About Me

Hi! I'm Emily, a quilting librarian living in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.

Me in my happy place, stitching binding

I started quilting in fall of 1997 during my sophomore year in college. It sounds cliche, but I really needed a hobby.  One of the   extracurricular activities was a Craft Center.  My first teacher was a  woman named Elaine Hartley.  I still have a pin Elaine made; it hangs so that I can see it from my sewing machine.

I live with Husband, a man who is extremely supportive of my quilting and who I swear I can turn into a quilter if you give me long enough.  We have a son, Fire Monkey, who was born in Fall 2013. Our dog Ivy completes our family.

Fire Monkey with a quilt he helped make

I am not even close to a perfectionist when it comes to quilting.  I don't do show quilts for that reason.  If everything had to be perfect, I would not enjoy myself.  I don't consider myself a modern quilter but there are parts of the modern quilt aesthetic that I like.  I like I Spy/Novelty fabrics, batiks, purple, scrap quilts, trying new things when I'm in the mood, and have recently become enamored of solids.


The name of the blog comes from two different things.  I've always liked dogwoods because they are beautiful trees, and they also happen to be the state flower of the state where I was born (Virginia) and the state where I live (North Carolina).  I added the "Darling" because I felt it needed something else, and there was some family history of using darling for me because as a kid my favorite baseball player was Ron Darling.  You can read the longer version behind the name here.


When I'm not quilting, I probably wish I was quilting.  That being said, I also enjoy reading, hiking, walking, being with my family, and cooking.  Long term, I really want to learn to speak & understand Spanish and to play the ukulele.