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Heather Lair

Heather Lair was born in Prince Edward Island in 1956. She grew up in the Maritime provinces and moved to Gimli Manitoba with her husband in 1987 where she raised two children.

For the past 30 years she has been a full time quilter. Her first love is traditional quilts and she has studied and taught the variations in styles, colours, and techniques used by quilters and needle workers throughout the world. This experience has made executing commissions possible, and she has made an 1825 Metis dog blanket for the Hudson Bay Collection at the Manitoba Museum and an embroidered linen runner for Parks Canada in Dawson City, Yukon. Many of her quilts can be seen on television shows and on movie sets (Maneater, Stone Angel, Chilled in Miami and Make it Happen to name a few). Her quilts grace the walls and beds of homes and public buildings from Manitoba to Japan, Iceland and South Africa.

For the past number of years Heather has been using these traditional techniques to make art quilts and landscape quilts. She will paint the fabric for the sky, and incorporate all sorts of fabrics like silk, linen, organza, twills and drapery to give the work depth and texture. All of her work is hand qulted, hand applique and each piece is individually designed. Like other quilters, Heather is continually experimenting with colour and has studied how colour, shape and form have been used by other artists through time and has incorporated this into her work.

She has been awarded the Manitoba Arts Council Crafts Grant and has had art quilts juried into National and International shows.