Meet Isabelle Selak, Partnerships Assistant We’d love for you to get to know the MQG Staff! Every few weeks, we’ll highlight one of our eight staff members. We’re quilters too, and we each made a quilt using a pattern from the MQG Resource Library to share with you. Once the quilt is made, we will donate it to a local organization or raise money for a cause through the sale of the quilt. This week, Partnerships Assistant Isabelle Selak is showing her version of the Flyover Quilt by Melissa de Leon Mason. How long have you been quilting? My mom taught me to quilt almost 18 years ago. We made a baby quilt together for the first baby born to one of my friends. I made a few more quilts, but didn’t love it. Fast forward to 2016, and I stumbled onto QuiltCon while visiting family in Southern California. I fell in love instantly and have been quilting ever since. Do you have any quilting friends? (By quilting friends, we mean pets that like to hang out on your quilts!) My best quilting friend, our labrador Taylor, had so much fun investigating my quilts as I basted them on the living room floor. “New area rug? Don’t mind if I do!” Do you have a favorite block or technique? Hard to choose! I love tiny piecing and improv. Maybe improv piecing with tiny pieces. What about non-quilty hobbies? I enjoy knitting, mostly socks. Tell us about your life before the MQG. I’ve been a member of the MQG for 7 years, and an employee for five months. My family moved from Southern California to Northern California in 2015, which is also when I became a stay-at-home parent. Quilting was something I could do that was creative and just for me. Before quilting and the MQG, I worked as a high school librarian and history teacher at the school where I was a student many years prior. Did you make any modifications or additions to the quilt pattern? I made it exactly as written. Putting all the template pieces together made me a little nervous, but I had faith in Melissa’s pattern, and I’m so glad I did! I love how it turned out. Where are you donating your quilt? My quilt will be sold and the proceeds donated to The Trevor Project.
