About Liz

Hi, my name is Liz and I’m so glad you stopped by Clean Seam Machine!

A little background about how I ended up here: my mother, Lee Fowler, was a quilter my entire life. I grew up in a home with the hum of sewing machines, bookshelves stuffed with stacks of fabric and thread stuck to pretty much every clingy textile.

I learned to sew from a very early age, producing my first quilt at 6. My mom taught me how to use a sewing machine first, then a hot iron, and eventually the much-needed seam ripper. She showed me her pattern design process, her long arming skills and her color palette techniques. Sometimes, I got the pleasure of being the first person to listen to a new lecture, staying up late while she practiced her words.

As a teen, my father introduced me to photography and sewing got pushed aside, but it never truly left. When I attended art school, somehow quilting incorporated itself into everything I did: I printed black and white photographs and stitched them together with brightly colored fabric, I embroidered color photos that I’d printed directly onto fabric, I even did a series of self portraits involving hand stitched goods.

Photography was a fantastic career in my twenties and it taught me so much about color, design and composition. It also led me to the first company that took a chance on my sewing skills: Connecting Threads. They trusted my history, my experience and my vision, and introduced me to a career in quilting that I never dreamed possible.