Introducing Patty Goodsell of Arivaca

Patty Goodsell picked up her first needle and thread at the age of 7 when her grandmother gave her an antique toffee tin (still used), filled with embroidery threads, and taught her the first embroidery stitches.  Patty always had some form of stitching in her hands, and after her grandmother passed away, she learned to quilt to honor this grandmother.  This started the journey in quilting that she has enjoyed for more than 35 years. 

Patty began quilting in Flagstaff, learning from Catherine Gill, an African-American quilter well-known in town.  She and friends organized Flagstaff’s first quilt group, High Country Quilters, and met in the members’ homes, and were charter members of the Arizona Quilters Guild.  For the first 30 years, Patty’s quilts were machine-pieced using traditional patterns.  Cutting and piecing was tedious, but the serenity and rhythm of the hand quilting on a frame her father made was the most enjoyable part.

After moving to Tucson to pursue a Master’s degree in Library Science, and working as a librarian, Patty found less time to quilt but still made 1-2 quilts a year.  Upon retirement, she wanted to challenge herself and learn to hand appliqué.  Her first quilt (“Nature’s Garden”) was appliquéd with freezer paper inside and won a 1st place at the Tucson Quilt Fiesta Show.  Finding this method too time-consuming in preparation, Patty took a needleturn appliqué class from Karen Kay Buckley at Quilt Camp in the Pines.  Karen’s pattern, “Magical Medallions,” helped Patty win 5 ribbons at the 2008 Tucson Quilt Fiesta Show, including Best of Show, Viewers’ Choice, and the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame Award. It went on to be juried into the 2008 Houston International Show and appears in the 2010 AQS Quilt Art Engagement Calendar.

Patty considers herself a traditional quilter, always preferring hand appliqué and hand quilting over other methods. She feels she is preserving an American art and tradition, and that handwork is a form of meditation.  “When the day is stressful, as soon as I sit and appliqué, all becomes right with the world.”  She belongs to the Tucson Quilters Guild, Valley Quilters Guild in Green Valley, The Baltimore Appliqué Society, The Appliqué Society, NQA, AQS, and Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame.

Patty now has many hand appliquéd quilts to be proud of and enjoys making floral-themed quilts.  Some are waiting their turn to be hand quilted (Baltimore Album, Fiesta Vases, and Hawaiian Breadfruit). Living now in rural Arivaca, in far southern Arizona, Patty’s quilts will be featured in a one-woman show on January 30, 2010 at the annual Arivaca Home Tour, when they will be hung at the newly restored one-room schoolhouse, one of the oldest in the state.