Wedding Day Pendant

Leigh has always played with fiber since childhood. Her grandmothers taught her knitting, crocheting, embroidery and sewing.  She lives on a farm in Western Connecticut with a horse, donkey, chickens, dogs and a little Soay sheep which provides wool to spin, weave, and knit.

When Leigh’s daughter was born she embarked on a quilting journey which has been about 30 years, discovering color and shape, (although the math involved in quilting could be a little easier for the math challenged like her), if you can sew a straight line you can quilt. She has exhibited some pieces and sold small quilts for charity.

About 4 years ago Leigh was visiting her lifelong friend of 50 plus years and went to a bead show. She came home with a lot less money in her pocket and more ideas in her head than she has time to create.

Leigh immersed herself in bead embroidery and bead weaving. Bead embroidery allows her to use sewing skills to create unique pieces of jewelry. She loves color and texture, which she uses to enhance the stones and cabochons in her pieces. Leigh incorporates glass seed beads, metal beads, metal findings, stones and sometimes recycled parts of old jewelry. She does not repeat any designs as she wants the buyer to have a unique piece of wearable art! All of her embroidered pieces are backed with ultra suede for a soft feel.

Leigh exhibited and won first place at the Eastern States Exposition for the past two years. She is currently one of the artists at the Fine Line Art Gallery in Woodbury, Connecticut.