Introducing You to Anna Koelewyn
Anna Koelewyn (pronounced “Cool-la-wine”) was born to quilt.
She just didn’t know it until 11 years ago.
She knew she loved sewing, from the time she was introduced to it in high school Home Economics class. She took to it immediately, and focused on garment making throughout her high school years. A mentor tried to interest her in quilting, and enrolled her in a hand-quilting class. Anna’s project, a hand-quilted satin wholecloth quilt, was never finished.
College courses filled her days after high school graduation, and sewing took a backseat. However she did find time to make a blue and brown tied 4-patch comforter for then boyfriend and husband-to-be Jeff, while they were dating.
Anna and Jeff married, and when their girls began arriving (they have three daughters), Anna began sewing clothes for them. She soon added ballet costumes to her repertoire. As a homeschooling mom, her days were quite full. Still, she made time to take another hand-quilting class, this time from Marguerite Shattuck. Anna’s project from that class also remains unfinished, but Anna had been bitten by the quilting bug.
She joined Common Threads Quilt Guild when they first organized, and took a Stack-n-Whack class from Charlotte Rogers. She was thrilled to replace handwork with machine work, and began taking every quilting class that came her way. Her appetite for taking classes is insatiable, and soon she was asked to teach.
She began teaching quilting to some of the ladies at her church. Then she taught serger classes at Thimble Towne. They had a need for someone to co-teach beginning quilting, and she answered that call as well. Soon she branched off into teaching other quilting classes, often teaching herself new techniques before presenting them to others.
Anna has always made traditional quilts, and says that she has easily made “more than 200.” She’s given many of them away, yet still has “at least 100” at home.
During this past year or so, Anna has been drawn into the world of art quilts. Because she gets bored quickly, she likes working in a smaller scale. Rather than repetitive block work, art quilts give her a chance to incorporate new techniques and develop something that is constantly changing. She finds art quilts to be both fun and challenging, and she loves learning about color and value. Anna finds value to be her biggest challenge.
Anna is learning to include embellishment in her work, and gets excited when something adds new value and depth to a piece. There is an art to embellishment, “it’s not just sticking things onto your quilt.”
Anna has hired long-armers to quilt her large quilts. It wasn’t until she tried free-motion machine quilting on a tree skirt that she discovered how much she enjoys machine quilting. She enjoys it so much, this past summer she invested in a new Bernina 820. She is no longer allowed to hire anyone to quilt for her.
Anna delights in the challenge of quilting. New classes, new designs, new techniques, all spur her on to new creations.
She’s recently joined SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) and is beginning to submit her work on a national level. She sets goals for herself, and makes it a high priority to produce quality work.
Anna’s goals for 2009-2010 were to 1) work on Sally Collins’ precision piecing techniques; 2) enter national quilt shows; 3) expand into entering art shows; and 4) perhaps eventually be selected as the Featured Artist of a show. At Best of the Valley, we did not know her goals, but her body of work has been increasingly noteworthy. We are thrilled to have helped her achieve one of her goals, and it is with great pleasure that we present to you both Anna Koelewyn and her quilts.