Designing woman Burlington quilter exhibits her creations in national publications

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Original quilts have long been fixtures in many Maine homes.

Rhonda Taylor has found a different place to display her quilt designs – in the pages of national quilting magazines.

Over the past two years, the Burlington resident has gone from being a quilting hobbyist to becoming a regular contributor to specialty magazines. For example, she has two patterns – “Posies All Around” and “Bear Hug” – in the May issue of McCall’s Quick Quilts now on newsstands. That marks the fourth straight issue that one of her patterns has been in that magazine.

Four more of her patterns will show up over the next year in McCall’s Quick Quilts. She also has three patterns upcoming in Quick & Easy Quilting, two in Foundation Piecer and one each in The Quilter and Quilt Magazine.

So when she’s not working as a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Taylor is busy in the quilting room at one end of her house, racing to meet the deadlines of these various publications. Rubber, sealed tubs lining one wall hold her projects in various states of completion.

What is it about Taylor’s patterns that sell?

“She uses different colors than most that I work with,” said Sandra Hatch of Lincoln, editor of Quick & Easy Quilting and Quilt World. “It’s nice to work with fresh, new designers that haven’t had that much published.”

So how does it feel to know that any time Taylor enters a quilting store, she can probably find one of her patterns on the shelves?

“I’m very proud and amazed,” she said. “It still doesn’t feel quite real.”

Taylor has been quilting for a decade, after getting hooked while taking a quilting class during her senior year of nursing school. She first started trying to sell patterns to the magazines in November 2000, after talking with a woman in a quilt chat group who had been doing so and who gave her the name of an editor at McCall’s Quick Quilts.

The editor bought her “Moosely Homespun” design, which took a full year to appear in the magazine. Her next three designs were rejected. She remade all three projects, and McCall’s took two of those. She remade the third one again, and McCall’s bought it.

“It was a challenge,” Taylor recalled. “I asked what was wrong with them, and asked her to let me redo them. The senior editor told me what they were looking for.”

What has she learned that the magazines want?

“[The quilt] needs sharp contrast in colors and details for the magazines, otherwise it won’t photograph well,” she said. Indeed, that’s why McCall’s started requesting that the top section of a quilt be prepared and submitted, to check its photographability.

Ideas come to Taylor in many settings, although often on her hour-long drive to and from work. She writes the concepts down in one of half-dozen notebooks that she keeps.

These ideas “aren’t formed at all,” she explained. “I’ll have a feeling about doing something, then I’ll start collecting fabric for it. I’ll have it in the back of my head, and I’ll add to the design. When I can’t stand it anymore, I’ll write out what I’m going to do, cut my pattern out, and piece it together.”

Nature is an inspiration for Taylor, but not in the way of many quilters.

“There’s not a lot of sunsets and landscapes,” she said. “My designs aren’t totally even. I like them to look different, with a folk-arty spin to them.”

Taylor drafts out most of her patterns on graph paper. She estimated that she designs about 25 percent of her patterns on her computer, using special quilting programs, but still half of those end up drafted out by hand. Of the 16 she’s had published or is preparing for publication, only four were computer designed. She does store all of her finished designs on computer, both for safekeeping and eventual marketing as quilt kits.

Because she’s juggling so many projects, it can take three to six months for Taylor to take a quilt from concept to completion. But if she’s particularly inspired, she can finish one in a day, without distractions.

The magazines buy exclusive rights for a set period of time, then Taylor can create kits built around the patterns. She has five designs available now that she can develop into kits: “Moosely Homespun,” “Bee My Honey,” “Winter Window,” “Birdwatch” and “Festive Favors.” Keepsake Quilting, a large N.H. firm, is considering adding the first two to its catalog and store.

A Lincoln native, Taylor and her husband, Ken, had kept a camp in Burlington for 11 years, while living in Center Harbor in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. With all three sons grown (they have four grandsons), the couple decided to move back last September, in part to be closer to her parents, Louise and Paul Campbell of Howland and Fred and Joyce Edes of Lincoln, and her grandmother, Mildred Crocker of Lee. They still return to New Hampshire once a month to visit.

Ken, who’s a woodworker himself, has been her biggest supporter.

“He’s been really good about me buying all this material, and spending all this time quilting,” she said. “I’m almost starting to make back what I’m spending.”

Taylor is looking to branch out. She wants to design more challenging quilts. She’s working up proposals for two books: “Abstract Appliques” (Crouse Publishing is interested) and “Parallel Quilts Country Style (Foundation Piecer is considering it).

She’s doing a trunk show for a quilt guild June 5 in Moultonborough, N.H., talking about and showing her designs. She’s planning classes: at Cotton Patch Quilts in Holden this spring or summer and at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln this fall.

Taylor isn’t ready to give up nursing to design full time, but she’s pondering cutting back from three to two 12-hour shifts a week.

Still, Taylor isn’t quilting just to see her designs in print.

“I do this because I love it,” she said. “It’s fun, and it helps with the stress of ICU.”

Taylor’s Web site is www.myhobbyquilts.freeservers.com.