Irena Swanson

I grew up in Slovenia. My mother made sure that I knew how to use a sewing machine, but I did not sew any- thing memorable. During my senior year in high school I was an exchange stu- dent in Tooele, Utah, and there I was introduced to quilting by Ellen Peder- sen. Ellen guided me at every step on my first quilt, she told me stories about the pieces of fabric in her boxes, and in general charmed me with what a quilt means emotionally and historically. I took up quilting again during graduate school, and urged my friends and pro- fessors to donate their old non-boring shirts for the cause. I still have those first quilts.

Quilting is my permanent hobby. In addition to using the standard estab- lished clever and faster methods of making quilts, I have come up with several new efficient methods. In any project I aim to use the least fabric with the fewest seams as fewer seams translate into more accuracy, less searching for the parts, and less time. I work with strips and tubes and I call my method tube piecing.

I completed two book drafts on my method in August 2019: Easy Tube Piecing Projects (91 pages) and Streamlining in Quilting (199 pages).

Check out my website www.tubepiecing.com, my YouTube channel Irena Swanson, my Facebook page Tube Piecing, and my Instagram account @irenaswanson.

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