Pam Holland
Name: Pam Holland
Taking Quilting One step further.
Pam Holland
Quilter, Designer, Author, photographer, Lecturer, Judge, Cinematographer, Illustrator.
I'm a Quilt Teacher,
Author, Cinematographer, Photographer and Designer, and Illustrator
with 13 children,
one husband,
10 white doves,
2 dogs and 2 cats -
as well as the most gorgeous grandchildren you have ever seen.
An internationally renowned quilter, Pam Holland’s teaching career began after a chance meeting with an American Quilter on a European bus tour. Now she shares her passion for fabric and love of the craft with thousands of people every year.
While looking for new pursuits, Pam took her first step inside a quilt shop. “It was just like walking into Aladdin’s cave. I loved the fabrics and because I had been working with fabrics for such a long time I had a passion for them.” Inspired by the designs she saw, Pam believed that she too could create quilts using the sewing and photography skills she already had. “I didn’t ever intend to become a quilter, it just evolved,” Pam admits.
Though she had completed six months of a fashion design course at Regency TAFE Pam had no formal training in sewing. “I wanted to learn everything about quilting and I had to go back to the basics as far as sewing was concerned.” So, she attended a number of classes including a sampler class (though Pam’s first sampler quilt is still sitting in her cupboard, incomplete).
From the start Pam enjoyed drawing her own appliqué designs and incorporating them into pre-existing blocks. And after a year of using other people’s designs, she yearned to use more of her own creative talents. Pam explains, “I went to a quilting group now known as Saintly Stitchers every Thursday morning and there were quilters there, older ladies who I learnt a lot from. I pretty much always took what I learnt from them and then added to it. They probably thought I was a bit of a pain. But they influenced me and taught me a lot.”
Then tragedy struck. “My daughter died from cancer and I was finding it difficult to cope. One of my son’s was getting married overseas and as I have a Japanese host daughter living in London, I decided to visit her before I went to the wedding.
“Whilst I was in England I went on one of those bus tours. On the bus I met an American lady who invited me to visit her and I did. We became firm friends…. I consider her my mentor, from then on that’s when my career as a quilter began.”
On that first trip to America in 1998 Pam took some quilts with her to show in the Minnesota Quilter’s Guild exhibition. Liseby’s Hope, which Pam made for her daughter after she died, won the Judges Award. The heavily machine pieced and appliquéd quilt The Family, which she made for her husband’s 50th birthday was awarded a first prize in the Wall hanging division.
Since then Pam says, “I’ve exhibited in the States extensively and I won the Jewel Pearce Patterson Scholarship 2001 for International Quilt Teachers.” Many well-known American and international quilt teachers have been recipients of this scholarship, named after Jewel Pearce Patterson, the mother of IQS co-founder Karey Bresenhan.
Nominated by the students and teachers she had worked with in America, the scholarship gave Pam the opportunity to attend classes, lectures and booths at the 2001 Houston Quilt Show. Upon returning to Australia, Pam taught the techniques she had learnt. In 2002, Pam returned to Houston with an exhibition of three of her own and seven of her students quilts. Pam proclaims,
“It was a huge undertaking, but after nine months of hard work, we did it and the work of some 22
Australian quilters were proudly on show in my exhibition.”
She continues, “Teaching is a absolute passion. Who needs drugs when you’ve got quilting! I
absolutely love teaching and I never, ever imagined that I would.
“I really like to inspire people. There are a lot of teachers that will just teach the basics, and that’s fine. In the classes I teach I like people to look at things totally differently, to look at their surroundings,
their environment, the colours in the environment and to be able to take something they see and
put it in their quilt.”
For Pam, encouragement is important. “I work very hard to get people to express themselves
through quilting rather than just pick up a pattern and copy it exactly.” To do this, “I write heaps of
notes and give out almost a book every class. I also love to be available for students and to
continue classes online.”
Of course Pam’s teaching style differs depending on where she is. She reflects, “Teaching in
America is very, very different from teaching here [in Australia]. One has to be a performer as well
as a quilt teacher. You have to offer a lot more in class in the way of rhetoric. I am much more
conservative as a teacher in Australia, than I am in the United States. For instance, when I am in
America I have a kangaroo outfit to wear when the students get a little tired. It sure brightens the
class.” I find myself telling stories, I’ve done it since I was a child. At a recent class, one student mentioned that she loved the class but would always come back for more stories…!!!
Students also benefit from Pam’s own research into the techniques and history of quilting. “I am
now working on a method that I have seen, it is called Inlayed Appliqué, and was made from wool.
It got lost for a little bit and people don’t do it anymore. So I am researching and looking for quilts
done in this method,
Pam also enjoys working with reproduction fabrics. “My 1776 quilt [Heartache, Heritage and
Happiness – Best of Show recipient at the 2003 Houston Quilt Show] is a reproduction of an old
quilt. And I’ve developed a method that I call Drappliqué – a very old method of illustrating quilts
with drawings of appliqué.”
For Pam creativity is the key. “I am able to design the quilts I like; I am experimenting all the time. I
don’t think a day goes past where I don’t attempt something a little bit different. There’s always
an interest there. My aim is to achieve perfection in whatever I do. So as far as quilting I am very
fastidious about the way my quilts are quilted and I think achieving perfection is one of my
strongest points.” To do this, Pam often uses her computer. “I like to take photos and reproduce
those photos into a quilt. Using the computer I am able to make an absolute exact copy of the
photograph and put it into quilt form, be it a landscape, portrait or still life.” And it helps too that, “Everything I do is by machine. I don’t do anything by hand.”
From those humble beginnings, quilting is now a major part of Pam’s life. “Quilting has pretty
much taken up my life. It’s my profession now. I am a professional quilt maker, pattern maker and
designer. And until I decide not to do it, that’s the way it will be.”
Winner of the 2001/2 Jewel Pearce Patterson Scholarship for International Quilt Teachers –
nominated by International Quilt Association,
Teacher of the Year nominee 2005
Author of 1776, Heartache, Heritage and Happiness. Published by Breckling Press.
Exhibition Quilts
1994—2nd Viewers Choice SA Quilt Show
1996—Best Christmas Quilt SA Quilt Show
1996—Judges Commendation SA Quilt Show
1996—Best Country Quilt SA Quilt Show
1996—Viewers Choice SA Quilt Show
1997—Judges Award, “Quilts on the Waterfront” Duluth Minnesota USA
1997—2nd Place, Non traditional wall hanging, “Quilts on the Waterfront” Duluth Minnesota USA.
1998—1st Prize wall hanging “Garden of Quilts” St Cloud Minnesota USA
1998— 2 Faculty Awards “Garden of Quilts” St Cloud Minnesota USA
2000—Judges commendation “For your eyes Only” South Australia
2000—1st place Viewers Choice “For your eyes Only” South Australia
2000— Lucien Company Pictorial Award—Yokohama Japan
2001—Sponsors Award pictorial—Yokohama Japan
2002—Personal Exhibition at the Houston Quilt Show.
2003---Best of Show Minnesota Quilt Guild – Silver Threads
2003---Best of Show Quilt Odyssey Pennsylvania
2003---Best of Show International Quilt Association Houston
2003---2nd Group quilt Sydney Quilt Show
2003---Viewers Choice Group Quilt Adelaide Quilt Show
2004 AQS Nashville August
2005 AQS Paducah 1st
2006 South Australian Quilt Guild Best of Show.
2007 AQS Nashville August Best of Show.
Publications
Quilters Newsletter
Courier Newspaper
Advertiser Newspaper
Sunday Mail Newspaper
Australian Patchwork and Quilting 1998,1999, 2000, 2003, 2004
Patches Magazine
Australian Patchwork and Quilting Annual
Tushin Quilt Magazine—Japan
Long Prairie Leader
Fergus Falls Herald.
Down Under Quilts
Readers Digest.
Quilters Companion, 2003, 2004, 2205, 2006, 2007,2008,2009
Down Under Quilts
Life Magazine
Advertiser Newspaper
Houston Chronicle
Sydney Morning Herald
Feb/ March 2004,2006, 2007 Quilters Newsletter
Calendar. Lang Calendar 2006
Release of my book 1776 Heartache and Heritage June 2006
Media.
Simply Quilts. USA
BBC Radio, UK
ABC radio Queensland,
Western Australia, South Australia.
ABC Television SA
Channel 7, 9. 10.
Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson Quilt show.
Documentaries for the Quilt Show,
Express Publications