Audrey Esarey of Cotton and Bourbon

Wow, wow, wow. I have really loved seeing Audrey's quilts in person at both the 2024 and 2025 QuiltCon meetings--I was impressed with them the first year I went, and the second year she was winning awards, which was both well deserved and not surprising. Her sense of graphics that she then translates to quilts is both stunning and astounding to me.

So despite the fact her talk to my guild fell on my anniversary AND that I had an expensive fixed price dinner to go to, I did not miss her talk. I brought a sack full of containers to the dinner, and enjoyed 4 of the 7 courses from the comfort of my parlor and sat for an hour listening to her talk about her design process. She walked us through the evolution of her designs for a couple of her quilt series, step by step in some cases, and it was both instructive and an interesting peak into how she thinks about next steps--once you fall in love with something, how do you change it slightly and yet significantly into something that you can love just as much? She is a wonder, and if you ever get a chance to see her work or hear her talk, I would grab it. Well worth it.