Hi, I’m Lori!
Illustrator, quilt pattern designer, and lifelong maker behind She Makes Joy.
I design modern quilt patterns and cheerful illustrated goods for people who believe there's something special about making things with their own hands.
Because sometimes the best thing you make isn't just the thing itself.
Sometimes, it's confidence.
My patterns are designed to actually teach you—not assume you already know—so you can take on something new, grow your skills, and experience one of my favorite feelings in the world:
“I can't believe I made that.”
Where My Love of Making Started
When I was six years old, my dad began building our family home with his own two hands. We moved in before it was finished — the basement was livable, but the rest of the house was still framing and possibility. For years, my parents, my brother, and I shared that basement space while the house slowly took shape above us. I was eleven before I moved upstairs into my own bedroom.
Growing up inside an ongoing construction project meant I was surrounded by tools, problems to solve, and the process of figuring things out. My dad invited me to help. I learned early that when something needed doing, you didn't always start by asking what you could buy. Sometimes you looked around, figured out what you had, and found a way forward. My dad invited me into that process. I learned to use tools, solve problems, make mistakes, and keep going.
Somewhere along the way, I began to believe that if you're willing to learn and try, you can figure out almost anything.
At the same time I was learning that things could be built, I was learning that things could be made.
Often on those same afternoons, I was in my grandma's sewing room.
She often acted as our babysitter in the evenings, and some of my earliest memories are of watching fabric transform at her sewing machine. She outfitted our whole family — cousins, brother, me — in something handmade for every holiday and birthday. Before I was twelve, I’d probably never owned a store-bought dress. When she eventually sat me down and taught me to sew at ten years old, it felt less like learning a new skill and more like being let in on something she’d been quietly showing me all along.
Between my dad building our house and my grandma creating at her sewing table, making things with your hands felt completely normal. Expected, even. That foundation is everything.
How I Found Quilting (And What it Taught Me)
I’ve been sewing most of my life, but quilting came later — and honestly, it humbled me.
My first quilts were ones I made for my daughters when they were little. I didn’t know anything about quilting as a craft. I just sewed pieces of fabric together in ways I found beautiful, completely unconcerned with rules or technique. Those quilts aren’t perfect, but I’m proud of them.
About fifteen years later, when I decided I wanted to design quilt patterns, I figured I should probably learn from someone else’s first. That’s when I discovered quilting is an entirely different world from apparel sewing — different seam allowances, different construction logic, different everything.
But the biggest lesson came from a scrappy quilt pattern I was sewing to study.
The instructions walked me through piecing the units and assembling the blocks. But when I laid everything out, something was clearly wrong. The fabrics were completely unbalanced — visually chaotic despite a nice color palette. The pattern had never once told me to think about color distribution. It just assumed I knew.
That moment stuck. Not because I was frustrated with myself — I was frustrated with the pattern. It had left out something essential and never acknowledged it. I realized that good instructions don't just tell someone what to do. They help them believe they can do it.
That became the standard I wanted for every pattern I wrote.
My Pattern Philosophy
There are two things I’ve noticed about most quilt patterns, and they both drive me a little bit crazy.
The first is that patterns often assume knowledge the maker simply doesn’t have yet — especially when it comes to new techniques. So when I design a pattern with a technique I haven’t taught before, I test multiple methods until I find the one that is the clearest to follow and produces the best results. Then I break it down step by step, with illustrations, so you can actually learn it — not just survive it.
The second is that most patterns are written as if you’ll cut perfectly and sew perfectly every single time. But most of us aren’t perfect, and we shouldn’t have to be. I intentionally build wiggle room into my construction methods — slightly larger pieces that get trimmed to size after sewing — so you can achieve accuracy through the process rather than needing to start with it.
Put simply: my patterns are designed for real quilters, not theoretical ones.
My goal is to help you create something beautiful while growing your skills and discovering what you're capable of along the way.
Because making isn't just about what you create. Sometimes, somewhere between the first uncertain stitch and the finished piece, you discover something about yourself, too.
You realize:
You can.
And eventually, you get to stand back and say:
“I made that.”
Life Outside the Studio
When I’m not working on She Makes Joy, you can find me with my husband at our farm in Defeated Creek, Tennessee — tromping through the woods, wrenching on our vintage Avion camper, kayaking, eating tacos, or checking another National Park off the list.
A Few Things You Probably Don’t Know
I'm completely indecisive. (Ironic, for a designer.)
I always take the stairs two at a time.
I make the best guacamole. This is not up for debate.
I love puzzles — but only Charles Wysocki's art.
I own about 100 and keep a list on my phone so I don't buy a duplicate. (Again.)
My birthday has fallen on Easter exactly three times. The next one's scheduled for when I'm 91.
I've marked my calendar.
Still here? Come find me on Instagram — I’ve met some genuinely wonderful people there — or join my email list below. I’d love to have you along for whatever gets made next.
