I recently ran across this quilt by Sherry Shish, of Powered By Quilting, and I’m very impressed with it. It’s a great mix of traditional and modern looks
Simply Cornered, as shown on Sherry’s website
I contacted Sherry and asked a few questions, which she graciously answered. Here’s The interview:
Q: How did you get into quilting, how long have you been doing it, and when did you decide to make it professional?
A: I had been hand sewing and doing other crafts for many years before I learned how to sew on a machine. I’ve been quilting for just over 5 years now and I fell in love with all the different aspects of quilting. I started pretty early designing patterns since I really love seeing my ideas and my style of quilts.
Q: Where do you get your design ideas?
A: Everywhere… but I find it easier to put self constraints on what I’m designing to help narrow the focus. I really love secondary designs (like really love them) so a ton of my patterns have a secondary design. I create, iterate, rotate, recolor, and repeat several times before I land on a design that I love and want to make.
Q: You’ve got a lot going on with social media. How much time does it take?
A: Social media is hard… It’s necessary, but sometimes I’d rather just be me and pretty pictures are not reality. I should spend more time on social media, but I find I give what I can and that has to be good enough.
Q: What are your goals for your quilting business? What are your goals for your quilting art?
A: I would love to make it my main source of income, but I have a good day job that makes it very difficult to balance time and commitments. There are things that I would love to be able to do such as kit more of my patterns, teach, lecture, etc. but time is precious and there are things that I’m still prioritizing over adding to the business side to make sure I keep my sanity and don’t burnout in life in general.
My EQ8 drawing based on Sherry Shish’s pattern “Simply Cornered”
It appears Sherry has made the pattern available already to her Patreon subscribers, and she also sewed it on her Twitch channel in January. It will be available through her PayHip store in March, and you can pre-order here.
I will be making this pattern and following Sherry’s blog. Please join me in wishing her luck!
Zippy Quilts 
It’s always surprising to me to see a new quiltmaker earning a living – or trying to earn a living – from quilting. There’s SO much to learn and know about quiltmaking, in general, that even after more than 40 years of doing it myself, I don’t know it all.
It appears to me that the road to success in quilt world is to find something you specialize in and can teach. E.g., Eleanor Burns’ Quilt in a Day, Susan Cleveland’s binding.
Fascinating interview. I can see why her work caught your eye. I am now following her on Instagram. Thanks Mary
Thanks for sharing! 🙂 I actually really love the 2 tone quilt! Funny enough, I do design in 2 tones a large majority of the time except for the Simply Quilts since I’m forcing the use of FQs 😀
I’ll be interested to see what you do.
The blue&white color scheme reminds me of the traditional old timey red&white quilts so in that vein, you could consider that approach to be a nod to the traditional in a very modern quilt pattern. Which I do like BTW!
Sherry is amazingly prolific in her pattern designs, so I’ll be watching to see what she comes up with next.
Enjoyed reading the interview and I liked her version of the quilt but I really like what you did with having it in just two colors – makes it really striking!
Fun to read about another quilter. But don’t tell: I love your version the best, if I had to choose.
Her output is amazing, especially since she has a full time job as well.