I've written a lot about accomplished women and I must confess that these posts flummox me. In this short space, I never know whether to draw your attention to the woman, her work, the story of her past, or the possibilities in her future.
To illustrate this quandary, let me introduce Cathy Fussell, a lifelong quilter who learned to handle a needle before she memorized her math tables. She remembers being four and pranking her father by sewing buttons onto his handkerchiefs when he wasn't looking. She has spent her entire life on the Chattahoochee-Flint-Apalachicola watershed in Georgia, and its terrain figures heavily in her topographic quilts. Her husband's paintings inspire her patterns. So do the words of William Faulkner. Cathy lectures on quilting, blogs about quilting, and leads quilting workshops. Two years ago, she was commissioned to create a quilt for First Lady Michelle Obama. She traveled to Washington D.C. to present the quilt to Mrs. Obama, who, by the way, was the fifth first lady that Cathy had the pleasure of meeting.
