Dena Dale Crain

Dena Dale Crain relocated from the USA to Kenya in 1990. She has spent most of her time since then living on the shore of Lake Baringo, two hundred miles and a five-hour drive north of Nairobi, with husband Jonathan Leakey, eldest son of Louis and Mary Leakey, renowned paleontologists.

Dena saw patchwork quilting as a way to employ local women, taught herself the basics and began a small production quilting business in her home. With advanced degrees in design, anthropology, and textiles, she was uniquely positioned to help. As her experience and confidence increased, she began producing “one-off” works of art. Dena’s innovative and art quilts have been the subject of several solo art exhibitions and group quilt shows in Africa.

Dena helped found the Kenya Quilt Guild and continues to keep a pulse on its activities. She helps educate members of the society at large about quilts as art. She has written magazine articles and lectured at quilting and non-quilting functions.

Teaching in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Good Hope Quilters Guild National Quilt Festival in July 2002 moved Dena into the ranks of international quilting teachers. Since then, she has taught art quilting at such prestigious venues as the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England; the European Patchwork Meeting in Val d'Argent, France; and the International Quilt Festivals in Houston and Chicago in the USA. In 2011, she earned South Africa National Quilt Guild certification as a qualified quilt judge and in 2018 she became a Recommended Teacher for the same guild.

In 2004 Dena joined the faculty of Quilt University, an online educational facility for patchwork quilters. She taught there for ten years before hosting online patchwork quilt design classes on QuiltEd Online. Today, her innovative and unusual classes are available through the Academy of Quilting. An inventive and creative mind coupled with top-notch sewing skills makes Dena Dale Crain an educator of high merit in the world of patchwork quilting.

Find links to Dena's patchwork quilt ebooks, online quilt classes and original pattern downloads on her website.

Read more of this interview.

Website: http://www.denadalecrain.com
Twitter: @africaquilts
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dena-dale-crain

Dena Dale Crain's Art Quilt Portfolio
The art quilts of Dena Dale Crain--more than 20 years of patchwork quilt design and quilt making captured on film.

How to Make a Crystal Quilt
Follow the making of a Crystal Quilt, "Emerald," as I construct it from beginning to end. It looks so complicated, but it's not!

anopheles    art quilt    art quilts    bias binding    built quilt    color in quilts    darned quilts    design    designer pinwheels    doublefold quilt binding    fabrics    fussfree quilt binding    insect repellent    insecticide    machine quilt binding    malaria    mock quilt binding    mosquito    mosquito net    on point quilt settings    online quilt class    patchwork    patchwork design    patchwork quilt    patchwork quilt block    patchwork quilt construction    patchwork quilt design    perfect piping    plasmodium falciparum    preventive medicine    puzzles    quilt    quilt binding    quilt block    quilt blocks    quilt borders    quilt design    quilt embellishments    quilt facing    quilt making    quilt patterns    quilt pricing    quilt stash    quilting    quilting techniques    quilts    seamless quilt binding    sewing    sewing quilts    structured fabrics    sudoku    sudoku puzzle    symmetry analysis    symmetry in quilting    tropical medicine    wall hanging quilt