Gloria Loughman lives by the sea, on the beautiful Bellarine Peninsula, in Victoria. Married with three daughters, she is a trained secondary teacher having worked mainly in the literacy and special education faculties. Her initiation into the world of patchwork occurred approximately 20 years ago when she was recovering from a course of chemotherapy.

Over the years she has dabbled in many areas including strip piecing, bargello, colourwash, fabric dyeing and painting, and machine embroidery. After completing some studies in design and color as part of a Diploma of Art in 1996, she began to make large vivid landscape quilts depicting the Australian bush. Having the opportunity to travel to many unique and fascinating parts locations, she is continually challenged to reproduce these images in fabric. Most of the textiles used have been hand dyed or painted and feature extensive machine embroidery. These quilts have won many major awards in Australia, Europe, Japan and the United States. Gloria’s quilt “Kimberly Mystique’ was the winner of Australia’s most prestigious national quilting award in 2003.

Gloria has been teaching patchwork classes for many years and enjoys sharing her knowledge and skills with others. She likes to challenge her students to design their own quilts but is also happy to provide patterns for those less confident. Gloria’s classes have proved to be very popular with lots of students coming back for a second or third class. Gloria has traveled to many states in Australia running workshops for small groups of country quilters as well as teaching classes for larger guilds in the major cities. She has also traveled extensively overseas teaching classes in New Zealand, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa and Japan.

As well as being in demand as a teacher, Gloria has curated seven exhibitions of Australian quilts to the United States and have had the privilege of judging at many major shows. She has had a number of solo exhibitions, including an invitation to exhibit at the prestigious NEC Show in Birmingham, UK. Her book, Luminous Landscapes, was released by C&T in January 2007 and is proving very popular.

What began as a therapy has developed into a passion and has given Gloria the opportunity to travel the world exhibiting her quilts, teaching classes and meeting lots of wonderful people