Media Debra Munk Instructions
- August 15, 2024
- Media
Table of Contents
Debra Munk
My Quilting BIO
Debra Munk
“Just poke the needle until you prick your finger underneath and then quickly
push the needle back up through the layers,” my mother patiently instructed my
16-year-old self as my disapproving aunts looked on. The large quilt,
stretched across wooden frames, filled the family room. How long, I wondered,
would it take to complete this quilt with those tiny stitches? In time, my
crude early attempts became a quick, fluid stroke, loading three or four
stitches on my needle before pulling the thread through. Eventually, even my
aunts allowed me to stitch on their quilts. I felt I was now part of an elite
group, that included my great grandmother and grandmother who had passed their
skills to their daughters, and now to me.
A few years later, my mother handed me a bag of pre-cut 2 1/2 squares, with
instructions on how to make a Double Irish Chain quilt. Aunt Beth said,
“she’ll never do it.” (Given that I had two toddlers, probably contributed to
her skepticism.) But I was determined to prove her wrong. All that summer I
used every spare minute to sew blocks together. The look on my aunt’s face
when I presented the completed top is memorable.
However, my encounter with quilting was not my first foray into sewing or
fabrics. As a child, my mother’s fabric stash was my equivalent of a Lego set.
Clothing my dolls and fashioning dress-up outfits for myself filled my
childhood hours. My mother never seemed to mind my raiding her drawers of
fabric, except when I cut pieces for a doll’s skirt right out of the middle of
yardage she had planned for a dress. I did not own a store-bought dress until
I was well into my twenties, and sewed my own children’s clothes until they
firmly objected.
Quilting has been the sashing surrounding the many blocks of my life. I was
born and lived in New York until I was 15, when my parents moved me, with a
heavy Long-Island accent, to Bountiful, Utah where I completed high school. I
earned a BA in English at University of Utah, married, and moved to Riverside,
California. Upon the completion of my husband’s law degree, I found myself
back on the East Coast – this time permanently, in Maryland. Two additional
children (making four), a Master’s degree in English from the University of
Maryland, and a divorce (in 1985) followed. Needing a job to support my
family, I began teaching English in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
and completed a doctorate in Educational Policy and Administration at the
University of Maryland. My career of 32 years in MCPS included several
administrative assignments, including principal of Rockville High and director
of high schools. Additionally, I remarried in 1987 and added three step-
children to the mix of my crazy life.
Yet, raising a family of seven children and pursuing a demanding career did
not keep me away from the Bernina 720 sewing machine my parents gifted me when
I first married in 1971. Sewing has been the one constant in my life, and has
probably saved me hundreds of dollars in therapy fees. By only stitching a
seam a day, I managed to generate at least one bed-size quilt each year – hand
quilting every top. I became vaguely aware that other quilters were machine
quilting, but that seemed to me unauthentic. “Real” quilts were hand quilted.
Anything else was cheating.
Then, shortly before I retired from MCPS in 2017, a girlfriend invited me to
lunch at a restaurant adjacent to a quilt fabric store. Of course, I wandered
in to check out their inventory. In a side room were two large “Millie” long-
arm quilting machines – the first I had ever seen. As I watched women artfully
adding quilting designs to their projects, I began to reassess my prior
position on machine quilting. I could see the art, design and skill involved
in this new quilt form. I was hooked. After four classes and a long, but
successful campaign to win my husband’s agreement, I bought a HandiQuilter
Forte and have never looked back. Eventually Rock Creek Quilt Designs, LLC –
my long-arm quilting business – emerged after much practice, skill development
and confidence-building. It is a rare day that my Forte is idle…she’s either
quilting for myself or for my wonderful customers who entrust their cherished
works to me. Each quilt develops my artistry with free motion or my technical
ability on the Pro-Stitcher.
I currently have 25 grandchildren, and several great grandchildren. My goal is
to make each a quilt; currently five are completed. I have wondered if any of
my descendants will carry on the quilting tradition of our family. Will any of
them inherit my love affair with fabric and quilts? During a recent trip to
Oregon, I got my answer. My 16-year-old granddaughter proudly showed me a
runner she had sewn and quilted for her bedroom dresser, having picked out the
fabrics and pattern herself. There is hope.