Stitching and Writing on the Margin

I first met Sabine Heinlein in a ceramics studio on the Lower East Side. There were ten of us sharing a modest basement space at The Manny Cantor Art Center of the Educational Alliance. Heinlein and I were working at opposite sides of the same table. Our tasks that day were very different. She was carefully painting a whimsical crocodile on a ceramic platter and I was smacking my clay onto the table for a handbuilding project.

When I stopped she looked up, seemingly with gratitude. Later, she handed me a business card announcing her dual identities: quilter and writer. On the front was a photo of her Fly Pillow, the insect’s bulging red eyes and pale wings rendered in tiny stitches; on the back was a photo of her Mandrill quilt, the playful, colorful, primate posing against a background of bright green grass.

Heinlein turned to quilting three years ago, shifting from a remarkable career as an investigative