Kathy is teaching three workshops and is the keynote speaker at Quilt Canada 2025. Her classes include Butterfly Bubbles (turned edge holes), Window Boxes (inset thread lace), and Mahogany Rose (free-standing appliqué), all techniques used to make Beauty in the Broken, winner of  the Dorothy McMurdie Founders Award in 2023. Read more about free-standing appliqué below, and all about Kathy’s quilting practice in the summer issue of Canadian Quilter.

Kathy developed the free-standing appliqué method using Apliquick tools, a game changer for making smaller appliqué details.

Free standing means making appliqué with no background at all, one of the most intriguing elements used in the making of Beauty in the Broken.

For Mahogany Rose, Kathy’s workshop on the free-standing technique, students will learn to do open work; that is, a quilt with holes in it. This technique is different from cut work when you make a hole in a quilt and then finish the edge. Kathy wanted an open-work, appliqué quilt.

“One day it came to me,” she says. “I was thinking about it all wrong. I didn’t need to cut the holes; I needed to leave them behind. That’s why I call it free standing.”

“Normally, you would take your appliqué shape and sew it on to a background. Well, now you’re making your little appliqué shape into a quilt. There is no background. It’s completely free standing.”

The pieces have a front and back with batting in between, and they get joined to other pieces.
“I didn’t know how structurally sound everything would be. But it turns out to have really great body, because of the way it’s constructed.”

There are actually five layers in each piece: the top fabric turned to interfacing, the batting, and the bottom fabric turned to interfacing. Those five layers give it really good structure, even when multiple pieces are joined together.

“That’s the thing when you do something no one has done before. You don’t know, so you have to find out.”

In fact, Kathy had no idea if the quilt would even hang. She says Beauty in the Broken was the first quilt she ever made not knowing if anyone would ever see it.

If you missed Quilt Canada in Halifax, Kathy will have the quilt with her in Toronto. It is definitely a must-see.

Find out more about Kathy’s workshops, as well as her keynote address, The Hole Story, where you will learn all about the creation of Beauty in the Broken, visit Quilt Canada 2025. And sign up to learn from one of Canada’s most-loved quilting teachers.