designer profile DEIRDRE BOND-ABEL

Australian quilt designer, Deirdre Bond-Abel, has been on a mission to decorate her entire house with quilts for four decades now. “It all started with the purchase of a magazine – American Country Living. The houses in the photographs were full of quilts – on beds and on and over every surface. I knew instantly that I had to learn how to make a quilt so I could create a similar look in my own home,” she recalls.

At the time, there weren’t many patchwork and quilting stores in Australia but, fortunately for Deirdre, one had recently opened in her local shopping centre. She immediately signed up for a sampler course to learn the basics of hand and machine techniques. Deirdre tells us, “I was hooked from the get-go and subsequently did a few specialist classes with them as well. It’s also where I bought my first quilting book – by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene.* That