Susanne has been quilting since 1993, after she retired from a career in business management. Susanne uses traditional patterns in innovative ways, or creates original designs, and her style comes from the combinations of fabrics from west Africa with hand-dyed and commercial cotton. She finds in quilting an ideal combination for her love of fabric and color, her creativity and facility with math and geometry. Susanne has been sewing since childhood, and most all her work is by machine. Susanne's work has been displayed in both national and local venues in the Washington, DC and Ft. Lauderdale, FL areas. In her work and her teaching, she focuses on encouraging students to set aside the rules and "shoulds" which may have governed their work, or to set aside at least those preconceived notions that have been a hindrance to creativity. She focuses on enjoying the process, letting the quilt-in-process dictate "what's next", and taking risks along the way - the results, she feels, take care of themselves. Susanne's use of West African fabric is essential to her craft for several reasons; she values - the vivid, and large scale designs, the use of gold in the designs, the strong, saturated color, the repeating patterns which can become such effective borders, and most of all - the vibrancy she can achieve with these fabrics.