joyous Appliqué Designs. I have enjoyed working with fabric since the 70’s when I sat with my mother during her sewing lessons and received my first sewing basket with a bright yellow top and green pompom handle. Those were the first days of getting to play with fabric, needle, and thread that got me started with my fabric love affair. Then the Bicentennial came along and my school class was fortunate to have mothers who came in and taught us how to cross-stitch on fabric in shapes to represent the bicentennial. Later, during junior high school we were asked to create a project to represent work that was done by early settlers in Virginia and I created my first small quilt which was a crazy quilt made of cotton fabrics that my mother helped me complete.
As an adult I have enjoyed crewel embroidery, counted cross-stitch, and then my real love of quilting began after I married my junior high school sweetheart and became a member of the Peninsula Piecemakers Quilt Guild with my mother. My first true quilt (that was quilted) was a log cabin quilt made for my husband that was a true learning process. At that point in my hobby I said I would never do appliqué. Now that is almost all I do with the help of fusibles and the beautiful threads available for hand stitching as well as machine appliqué that have made it easy to enjoy this artform. It’s no longer the “A†word as it was referred to in my early days in our quilt guild!
Following an 11-year career as an Editorial Assistant for scientific journals, I decided it was time to make my hobby into a new career. After enjoying over 20 years of quilting, I began to design my own quilt patterns that may be made by hand or machine using a fusible technique. Fusibles and hand stitching have been my method of choice for quite a few years now as they make for easy projects to take along during my sons’ soccer, piano, and swimming lessons, and competitions. Each of my designs depict happy thoughts and topics as I love to put a smile on people’s faces. That seems only fitting for a person named “Joy†– don’t you think? I hope you will enjoy my patterns during stitching and use, and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing pictures of your finished projects.
Join me in enjoying applique the fun way with Joyous Applique Designs, it’s your place for fun applique patterns and if you would like to have me come teach or lecture for your Guild, please let me know.
