About the Textile Artist...

Jean M. Judd of Cushing, Wisconsin, has been quilting since 1990. Jean is a self-taught textile artist who uses only hand quilting and stitching in her work. She has been making commission quilts for clients since the beginning of her career. In 2004 Sisters In Stitches was formally registered as a business in Wisconsin and has been growing by leaps and bounds ever since. Custom hand dyed fabrics have been added as well as doing custom hand quilting for other textile artists and traditional quilters.
                                                                                             All of her work is original designs, some still using traditional quilt blocks, others being contemporary quilts. She does not use thimbles while hand quilting as she feels her stitches are more consistent and smaller without the thimble. It is more difficult for her to feel the needle when using a thimble. There is no painting on her quilts or fusing of fabrics to one another. All applique is done by hand. Most of her quilts made to date have been full size to king size quilts with moderate size quilts now just coming into her series work.

There are over 100 quilts residing in homes across the US. Many of her quilts, pillows and wall hangings are in private collections, or been sold at auctions as well as fundraising raffles for national charitable organizations. Many of the recent commissions have been made for retirement occassions or for new home constructions.

Jean now has her dream studio as of July 2007! Go to the Studio page to see full details. She relocated to the 1st floor of her house and has taken over the two largest rooms. She now has a 12 foot by 8 foot design wall, 14x12 foot office space and a huge studio space with Full Spectrum Lighting right off the office area. She can enjoy the beautiful view of the lake and can walk right out the sliding patio door. See the article about the evolution of her studio in The Professional Quilter Journal Fall of 2007 and in Art Calendar magazine December of 2007.
 
Jean's Philosophy: "Not everything in life is about speed, quantity and immediate satisfaction. I could make hundreds of pieces a year by machine quilting instead of hand quilting. It is NOT about how many pieces I can produce quickly, it is about making a quality piece with old world craftsmanship and details that are uniquely mine. Each piece is designed by me. I select the fabric to be used and I piece it all together into a one-of-a-kind, unique artwork. Every quilt stitch is made by my 2 hands and a part of me resides in each piece. The design evolves as the process continues to completion."
 
Jean also offers custom hand quilting on clients antique and contemporary quilt tops. Contact her for further information through the Contact Artist option located on the sidebar. More information is also available on the Other Services page as well as under the Commission Forms page.

She has been quilting for over two decades and decided to branch out into commission work many years ago. In the last few years she has added art quilts to her repertoire. Jean has never followed someone else's design, so all of her pieces are one of a kind. Her specialty is hand work, especially hand quilting and hand applique. She has not machine quilted any of her work. Regular clients particularly value this feature as it is more and more difficult to find quality, hand quilted art. The studio is located in Cushing, WI in a valley filled with wildlife, beautiful scenery, and lots of inspiration. Jean constructs commission pieces of any size for clients. She can be contacted via email for more details using the Contact Artist option located on the sidebar. There also are forms on the Commission Forms page for clients to fill out and submit by postal mail.

As the traditional quilt becomes more art-like, comes off the bed and becomes displayed on walls as art, it is interesting to note that we are coming full circle back to the tapestry tradition of the 1300s. Kings and nobles of the medieval, renaissance and Arts & Craft periods used huge tapestries on their walls. The large pieces moved from castle to castle and provided comfort as well as prestige for their owners and were considered a valuable part of the spoils of war. Art Quilts are becoming very similar in size to these ancient tapestries as well, as they grow in size to fill large wall spaces in great rooms of collectors homes, soaring wall spaces at corporations, and on walls in major medical centers across the nation. More musuems and galleries are showing contemporary art quilts as works of art intermixed with the traditional art of oil painting, acrylics and sculpture.

A new and exciting project launched by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) in October of 2009 and Jean is one of the pilot members. President Lisa Chipetine is starting the Visioning Project open to all members of SAQA. This will be a year long process for each Visioning Project member to publically state their goal for the project, share their steps to reaching their goal, show their progress monthly including obstacles, and assist others in reaching their stated goal. At the end, a documentary will be done featuring these textile artists. There are 160 members signed up to participate in this project. The project has been deemed so successful that it will continue through 2011 and members have selected new goals for the next twelve month period.