Meet RaNae

RaNae Merrill found her calling as a professional quilter after previous careers as a pianist, a photographer and a travel writer.

She began quilting after her grandmother died, leaving a half-finished quilt for her. When she found a stack of nine-patch squares in a trunk that had belonged to that grandmother, she started making baby quilts for her nieces and nephews, incorporating Grandma’s blocks into each one. (These are the Grandma's Nine-Patch quilts in the Gallery.) When people began praising her designs and suggesting that she quilt professionally, she brushed off the idea as impractical.

Several years later, she began to experiment with making some of her travel photographs into fabric designs. When she went to ask advice, the head designer at Blank Quilting bought one of the lines, and suggested that she attend Quilt Market, where she was astonished to discover that being a professional quilter could, indeed, be a rewarding career!

Today RaNae designs quilts and patterns, writes quilting books and teaches workshops. (She still loves to travel!) Her first book, Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts (Krause Publications) is a best-seller, and she is currently working on her next.

"One of my students wrote to me at the end of a project and said 'I never thought I could do anything like this. You’ve changed my life.' Moments like that are when I get the greatest joy from quilting."

To use photos for print or web: Photos of RaNae for publicity purposes are available by clicking on the "Image for Print" or "Image for Web" links at left. (The photos will open in a new browser window. The image for print is rather large and may take a bit of time to open.) Once the image is open, save it to your computer by moving the mouse to the upper left corner and clicking on the Save icon when it appears, or by right-clicking your mouse and selecting "Save Picture As....". When using this photo, please include the photo credit "Photo by Dave Cross."