02-25-2024 Harford Mag - Flipbook - Page 66
Gyleen Fitzgerald, owner of Colourful Stitches, with Lets Go Crazy, a quilt she made in 2000. PHOTOS BY KIM HAIRSTON
Sewing in tandem has brought the couple,
married 44 years, even closer.
“It gives us time to talk to each other,”
Cheryl Travis said. “Our communication skills
improve, and there’s the joy of being with the
person you love.”
To that end, they plan to make a king-sized
quilt for their own bed — and they will do it
together.
Telling a story
Many quilters find their calling after dabbling
in other needlecrafts — be it embroidery,
knitting or cross-stitch. Gyleen Fitzgerald took
a different track: She turned to quilting after
designing outerwear, for the Army, to combat
chemical warfare.
For 33 years, Fitzgerald, 65, worked at
Aberdeen Proving Grounds, creating masks,
suits and hoods to counter weapons of mass
destruction. A chemical engineer, the Havre
de Grace resident soon found happier uses for
fabric, and her quilting career took off.
Fitzgerald has sewn more than 500 quilts,
won regional shows, penned 14 books on her
craft and lectured throughout the U.S. and the
Netherlands.
She has authored two children’s books: “The
Dream,” a parody of “The Wizard of Oz,” in
which Dorothy was a quilter’s daughter instead
of a farm girl; and “In Search of Dragon Eggs,”
66
| Spring 2024 | harfordmagazine.com
Detail of Invisible, a quilt by Fitzgerald. She is a quilter, author and publisher who teaches quilting at
national and international seminars and designs quilting tools.
a 14th-century fantasy filled with knights
and magical creatures. Each book features
illustrations of a quilt, made by Fitzgerald,
which chronicles the tale in its fabric “so that
you can read the quilt and follow the story.”
Clearly, quilting offers her a lens into the
unexplored.
“I design each quilt as I go,” she said. “A lot
of quilters will sketch out their whole project
before embarking on it. I start with a concept,
period; I do one block [of fabric], see how it
flies and go on from there.
“The challenge of the unknown floats my
boat.”
