About Sarah Ruth
I started quilting when I was 18 years old, trying to find a Christmas gift for my then-boyfriend, who is now my husband. My mom taught me how to quilt, along with my sister and my Grandma. I’m a fourth-generation quilter. My Grandma Babe, my great-grandmother, quilted during the Great Depression using whatever materials she had available. They were very poor and couldn’t afford much, but they needed quilts to sleep under. I try to channel that same spirit—using what I have—because my family and I don’t have much money either. I try very hard not to buy materials for my quilting if I don't have to.
These days, quilting looks like long, late nights after my children are in bed. Our 1,000-square-foot apartment may not sound like much, but we love it, and we never want more than that. I share my sewing space with my boys’ playroom, and I don’t need much—just a place for my machine and a surface to cut fabric on. Sometimes, when I’m hand-quilting, I can stitch beside them on the couch while we read books. Other times, the stitching doesn't get done because I have two roudy boys who love to play. Having two precious gifts has helped me gain clarity in the overconsumption world of quilting. Less is more, and my family is everything.
What inspires me to create is a deep inner need—something twisty and persistent inside me that demands to be expressed. I want to say it's just in my blood, being a fourth-generation quilter, but I think it’s also tied to the mental illness that threads through my everyday life. My favorite colors are the brightest, most saturated solids I can find. While my insides may feel dark, my bold colors are acts of resistance...my loud declarations of joy and survival. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the power of using black and brown fabrics as well—intentionally pulling in solemnity and weight. Color choice is an emotional cartography.
As I move into art quilting, I’m drawn to poly art and am teaching myself WPAP techniques. I’ve developed a long-term relationship with Foundation Paper Piecing, and no design piece is too small for me. I love the structure, the precision, the way it lets me work with tiny, neurotic scraps. The more complex the design, the more it scratches a very specific itch in my brain—one that calms me after a long day of everything else.
2025 was the year I cut myself open creatively. After finishing my PhD fellowship (Education Policy) in the summer of '24, I felt my brain spinning out and needing a new challenge. That’s when I turned to art quilts, using what feels deep and raw to me and translating it into fiber. I am made up of all the people before me—their creativity, their struggles, their suicide, their survival. The fabric I work with carries their stories, and mine. I create from what I have, from what’s in front of me, and from what’s within me. Quilting is how I make sense of it all—how I stitch together the pieces of my past, my present, and my voice.
In the quilting world and on Instagram, I’ve started to see myself as a facilitator—someone who can organize, gather, fundraise, and do the grunt work if it helps us all move forward together. I volunteer in other areas of my life, so why not bring that same energy to creative spaces? I want to be part of building communities of quilters who are looking for more than likes or sales—people who want to belong, to contribute, to be part of something bigger. It’s easy in modern quilting to feel like you need to monetize everything or hustle to join the “in” crowd (I know! I feel it! It is easy to feel left out when this is not your full-time business!). But that’s not everyone’s lane. There’s space for all of us, whether we’re selling patterns, sewing quietly in the background for fundraisers, or making art that makes people feel something.
Because that’s what I want most—for people to feel something when they look at my work. My Stretch quilt isn’t for everyone. I lost more followers than I’ve ever lost after posting it—probably because it says the F word. But what can I say? They felt something. And that’s what I want. Whether it’s pain, discomfort, joy, or release...I want the work to knock you in the gut. I make plenty of custom quilts that are soft and comforting and exactly what the recipient needs, don't get me wrong. But when I create from that raw place, when I’m speaking from the deepest part of myself—I want it to knock me square in the jaw, too.
I’m most drawn to fiber artists who have also cut themselves open to make the thing. All of the things. I don’t need perfection. I want to feel your grief, your hope, your joy, your resistance in the piece. I want to be moved.
That’s what quilting is to me: not just beauty or tradition, but survival. Resistance. Translation. Offering. It's how I pull together the stories I've inherited with the ones I'm still living through—and make them visible, tactile, and loud. I've always been told I'm aggressive. Well, here I am.
