It’s been a bit of day in my studio.
When Kathy Doughty and I opened our shop, Material Obsession, 20 years ago, we didn’t have much of a budget. We were both mums running young families, with husbands working hard to pay the mortgages. We both chipped in the same amount of money to buy the shop (which was then called Hullmann Cottage) from the previous owner. The money felt like all the money in the world, like our families would take forever to recover from this huge thing we were doing. I was thrilled, but terrified.
Because of of our small budget, we were very careful about the stock we ordered before we opened, but there were things we wanted without fail. Things we hadn’t seen anywhere else in Australia, that felt like what quilting meant to the two of us, things we wanted to do but didn’t see being done here.
As a result, we were the first shop in Australia to stock Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner - both with their first collections. We were to my knowledge the first shop teaching what is now commonly known as “big stitch hand quilting” - something I had always done my quilts without realising it wasn’t “real quilting” (as I was told by countless members of the Quilt Police in our early years), and something I taught Kathy how to do. So we spent a lot of our seed money on Perle cotton.
The other thing that was non-negotiable spending in my eyes was a good selection of really Excellent and Proper quilting books. We of course ordered It’s Ok If You Sit On My Quilt Book, by Mary Ellen Hopkins (the text book for every beginner class I taught for nearly 11 years!), several books by my now beloved friends, Jean and Valori Wells. We ordered a brand new, fascinating book about something called “modern quilting”, by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle, and most wonderful of all, Collaborative Quilting, by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran.

I poured over that book with my eyes popping out. They were the most beautiful quilts I ever saw, they spoke to my soul and for the first time in my quilting life I realised that there were other people out there who wanted to make mad, whimsical quilts full of spots and ginghams and happiness and fun, just like I did. I was so happy to find these women, I felt I’d made friends long before I ever met either of them.
I first came into contact with the wonderful Freddy Moran 18 years ago, when we were writing Material Obsession One. I had made a quilt that I was teaching in my classes, using Collaborative Quilting as the textbook. It was called The ‘Burbs, and my students loved it. The publishers wanted to include it in the book, and although the pattern, blocks and dimensions were mine, the quilt was absolutely inspired by them and their Parts Department, and I didn’t feel it was right to put it in the book and not ask them.

Now this was 2007. Sending someone an email was not the instant option it was today, and Freddy and Gwen did not have a website or a blog or anything like that. The Material Obsession blog was one of the first quilting blogs to exist, and we only started that in 2006. I feel like I’m talking about the dark ages :D
And so I phoned the publisher of their book in the USA, and asked for their contact details, and they very kindly gave me both of their mailing addresses. I wrote a letter to Gwen, and a letter to Freddy, asking for their permission to publish my quilt in our book.
A letter came back very promptly from Gwen, short and to the point, saying that was absolutely fine, and thank you for asking.
A letter came back a few weeks later from Freddy. Her enthusiasm for my quilt was huge, she was so lovely and encouraging about it and “thrilled and flattered” that we would want to put it in our book. She wished us every success and hoped our paths would cross one day.
And one day, they did. Not until many years later, when I first went to teach at Quilters Affair in Oregon, for my friend Val Wells and her mom. In the mean time though, Freddy taught a few of my quilt patterns too! Students sent me photos of her, holding my books in her classrooms. Freddy wrote to me too, and told me what she was doing. As far as I was concerned, if Freddy Moran wanted to teach one of my quilt patterns then that was 100% OK with me!!!

2024 was my 8th or 9th Sisters, we can’t work out which. So including the two years I missed because of Covid, its around 11 years or so ago that I first met Freddy.
That first Sisters was completely overwhelming for me, it was like Quilt Disney. I was rooming with my friend Tula, I got to hang out with Val and loads of other teachers whose names I had always heard of, and Jean’s classroom was right outside mine. On the first event for the week, the Gees Bend quilters sang in the auditorium, and showed us their quilts and spoke about their processes. Alex Anderson interviewed me for The Quilt Show.
Best of all though was Freddy. Her class was next door to me, and on the first morning she poked her head around the door, with her eyes twinkling behind huge red eye glasses, bangles rattling up and down both arms. “Saaaaraaaah….” she called, “Are you teaching my quilt??”
And I was!
She was in and out of my class all day, peering over everyones shoulders and marvelling at the fun they were all having, stealing scraps of fabric from scrap buckets and making everyone giggle. Jean eventually came and scolded her to go back in her classroom, her students couldn’t work without her! She wouldn’t last half an hour though, and she’d be sneaking back past Jean to see what my class was up to. I wish I could have taken one of her classes, but every time we were in the same place I was always working.
Every Sisters since, until the last when she was too ill to travel, I would see her through the crowd in the cafeteria or hear behind me - Saaaaraaaah…..! And then the most wonderful, warm hug, and such genuine joy to see me. She was always so absolutely real and without any trace of bullshit.
Freddy was a giant in our industry. She is one of the many shoulders the quilters of today stand on. The likes of Mary Ellen Hopkins, Nancy Crowe, Jean Wells, Gwen Marston and Ruth McDowell have paved the way for what we now call modern quilts, for modern techniques, the acceptance of modern colours and fabrics and shapes, and for the thriving quilting industry that designers like me are a part of. If you haven’t ever heard of these people, I encourage you to go and find out about them - they took traditional quilting and made it into their own creature, to the benefit and inspiration of all.
Freddy was a talented and intuitive designer, bold and unafraid of colour and shape. Red was her neutral, but no quilt was ever complete without a touch of black and white. She was a creative thinker, a gifted writer and an excellent technician.
She was also a wonderful friend, a kind and giving mentor. She was a sparkling magical unicorn of a human, who it was an honour to know. Yesterday when I heard she had died, I went downstairs to my studio and started a quilt. I hope to have it finished for Sisters in 2025, for the 50th anniversary of a show she was such a special and sparkling part of. Maybe I’ll even teach it there next year, if I get it done in time. I’m just sad she won’t be there to see it.
Goodbye Freddy, you were an absolute pleasure, and a rare privilege.
Sarah x
PS. On a more cheerful note peeps, my annual (yes, I know I missed last year) Online Quilt Hanging is now open for entries. If you’ve made one of my quilts then you’re eligible to enter - the prizes are AWESOME (you should see the box of goodies from Free Spirit that just arrived!!) And all the “judging” is done by other quilters, not by quilt judges, so don’t be afraid to enter! You can read all about it, and enter your quilts, here.