Hello and welcome to my website! I’m Mary; a mom, teacher, pattern designer and owner of Made By Marney. I use my blog to promote my new designs and for tutorials.

I retired from teaching art 5 years ago and took a job in a local quilt shop. The shop had no paper pieced patterns, which I love, so I started designing patterns to sell at the shop. Soon I found myself selling to other shops, then selling through a national distributor, and now I’m writing 2 books on paper pieced patterns that will be published in 2017.

One of my fun accomplishments for this year was being included in the Quiltmakers 100 Blocks magazine. I was thrilled to be included in this periodical because I am a newbie to pattern design, having only been doing it for the past 3 years.

I design paper pieced blocks for quilts, pillows, totes, potholders…you name it. Here are some of my favorite designs.

As you can see, I love to design wonky animals! Probably from all those years teaching elementary art. Kids art really rubs off on a person.

I started designing paper pieced patterns after retiring from teaching art at an elementary school in Wisconsin. I enjoy the creative process. Paper piecing is like putting together a puzzle and I love puzzles. When creating a design, all the curved lines have to be changed into straight lines. That abstracts the design to some extent. See an example of this in the two monkeys pictured below. The second monkey is the way I would draw him normally. The first monkey has been changed to straight lines that can be paper pieced easily. You can even see that I have started to number the pieces in the order they could be paper pieced.

My friends are always asking me to make them really EASY blocks, that will go together quickly. The easier the block becomes, the more abstract it becomes.

If you leave a comment on this post this week, I will choose 1 commentor as the winner of a free pattern from my Etsy shop…the pattern of your choice! You must leave a comment to be considered in the drawing, so I will be able to contact the winner by email.

Please visit our fearless leaders this week, too.

Blog Hop Week 4 – July 18th

Jennifer @Dizzy Quilter

Seven @The Concerned Craft

Mary @Made By Marney

Amanda @Quiltologie

Thanks for stopping by…and don’t forget to leave a comment if you want a chance to win a free paper pieced pattern of your choosing!