Katherine McNeese started sewing before she reached kindergarten. When she started piecing quilts, she put those acquired sewing skills to work.
“It’s relaxing. It’s fun. It’s an escape,” she said.
And it’s nothing like her day job. McNeese is a physician in Williamston.
Work has never inspired her art.  She gets her inspiration from nature. McNeese has translated falling leaves, flowers and beaches into quilted pieces.
“Starbright, Starbirth,” McNeese’s favorite piece she has done, is a realistic rendition of the birth of a galaxy.
She decorated her office with quilts, both new and antique. For the month of September, she will be decorating a few walls of the River Walk Gallery and Arts Center. McNeese is the featured artist of the month.
“This is the first time I’ve done it,” she said of showing at River Walk. “I think it’s a nice space.”
McNeese is a third-generation artist. Her mother painted and did ceramics. Her grandmother crocheted and tatted.
McNeese learned how to quilt from public television and the occasional seminar. These days, she teaches the seminars.
McNeese will be teaching an improvisational log cabin class Sept. 21 at Cotton Fields Quilt Shop at 3751 Wharton Station Road.
“It’s a little tiny quilt shop in a double-wide trailer and it’s been here forever,” she said.
She has picked up a lot of quilting tips on the Internet and shares a few of them on her blog.
Her advice for those new to quilting is to practice and to just get out there and do it.
“Have fun with it,” she said. “If you mess it up, the dog can sleep on it.”
The arts center will hold a reception for McNeese during Music in the Streets on Friday, Sept. 20, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Learn more about McNeese on her blog, blueheronquilts2.blogspot.com.