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Melinda Bula

At 19 years old, Melinda was studying art in college and had her first job in a fabric store. It seemed a lot of customers were coming in for fabric for quilts. Why not make a quilt? Her great-grandmother was a quilter and she had been designing and working with fabric since she was 9, so it just fit. Melinda got a book (The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting, by Marguerite Ickis 1949), cut out cardboard templates and made her first quilt.

A few years later she was a stewardess for Western Airlines. There was a lot of downtime so what do you do? You make another quilt. How about a double wedding ring? She didn’t know it was hard, she just loved the curves. Waiting between flights she continued to make quilts totally by hand. On the side Melinda started designing wallpaper. Soon she had a full business and was shipping designs across the country. One of her designs ended up in the model penthouse of the Trump Tower in New York.

Melinda and her husband Joe decided that she needed to give herself fully to art. She wasn’t sure what that exactly meant yet, but they decided to sell the business, move to a new area and give her full attention to art. One day she found herself inside because the dog wouldn’t walk with her in the 108 degree weather. She was new to town and didn’t know anyone yet, so she turned on the TV. There she saw this woman talking to quilters. Every morning from then on she watched Alex Anderson on “Simply Quilts” and quickly made 5 new quilts. Melinda found herself at a woman’s luncheon and told someone about her quilting. The person mentioned that she should get into a guild. She had no idea that there was such a thing as a quilt guild.

Melinda advises, “Take all the classes you can. Even the ones you don’t think you'll like. You never know what you will learn.” Melinda soon began incorporating her design background into the quilts and then brought her love of painting to the process using thread instead of paint. Besides beautiful quilts, Melinda also designs wearable art.

Melinda is now an award-winning quilter. Her sense of color and design has won her numerous ribbons. Most recently she won Best of Show, 2008 at Road to California for Monterey at Dusk. This quilt also won 3^rd place at IQA Houston 2007. She received 2^nd place at the same show with her flower quilt Romance.

Melinda’s first book came out in 2007 called Cutting Garden Quilts, published by Martingale Press.

Visit her website, www.melindabula.com