Featherweight 221 - The Perfect Portable®

“Celebrating America’s best known and most sought-after sewing machine of all time is this enlightening book. It documents the history of this famous stitching apliance closely… In its expanded third edition there is plenty of information for collectors or admirers of this classic sewing machine.”– “Australian Country Threads”

Grandma Garrison was Nancy’s mentor while she made her first quilt in 1972. Gram asked her to cut a 6-inch square template from paper and pin it on some fabric. Using regular scissors, quite dull, Nancy cut around the paper template. After cutting about two dozen squares, she noticed some of the squares were not the same size. Nancy called Gram and said, “My blocks don’t seem to be the same size.” Gram replied, “Are you cutting any of the paper template off when you cut around it?” Nancy replied, “No, only once in a while!” That was Nancy’s first lesson in accuracy and it has stuck with her all these years. Today her hallmark is accuracy, and she stresses it with students and attributes the wide recognition of her work to its continued emphasis.

She has written several best-selling books, including Featherweight 221: The Perfect Portable, and Rotary Magic. Nancy also refined how to work with squares and rectangles in her other best-selling books Block Magic; Block Magic, Too!; and Stars by Magic. Recently she was granted a U.S. patent for her innovative technique used for making Eight-Point Stars from squares and rectangles.

Nancy has been a spokesperson and consultant for Omnigrid, a division of Prym Consumer USA, Inc., for over eighteen years.

Her hobbies include reading mysteries, traveling to see children and grandchildren, working in her flower gardens (they keep expanding), and making baby quilts for charity. In recent years she has donated over 600 quilts to brighten the lives of needy children and parents. Nancy lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Frank.