Maria Shell - The Story Behind Mirror Ball

I first met Maria Shell at Quilt Market in 2019. This was my 2nd time doing a wholesale fabric show. While I’m not a quilter, I so enjoy the endless creativity, skill & personality expressed in them. I took a break from my booth to go look at quilts. I was stopped in my tracks and had to catch my breath in front of this award-winner:

Maria says: “I call myself a bit maker. I stitch small scraps into larger compositions. Almost all of my quilts are inspired by the remains of other quilts. Mirror Ball is perhaps the best example of this. It is all my bits stitched together. I love it when the leftovers from one quilt become the fodder for the next. It is compost quilting. For me, to make something beautiful out of remnants is magical and satisfying.”

Who makes such a thing? I wondered. A fan-girl was born that day! My husband is the expert in finding people to talk to. Have you met him? I had parked him out in the lobby of the Houston convention center wearing a sign that said “TOUCH ME” on one of our laminated cotton aprons. He was handing out cards with our booth #. I asked him to find her. He did.

Here we are meeting for the first time. In my booth at Quilt Market, Houston 2019.

To answer the question of who would make such a quilt:

Maria has raised 3 boys. (like me)
She is a great walker/hiker. (like me)
She has a lot of scarves. (more than me)
She wears lots of Ace&Jig (a small woman owned garment company in Portland)
She teaches quiltmaking online and in person. If you get a chance, take a class!
She calls her style IMPROV Patchwork.

Maria Shell (Anchorage, Alaska, b. 1966- )
Mirror Ball, 2017
Vintage, contemporary, and hand-dyed cotton, 60 x 60 in.
Image: Maria Shell: Off the Grid (ShelburneMuseum.org)

Shall I make fabric out of this one too? Hehehe.

I see the world in potential fabric designs. Sometimes when I see something, I know it needs to become fabric. This quilt was like that. It kept coming back to me as I took more classes in pattern design, Illustrator and my business grew…

In 2024, I went to Morocco on a “textiles” tour. It was truly life changing. Maria was the guest artist teacher. Lucky me! Here we are out & about in Chefchaouen, the blue city. We all worked on some hand quilting using scraps of Ace&Jig fabrics she brought. I made collages of all the folks on the trip.

This is Maria on a typical afternoon stitching and bitching in Morocco.

After this trip, I knew I had to get SERIOUS about making this Mirrorball quilt fabric happen. We wrote a contract, I made the quilt into a repeat pattern, and 6 months later, our fabric rolled in. It’s been a hit!