Colleen grew up in Northern California, attended college at UC Davis, and started teaching school as a 4th grade teacher in 1983. She retired in June of 2017. During 33 years teaching, she taught 2nd through 8th grades, and a variety of subjects. She finished her teaching career at the middle school level, teaching what she refers to as the fun stuff … math, art, drama and PE. She also taught dance to classroom teachers for the Northern California Art Project during the summer for 12 years, and still does an occassional dance workshop for educators. She has been sewing since she was in the eighth grade (she sewed dresses back when she used to wear dresses). Her mom was a charter member of the local quilt guild, and her sister also quilted, so it made sense to try quilting. She made her first quilt after her first year of college in 1976. She made her second quilt much later in 1990. When her two sons got older, she started playing with designing quilts, and creating with and on fabric. Just as much as she likes quilting, she likes telling the stories that go along with her quilts, hence the lecture title of “Life with a Border Around It”. In addition to quilting, she likes hiking, biking, motorcycling (a Honda 700), cats, family, and hugs, not necessarily in that order.