Sheila has been involved in some form of textile work for most of her life. She learned the basics of design when doing a Higher Art course during the 1960s, and also showed some talent as an embroiderer during that time, winning the school prize. Over the years, Sheila tested out many forms of fabric work, but when she was cross stitching, at the start of that craft’s relatively recent revival, she realised that she really wanted to work with blocks of colour. As luck would have it, she discovered a thriving shop in Linlithgow, called ‘Purely Patchwork’, and started attending classes run by Pat Archibald, where she learned the basics of putting fabric together. At this stage, Pat had just decided to start her classes teaching design, and Sheila was fortunate to be at the very first of these classes. Since then she has attended many classes with Pat, and Freewheeling actually grew out of the friendship which grew between the members of Pat’s first design class. Sheila found that the design teaching built perfectly on what she had learned so many years earlier at school. The appearance of the Loch Lomond Quilt Show in 2005 encouraged everyone in the group to prepare a piece of work for exhibition, mostly for the first time. Sheila has continued to submit work each year for this competition, mainly to encourage the show to continue – after all, you can’t have a quilt show without any quilts, can you? She has received several ‘Highly Commended’ awards for her work, and in May 2007, she won the Intermediate section of the Scottish competition, and was selected as overall champion. In autumn 2009, Sheila was delighted to take first and third places in the Art Quilt section of the Scottish Quilt Championships at Ingliston, and also the award for Embellishment.

Sheila enjoys travelling, and is keen to work with the photographs she has taken on her travels. She enjoys working to a specific brief, which is perhaps not always what she might have chosen! If you would like to contact Sheila you can do so by emailing her at sheila@sdalgleish.co.uk.