Skip Navigation Website Accessibility


Well, Hello!

I’m Sheri, and welcome to my website! This is where I’m just going to take a moment and introduce myself.

Some of my very earliest memories involve sewing, firstly just playing with scraps whilst my grandmother, Violet, for whom I later named my business, was at her work as a very talented tailor. Later I studied fashion and textiles, followed by costuming, and for sixteen years I worked as a freelance Costumer in my native South Wales. It was a fun, frustrating, exhausting, exhilarating career, working in TV, opera, theatre, and movies, and no two days were ever the same.

Our two boys were born in 1997 and 1999. When the younger of the two was four months old my husband, Andrew, and I moved to Abu Dhabi and then Dubai to follow his career, and I became a full-time Mum to the boys, since Andrew’s job involved being away from home a great deal. I loved being a stay-at-home Mum, but having a creative outlet was vital.

Thank heaven for Quilting!

Quilting began as it usually does, as a hobby. (My stash grew faster than the quilt pile – evidently my side hobby was collecting fabric – can anybody relate to that?)  A very dear friend and I taught ourselves to draft blocks using Ginny Beyer’s Bible, and I was hooked!

In 2006 we moved the family to the East Coast of Canada, and I continued to be a full-time Mum, until in 2015, with the empty nest looming, I started to think about the next story in my life. I didn’t want to go back to costuming, but I needed to be creative. One day I was looking through a quilting magazine and stopped at a full-page ad for a Gammill Statler Longarm machine. I was dazzled. I WANTED that machine. I knew that the only way I could justify owning that machine was if I quilted for others.

Hmmmm! I could do that!

That day my life moved in an exciting, new direction. When (Engineer) Andrew had done his due diligence to make sure that from an engineering point of view the Gammill was the best machine for the job, I called Erik at Kawartha Quilting and Sewing Ltd, the Gammill Dealers for the East Coast of Canada, and bought my first Gammill, a 26” Statler on a 12’ frame. Violet Quilts was born and I could barely control my excitement!

Two years later I bought my second, hand guided machine, a beautiful purple, sparkly Gammill Vision 2, on a 10’ frame, with the plan of renting time to others who perhaps did not have the space or the funds to own their own longarm but would love to quilt their own quilts.

Through quilting for others I have met the loveliest people and made friends for life. I’ve had the honor to quilt some peoples’ first quilts and some peoples’ last ones. I’ve quilted competition quilts and memory quilts, I’ve quilted for fabric designers and quilt pattern designers, and some of the quilts have appeared in publications. I’ve quilted Quilts of Valour and I’ve quilted memorial quilts after the most tragic of events. Each and every quilt is quilted with care and respect, and I’ve loved every one of them (and had other feelings about some, like naughty children, too!).

I’m always excited to see what quilts are brought to me for quilting, I love meeting the quilters, getting to know them and their style and finding “just” the right pattern for their new quilts, considering the story of the quilt (they all have one!), the intended recipient of the quilt, the use it will get, and the general “feel” of the quilt.

These days I share the longarm quilting with our fabulous Rachel, as I have to wear so many other "hats", but I still like to keep my hand in.  Why not bring us your quilt tops and let’s see what magic we can work together! I can’t wait to see where the next chapters of my quilting career take me, who I will meet, the quilts I will quilt and the stories of their makers.

Welcome to Violet Quilts!