Pat LaPierre McAfee

Pat LaPierre McAfee

FL34106-014

Pat LaPierre McAfee

Suzanne Sanger

06/05/2005

Moda Fabrics/United Notions

The Naples Quilt Guild QSOS
Naples, Florida

Suzanne Sanger [SS]: This is Suzanne Sanger. Today's date is June 9th, 2005, it is 11:15 AM, and I'm conducting an interview with Pat LaPierre-McAfee for the Quilters' [S.O.S.] Save Our Stories project and the Naples Quilters Guild at her shop, A Stitch Above, in Naples, Florida. Pat, tell me, were you living in Naples when you learned to quilt?

Pat LaPierre-McAfee [PLM]: No, actually. I've been sewing since I'm three and a half years old, but I never really began my quilting career until my mother was ill and I had to take care of her, and because I'm a slightly ADD person and I have to be busy all the time, I thought I had to find something to do with my hands. I went to the fabric store, and I bought two different color fabrics, and I started to appliqué hearts on squares with no particular plan. I just had to work with my hands. Kept me sane for all those months.

SS: What year was that?

PLM: I think probably around 93-94.

SS: So you haven't been quilting all that long.

PLM: My daughter has that quilt now. But she doesn't use it. She just saves it. [laughs.]

SS: Oh, I hate that. [both laugh.] Tell me a little bit about the quilt you have selected to talk about today.

PLM: Well this quilt was the turning point in my quilting career because it was the first one that I received a ribbon on. It was at the Naples Quilt Show, and I didn't realize that I won the ribbon until I walked in the door and a young lady with blond hair came up to me and said, 'Oh my god, I want to meet you. You won a ribbon and I love your quilt!' And it was Cindi Goodwin, and we've been friends ever since. [both laugh.]

SS: That's wonderful. When you say it was a turning point of your career, other than the ribbon, what do you mean by that?

PLM: Well, for one thing, I never thought about being in a quilt show for competition. I just wanted to put my quilt there because I thought everyone would like to see it, but once you start to win ribbons, it changes your course, changes your path, and then you become a little more competitive because if you win second prize one year, you have to have some type of goal, and so the next year you'd like to win a first prize. So that sort of changed my attitude about why I'm quilting, but also in between competition quilts, I do family quilts. That gives my brain like a little respite from the competition thing.

SS: Did you design that quilt or was it a pattern?

PLM: No, I designed it. The first quilt I ever put in a show was a pattern, and I didn't realize at that time, I was so naïve, that you were supposed to list the name of the pattern maker and all of that, and I just put it in there because I made it for my grandson and I thought it was pretty cool, and it was trains. But it was a pattern, and so I heard later on that you're not supposed to put a quilt in a show without listing the pattern maker, giving credit to the pattern maker, and then, from then on I never used a pattern ever again. All the quilts are original.

SS: Is that something that you particularly enjoy? Even your very first quilt, the hearts on squares was original really.

PLM: Was original, yes.

SS: How do you use this particular quilt? Do you sleep under it? Do you use it?

PLM: No, this is one quilt that I really save because it was my turning point quilt. I haven't decided what I'll do with it yet, but probably one of my kids will inherit that.

SS: Lucky kid. Tell me a little bit about your interest in quilting. I know you've already mentioned that you started quilting to get you through a situation there, but then you went on.

PLM: Before I was a quilter, I was a print artist and I did silk screen prints and embossed prints, which I enjoyed doing. But once I got my hands on fabric, I can't even put into words what happened to me. It was like my whole life I'd been working up to this quilting scenario that I'm in now. I don't think I could ever go back to the paper and the ink and the other things that I've done in the past. I just love the quilting so much, and now that I'm getting older I think that I don't have time to fragment my hours away on other things. I just need to do the quilts.

SS: Is it the tactile quality of quilting, or, is there a specific thing?

PLM: I don't know, I don't really know the answer to that because printmaking is tactile, and at the time I did it, I really loved what I was doing. I can recall silk-screening a series seashells, and when the project was done I felt sad because it was over. I think basically though, whatever I do, it doesn't matter if it's putting up a window casing or making a quilt or doing a print, I like the process more than the product. I just enjoy the process.

SS: Do you have a bunch of UFO's then?

PLM: I certainly do. [both laugh.]

SS: Do you really? That surprises me.

PLM: I wouldn't say a bunch. I usually have four or five or six quilts going at one time, because there are areas in your life where, or times in your life where you're not able to sit at a sewing machine. You have to sit somewhere else, so you do appliqué or you do binding, or you do some other process. Beading. And so that quilt that needs the sewing machine part of it finished sits in the bucket as a UFO until you can get to that point and sew.

SS: I don't consider that a UFO. To me, a UFO is in the closet.

PLM: No, I don't have, I've never had a UFO. No.

SS: Okay. All right. [both laugh.] That I believe.

PLM: One time, I would like to say this though. One time I made a quilt, a little mini quilt, before I understood that you don't put the bias on the outside edge. No matter what I did to that quilt, I couldn't get it square because the bias never goes back to its original form. So it was on the wall, pinned up on the wall as a UFO for a long time—about a year. And my friend Cindi taught me a very cool lesson that a quilt doesn't have to be square. It doesn't have to be a rectangle. It can be curvy, it can be round, it can be any shape you want it to be. So one day I bit the bullet and I took the rotary cutter and I made a wavy edge all around the quilt and I put a binding on it, and it won a ribbon in the Ft. Myers show. [both laugh.]

SS: That's a wonderful story. You know, you've mentioned Cindi twice. There's a question here about how you learned to quilt or who taught you. I have a feeling you were an experienced seamstress who maybe taught herself. Is that correct?

PLM: Pretty much, but I was a little bit rigid because I understood from the quilts that I saw before that everything should be square or a rectangular shape or symmetrical or repetitive, but Cindi kind of turned me in a new direction. She's the most creative person I ever knew, and Cindi needed a little bit of technique in her work. Her creativity was unsurpassed as far as I'm concerned, but she needed a little help with the technique, so we actually helped each other over the threshold. So now my work is a little more creative, and her technique has improved quite a lot.

SS: Yes, her technique is terrific.

PLM: We work well together. We critique each other right from the shoulder.

SS: I was going to ask you if you considered her kind of a mentor, but it sounds like it's a more equal relationship.

PLM: It's a mutual admiration society. [both laugh.]

SS: Have you taken any classes that have been particularly helpful to you?

PLM: That's a funny spot. I have lately in the last few years been teaching machine quilting, and people look at the way I machine quilt and they think they will never be able to do it. Well, I know they can because the very first quilt I did by machine was Fish Concert. [Pat's touchstone quilt.] I wish I could show on the audiotape the way I did it, but I did five little stitches at a time and took a breath, and then I did six little stitches at a time and took a breath. It took me about 35 or 40 hours to do the stippling on that quilt because I did it in that manner. I had no confidence and I had no one to teach me otherwise. And when I was in the Naples guild, Ricky Tims came to town and taught a workshop, and he had a wonderful class. I didn't learn an awful lot about value and color in that class because it was mostly things I already knew from the art world, but five minutes before we left the class, some lady in the class said, 'Ricky, will you show us how you machine quilt?' And he said, 'Certainly!' He sat down at that machine and went a thousand miles an hour and I walked out of there reeling on my feet. I could not believe that you could do machine quilting that way, and that completely changed my whole machine quilting career. But I will say that I fine-tuned my quilting with Diane Gaudynski's book, Guide to Machine Quilting, and I went through that book just like school, a chapter at a time. I did all of my homework, and that's where I truly learned machine quilting.

SS: And now you win prizes for it. That was worth doing. After you saw the Ricky Tims demonstration, did you go home and attack your sewing machine? [both talk at once.]

PLM: I certainly did.

SS: Did you sleep at all that night?

PLM: I couldn't believe how much more fun it was, because I didn't have to keep taking those deep breaths. [laughing.]

SS: You learned to breathe while you were sewing?

PLM: So I always tell the students, don't think that you can't do it, because I know you can. And I started where everyone else starts.

SS: We are sitting here doing this interview in your shop. How did you happen to decide to open a shop?

PLM: [laughs.] Well, part of it was my husband's fault. Part of it. Because when he retired, we're both kind of Capricorn workaholics, and when he retired, he didn't have the same kind of interests that I did, so he was a little bored and started pacing. He said, 'We have to do something. We need to do something else.' So I said, 'Well, how about we open a quilt shop?' and he said, 'What?'

SS: Was that a dream you'd always had?

PLM: No, no.

SS: It just crossed your mind?

PLM: It just crossed my mind, because down in the neighborhood where we lived, there wasn't any quilt shop. The only focus that I had in my quilt shop, it was never even making money or teaching classes, I just wanted a shop that was friendly. That was my first focus.

SS: I remember that. I remember you talking about that when you opened. In addition to your shop, you're also an inventor, and you have created this wonderful thing that helps with machine quilting called the Free Motion Slider. Can you tell us a little bit about how that idea came to you, and….

PLM: Isn't it amazing the way that doors open? Most people come up to a door that opens and they don't go in. But all of the classes that I've had on machine quilting at my shop, at least half of the people whine about, 'I can't slide my fabric right. How come my points don't have loops?' Or whatever. They really struggle with it. So after about six months of listening to that kind of discouraging feedback I thought there must be a way for it to be easier. Some machines work easier than others. That's another thing, but--one night, it was a Sunday night, at 2 a.m., I woke up from a sound sleep, and I just said the word, 'Teflon, nothing sticks.' That was the beginning of the Free Motion Slider, and I never stopped, I never doubted for one second. I knew it would work. I always knew that. My husband, however, is a little more cautious, and he thought, well, we had to invest a lot of money to buy a roll of Teflon, thousands of dollars, but he soon became a believer because it works. It works. It's changed my whole life. That whole product has changed my whole life, because now when we do vending at quilt shows, I meet so many incredible people, and a lot of them are people that I admired through my quilting career like teachers and judges and quilt appraisers that you know the name and you know their face from a magazine or something, and then they come to your booth and they talk to you and they sit down and try the Slider, and they just say, 'Oh, this is so fun!' So it's become an exciting adventure for both of us. It was a wonderful thing.

SS: Oh that's great. So you and Tom now are traveling around sometimes, doing shows. I was going to ask how quilting impacts your family. I guess that's one way.

PLM: [laughing.] Although we do like the traveling. Years back we owned a campground in Maine and we did a lot of traveling then because we belonged to an organization that only twenty campgrounds were involved in. Twice a year we traveled, spring and fall, and sometimes we did shows, too, and gave out brochures on our campground, so we're used to the traveling lifestyle, and we really like that very much.

SS: That's nice. Does quilting impact your family in any other way?

PLM: Hmmm. I'm not sure. I do have one granddaughter. Her name's Arielle and she started quilting also when she was three and a half. [both laugh.] And she really is the creative one. I do have one other granddaughter, Elizabeth. She was my first-born granddaughter, but she didn't grow up near me, so I didn't have a chance to really teach her, but I think she inherited the genes, because she's a creative girl. My daughter, however, they always say it skips a generation. My daughter doesn't quilt. She's more of a intellectual person and works in the school system and I'm very proud of what she does, but I should teach her to hem her own slacks. [both laugh.]

SS: I'm hoping that it skips a generation because now I have a granddaughter who I hope will turn out to be a quilter because my daughters haven't.

PLM: Being a grandparent is so incredible that when you are a grandparent, you can't explain the feeling to other people until they've been there.

SS: And then you don't have to. What's your favorite thing about quilting?

PLM: I think I'd have to say the people I've met in the quilting world. I'd have to say the people.

SS: What about quilting itself? What's your favorite part?

PLM: Machine quilting. I'd rather machine quilt than piece. People laugh at that, but it's true. I just become so mesmerized in that process that I used to tell my husband it wouldn't matter if they repossessed my car. I'd still be here just quilting. [both laugh.]

SS: Is there anything about quilting you don't enjoy.

PLM: That I don't enjoy--no. I like appliqué, I like piecing, I like hand-painting fabric. I like it all. I can't say there's anything about it I don't like. I wonder what other people say.

SS: Sometimes people will mention they don't like finishing, you know, the binding.

PLM: No, I don't mind that.

SS: Well. There's nothing you don't enjoy then. [laughing.] I know you've entered your quilts in shows and they've done really well, and I know you've gone to national shows. Is there anything in particular you think you learn from the experience of entering quilts in shows?

PLM: Absolutely. What you learn is, and I learned this with that first quilt that I didn't mention that I used the pattern. When you get your critiques from the judges, the judges have paid their dues so they know what they're talking about, and they're sincere. I know they're sincere when they write the critiques. If you read your critiques and really think about them, instead of being defensive about what they say, you will learn from that, and you will learn what techniques you need to improve upon to be a better quilter. Even if you never won a ribbon, you would like the people you make quilts for, you would like to do the very best job that you can for them, so I just think the critiques that you get from the judges are one of the best things that happen by applying to quilt shows.

SS: If no one were ever going to see your quilts, would you still make them?

PLM: Yes. Because I enjoy the process, so I would still make them.

SS: What do you think makes a great quilt, Pat?

PLM: Well, to be a great quilt, it needs to have soul, and not just be colored blocks sewn together or circles appliquéd on it or whatever. It has to have some type of soul. It needs to be graphic. It needs to grab you when you walk by it so that you back up one step and you go, 'Oh, look at this.' Technique is kind of important, because your quilt can have soul, but if it has threads hanging all over the place that you didn't cut off, well, it doesn't have the same impact as a quilt that the technique is well done. It's a dump truck full of things, really, I think.

SS: What makes a quilt artistically powerful in your opinion?

PLM: The design. It's definitely the design. It needs to be graphic in nature, and the value system is the most important thing. Many beginners think it's the color that matters. I think if I put purple next to pink that's really nice, but if the value is the same, they all read as the same. So the darks and lights, big and small. Most people know all those rules, though. It's the Yin and the Yang, I guess you call it. And then there needs to be one little surprise. When you get up close to the quilt, it's nice to have one little surprise.

SS: I know as a shopper, I am drawn, like most shoppers, to mid-range values, and even in stores, sometimes it's hard to find the ends. You know, the very darks and the very lights. As a shop owner, do you have a hard time finding fabrics to buy or reminding yourself to buy things on the ends?

PLM: Yes. I have to remind myself to buy lights, because they're not as appealing as mid-range. Mid-range is good for most people, but I like the darks. I have a tendency to like the darks. And I never realized before I had the shop that I had purchased so many darks. But my little granddaughter that I mentioned, Arielle, one day when she was about five, she helped me organize my stash, and she looked around and she said, 'Do you know, Giggi?' All my grandkids call me that. 'You know Giggi, you have all darks here.' And she was only five.

SS: Oh my. [both laugh.]

PLM: So I had to change my focus.

SS: I'm surprised to hear you say you're drawn to darks, because the quilt you talked about today is essentially a light quilt, the quilt that basically made you famous, the white on white, is – white on white, your newest piece is white.

PLM: Well, I've been quilting now for I'm going to say ten years maybe, ten or eleven years, and my focus has changed, too. I do enjoy the lighter fabrics now, but then that may change five years down the road. I may go to all hand dyeds, or all painted, or mid-range. It's just depends on where you are at the time, I think.

SS: What do you think makes a quilt appropriate for a museum or a special collection?

PLM: For a museum, I guess I would have to say, the top ribbon winners in the major shows. They're the ones that generally acquire the museum quilts. However, when the quilt is old enough, like a hundred years old, it doesn't matter the technique or if it won a ribbon or whatever. Once it becomes an antique, then it becomes coveted, although, the only exception to that opinion is the Gee's Bend quilt exhibit. I hope that that's around for other generations to see. I think it will be. And that particular collection of quilts was made by a group of women in the black south that had no electricity, and they used work clothes or whatever they could get their hands on to make quilts, functional quilts because they needed them. There are no other quilts in the world that are like that. And so I think of that once in a while if I don't have the right color thread, I don't have the right size needle. 'Oh, I wish I had a piece of fabric that was a little darker pink,' or whatever. I think about those women who worked under those conditions, probably had to use the same needle for two years. They had nothing to work with, and they made magnificent quilts, so I try to remind myself of that every now and then.

SS: What do you think makes a great quilter?

PLM: Wow. I guess you have to have a passion for it. I know some ladies, who are good quilters, but they also play bridge and mah-jongg, they play golf, they go on a cruise, and so they don't have a focus on quilting like maybe ten percent. Ten percent of the quilters are at the top because that's their focus. They don't fragment their time, and they don't have other activities that they focus on. They just want to quilt.

SS: Almost like a job?

PLM: Well, it's almost like a job, except for me it doesn't feel like that.

SS: A job with joy.

PLM: A job with joy. That's a good way to put it [laughs.] because quilting is mesmerizing if you love it. Anything is if you love it, so I just happen be a person who loves fabric and loves quilting and sewing.

SS: How do you think great quilters learn the art of quilting?

PLM: I think it isn't only one thing. I think it's a lot of things. I think it's attending shows. It's studying books. It's going to classes, and having the desire to do better. Some people say verbally that they want to be better quilters, but they don't devote the time or the effort to it. They just think it's going to happen like magic. It doesn't happen like magic. You have to pay the dues. So I think a lot of avenues have to be pursued in order to be a great quilter. I don't know what else to say about that.

SS: What does quilting teach you?

PLM: Patience. [laughing.] Do you think everyone says that? Patience, absolutely. Although when I was very young, my Aunt Lucille is the one that taught me to sew. She worked as an alteration lady in a beautiful department store in Rhode Island, and I used to sit right next to her and just watch her make hems and take seams out, and she brought a lot of things home with her to do. And the one thing that she taught me that's the most important lesson of all is, 'If you do it right the first time, you don't have to take it out.' So I'm very particular about the beginning of a quilt. I starch the fabric, I cut it accurately, I make sure my seams are accurate, because when you get to the machine quilting part or put the binding on and it doesn't work out, it's too late then. You have to go back and take what apart? So even if my quarter inch seam goes off just a hair on one square, I take it out and I do it over, because the end result is worth the effort, because in the long run, you save time if you don't have to go back and take it out. I just learned to be very precise at a young age, to do it right, and if it isn't right, you take it out. That stayed with me my whole life.

SS: Do you think that makes you slower or, maybe in the beginning it did?

PLM: If you go from the beginning, the conception of the quilt, to the binding, it doesn't take longer because you never have to go back and try to redo something. It takes twice as long to try to fix it when the quilt is finished than it would have in the beginning if you had taken that little piece out that probably only took two minutes.

SS: Let's talk a little bit about hand quilting, hand-driven machine quilting and machine-driven machine quilting. How do you feel about those three things?

PLM: Well, I think there's room for everybody and everything, and not everyone likes to do same thing. Not everyone likes the same color fabric, not everyone likes the same kind of quilts. The people who can do hand quilting, I think it's exemplary that they can do it. I'm going back to my first quilt, the one with no pattern name on the application sheet. That was one of the first bed size quilts that I ever did. I did it for my grandson Curtis, and it was trains, and I started to hand quilt it, and I got about one third of the way through that quilt-- [phone rings. tape is stopped for several minutes.] About one third of the way through the train quilt, hand quilting I knew was not my bag. I already realized that I'm slightly ADD, and I already designed in my head six more quilts, and I was only one third of the way through this one, so I thought, 'I think I need to learn how to use the sewing machine to do this.' So that first quilt I did really changed a lot of the way I thought. I told my grandson, 'You have to save this quilt forever, because it's the only one I'll ever hand quilt.'

SS: You did finish hand quilting it. You didn't change to machine partway through?

PLM: I did. I finished it, and my critique was that my hand quilting needed improvement anyway, so I knew I had to change my avenue. [both laugh.]

SS: How about hand guided versus machine or computer guided machine quilting?

PLM: Well, I think computer guided is OK if you are making a functional quilt that your baby is going to drag all over the floor, or some girl is going to take it to college and everybody is going to sit on it and eat pizza. I think computer guided quilts are OK for that reason. But the type of quilting I do is more, leans a little more to the artsy, so I think the hand guided quilting with the home sewing machine gives me more leeway as far as creativity goes. I can quilt for three minutes and do one color thread and change the thread and change the length of the stitch, and the direction, add something later. I just personally like the home sewing machine for the type of work I do.

SS: Are you making a distinction between the home sewing machine and the

PLM: The long arm type.

SS: Something like the Handiquilter or the Superquilter which is also a hand-guided type of thing.

PLM: I like my fingertips to be on the fabric, so--

SS: Because you think you have more control?

PLM: Control, right. And I also think because it feels more tactile, because as opposed to having your hands on a machine, you have your hands on the fabric. It's just a personal choice.

SS: Does quilting do more than hold the sandwich together?

PLM: Absolutely.

SS: Talk about that a little.

PLM: Some magazine I read that a quilt isn't a quilt until it's quilted, which is probably true. Before that it just becomes one layer of fabric that you sew together. But I think there's an opportunity for people to make their quilts great as opposed to good by utilizing the machine quilting part, and right now we have so many choices of threads and different methods of adding braid and couching and so on. I cannot imagine what it will be like twenty years from now. I can't in my wildest dreams even imagine, because every year, every month, every week there are new tools, new gizmos, new products, new everything. Everything's new all the time. I can't imagine where it's going, but I know it's going somewhere because I don't believe quilting will ever dissipate. I just don't believe it will.

SS: Why is quilting important to your life?

PLM: Well, it's a personal therapy, I guess. I think women in general spent their entire lives nurturing and caring for other people, and this is an area where you can nurture yourself.

SS: Do you think your quilts reflect your community or the part of the country you're in at the moment? You have two parts that you live in.

PLM: Once in a while they do. It has to do with the fabric choices. When I'm in the south I tend to choose fabric colors that are brighter. However, I'm beginning to cross over another line with that because I stated earlier that I'm doing a lot of work on light color fabrics now, and I don't think it matters if I were here in Florida or in Maine, I don't think it matters. I don't think the color choices matter to me any more. I think I've crossed over a different threshold.

SS: Your subject matter doesn't change in Maine versus Florida?

PLM: No, no.

SS: What do you think about the importance of quilts in American life?

PLM: Well, there was a time when it was one of the most important pieces thrown into the covered wagons other than food. And then there became a time in this country when quilts were really a functional part of life because we didn't always have the heating systems we have now. But I think this generation is making quilts for their family just as a gift of love and not so much that it has to be functional. It's just a very personal, made with your hands gift that you can give to someone else that just says I really care about you and I love you. And so I think that quilting has changed in that respect that it's gone from very functional to slightly functional.

SS: What ways do you think that quilts have special meaning for women's history in America?

PLM: For most of my quilting years, I wasn't all that interested in the history of quilts because the type of quilting that I was into was contemporary, and so the old quilts didn't interest me all that much. But since I've become more immersed in the quilting world, I realize that the history of women is in those quilts, and I have since acquired a couple of antique quilts that I feel a connection to the person that made them. I think the history of quilting is important to preserve, and I'm grateful that there are museums now that care about that.

SS: How do you think quilts can be used?

PLM: Well, they can be used on beds. They can be used as decorative items. I use my quilts as artwork. I put them on the wall as artwork. I spend so much time quilting that I don't do a lot of the old spring cleaning, fall cleaning. I just tidy up and I change the quilts around and it looks like I did spring cleaning and fall cleaning. [both laugh.]

SS: I love that. How do you think quilts and the art of quilting can be preserved for the future?

PLM: Well, they're already doing that. They have museums everywhere, and people now have collections like corporations and people that sponsor prizes for quilt shows. People in the industry that have million dollar businesses and can afford to acquire quilts and donate to the museum and whatever. I'm sure that will go on in the future too, maybe more so.

SS: What's happened to the quilts that you have made or those of friends and family?

PLM: Well, I did sell two quilts, but mostly I keep them unless they're quilts that I make for the family. Then I give them. Most of the quilts I've made, I've kept.

SS: Do you not like selling your quilts?

PLM: I don't, I really don't.

SS: You don't like to part with them.

PLM: No. They're like babies. [laughs.] Maybe my family will inherit them and like them too.

SS: Do you have any future dreams or plans for yourself in working with quilts?

PLM: Yes.

SS: [laughing.] Are you going to share that with me?

PLM: I will. My future dream is to teach and perhaps to be a judge. Quilt appraising is –I have a tendency to like the contemporary quilts more than the antiques and I think I understand them better, so I don't ever have a desire to be a quilt appraiser, but I would like to teach. I'd like to be a national teacher, and one of my short-term goals is to take courses that will accredit me as a judge.

SS: Pat, we've finished with our questions. Is there anything you would like to add, or anything we didn't discuss that you would like to include, or anything you'd like to go back to?

PLM: Wow. I feel like I've been just talking about myself all this time--

SS: That's the point! [both laugh.]

PLM: I don't have much else to say about myself, but I will say that in the quilting world in general, I've met so many fabulous people. In my wildest dreams twenty years ago, I would never have dreamed that this would ever happen to me—this whole new door that opened. And I go back to if I hadn't taken care of my mom when she was ill. I probably wouldn't be here today. I mean, one door opens and another opens, and I'm grateful that I'm immersed in this now because I love it. I have passion for it. And I've never had a passion as great as this in my whole life. With creativity. Even though I did enjoy all the artwork and the paper, and the printing. There's nothing that measures up to this for me. I just love it.

SS: I'd like to thank Pat LaPierre-McAffee for allowing me to interview her today as part of the Q.S.O.S. project. Our interview concluded at noon on June 9th, 2005.