All in the Family: Stitched Together Studios

Is the turkey gone? What about the pumpkin pie? :)

We're still in the holiday weekend mood, so we're sharing another "All in the Family" feature; this time it's Stephanie Sheridan and Linda Leathersich of Stitched Together Studios.

Stephanie

Linda

Can you each talk about how/when you learned to quilt?

Linda: I learned to quilt in the early 1970's when I went to a class with my favorite aunt, Alice Rogers.

Stephanie: I learned to sew from my mom when I was barely tall enough to reach the foot pedal.

When/why did you start quilting together?

We just always have bonded over fabric, so it seemed natural to go into a quilting business together.

Do you each have a strength you play to, or do you take turns designing/piecing/quilting?

While we are both fully capable of start–to–finish quilts, we both prefer our own niche in the partnership.

Linda: My main strength is the machine quilting. I've quilted nearly 5000 quilts on my older model non-stitch regulated Gammill longarm machine.

Stephanie: I prefer the design aspect, and piecing the quilt tops...I have logged almost 3 million stitches on my Bernina 640 in 3 years!

Do you feel you have the same style, or different? How would you describe your style(s)?

We are polar opposites in style ... Linda likes improvisational quilting and her slogan is "Finished is Better than Perfect" while Stephanie plans out the entire quilt before even cutting the first piece of fabric and will re-piece.

One thing that we have in common regard styles is our love for all quilts ... traditional, modern, pieced, appliqué ... we love them all!

How did you come up with your name, Stitched Together Studios? 

Linda's machine quilting business was called "Stitched Together" so when we created our partnership we added the "Studios" to the name because while we live and work 1000 miles apart we are truly "Stitched Together."

Can you describe how you typically work together?

All we can say is ... thank goodness for technology. Between the Internet, unlimited long distance and cell phone cameras we manage quite nicely in spite of the miles between our studios. Usually Stephanie develops a preliminary design, and then together we fine tune it. Stephanie pieces the quilt and Linda quilts and binds it. We apply the same process to our patterns.

Stephanie: It is always fun when Mom comes up with a design concept ... because of her limited techno know-how ... she sketches the idea on graph paper and then uses her cell phone camera to take a picture the sketch and texts it to me to put into EQ7. This works much better than the original plan which was her trying to describe said design to me over the phone! That was a barrel of laughs!

What are the benefits of working together?

Quilting is just another way for us to bond as mother and daughter, and an added benefit is our 3^rd generation quilter Charlotte! Hopefully one day she too will be "Stitched Together" with her very own studio!

Can you share some quilts you've made?

We have designed/pieced/quilted close to 200 quilts for Benartex or using Benartex fabrics in the last 3 years so it is hard to pick favorites, but these are some of our most memorable.

Fenestella – This quilt is a favorite because it was the first one that we used the "Cell Phone Picture of a Design Sketch" method of quilt design. We were honored to have it featured in the Quilter's Newsletter June/July 2013 issue. (Read more about it here.)

Cubit – This pattern is our first that we self published ... we adore the "Manhattan Modern" line and had fun creating this modern 3D design using very traditional piecing techniques.

Grape Crush – We both love batiks, and our favorite colors are purple (Stephanie) and turquoise (Linda) ... so this quilt is definitely a favorite! The free pattern is available here!

Ribbon Weave – This quilt was featured on the cover of Keepsake Quilting catalog in the Spring of 2011. It was one of our early designs, using our favorite colors, and Stephanie loved it so much that she modeled her entire studio around it! 

Find out more about Stitched Together Studios here.

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