Meet Laura Henneberry creator and half of the team behind PreQuilt!  PreQuilt is a Canadian online software application that helps people visualize and design quilts.  Use PreQuilt's time saving features (like color tags, randomization, built in solid fabric colour cards, fabric swatches, and more) to quickly visualize your next quilt! 

Can you tell us a little about who or what started you on your quilting journey and how that eventually led to creating PreQuilt?

I've always been buying and stashing fabric - long before I knew what to do with it. But my first adventure into quilting was via a sold out english paper piecing (EPP) workshop at The Workroom. I wasn't able to get a spot, but with a little research I was able to figure it out and that hexie EPP project became my first UFO! But this entry into quiltmaking had definitely been the calling I needed and I've been hooked ever since.

- The PreQuilt Team - Gar and Laura

Many years later, I was trying to mock up a quilt (The Circus Tent Quilt) in Illustrator and I was having a really difficult time getting the pieces to line up and manage so many different colors. Gar (the other half of the PreQuilt team) leaned over my shoulder and said something like, "Oh, I could program something that could do that for you." And that's how PreQuilt was born. Our first beta was a custom digital colouring page for that quilt. And PreQuilt grew from there.

In the 2025 QuiltCon Magazine you write about exploring bojagi, traditional Korean wrapping cloths and specifically ssamsol the flatfelled seamed jogakbo (patchwork bojagi) and how this “helped me to develop a more holistic sense of self” as a transracial adoptee. Can you share a little more about that exploration and what you learned about identity and your sense of self through the process?

The first time I saw bojagi wrapping clothes on Instagram, I fell in love with them. Those pieces are so stunning and I felt a calling to learn how to make them. It's hard to know if my affinity for them was because they're Korean, but I can definitely say that I felt a little more connected to them because of it.

I wanted to find an authentic source to learn from and after some research I found Youngmin Lee, a Korean textile artist living in California. I bought her instructional DVD on Etsy and faithfully worked through a couple of the traditional technique projects. But to be honest, I found myself getting a little bored and started daydreaming about hybrid designs that incorporated my favorite aspects of bojagi - the brightly colored visible threads, visible seams, and translucent materials.

I love prototyping, tinkering with an idea, and finding the best way to construct it into a quilt. So I experimented a lot with folding organza and incorporating it into quilts. This process gave me lots of time to work through what I was trying to do.

And I think that that process is a bit of a metaphor for how I define my sense of self. I am the process of becoming, not just the raw materials at the beginning of the project or the intention for the end product. I've been strongly influenced by my lived experiences, and the vast majority of them have nothing to do with being Korean. But since I am built from those raw materials, I'll always be a little bit Korean, but not really at the same time. I think the process of making that quilt helped me come to peace with the idea of being just outside what it means to be Korean.

- Neither Nor Both

How has the process of making by hand influenced your life?

Making is such a slow process. And when you're tinkering, I feel like it's constantly a few steps forward and a couple steps backward. Tinkering often encourages you to fail and then get up and try again using a different technique. Through that process, you learn and develop the best way to make something.

And I think the process of making has taught me how to stick with something to the end. And even when it's imperfect, I value it so much more for both the process and what I have at the end. I feel this for not only the things I make personally, but everything. Because someone else or someone else's process has made them for me.

It has also made me a bit of a minimalist. Less is more and I'd rather have less of value than more of the disposable.

Two of your recent quilt pieces Neither Nor Both and I Am Korean Adjacent combine traditional jogakbo techniques with some of your favourite quilt elements including Sawtooth Stars and hand quilting. Where do you see your exploration of these combined techniques taking you next?!

Good question! I have a headful of different ideas that I'd like to pursue. Some are other bojagi and traditional quilt hybrid ideas like Neither Nor Both and I Am Korean Adjacent. And some of the other ideas are quilts that incorporate appliqued organza onto quilting cotton.

I really enjoy the prototyping and tinkering phase (it's my favorite part) and I'd like to see how far I can push the concept of folding organza to create a design. And then see how that organza can still be used in a quilt, rather than a stand alone piece.

- I Am Korean Adjacent

What have you learned about your own personal style through helping other makers discover the possibilities of PreQuilt?

Looking at what other quilters create in PreQuilt really blows my mind. People are creating and designing quilts I would never dream of and it's really inspiring to see so many different kinds of quilts being created in PreQuilt.

I think one of the most significant things I've learned from our customers is that I haven't developed my own style yet. I've been playing with a lot of different ideas that are not connected or relevant to each other. I feel like I'm getting there with the Korean inspired works, but I'm still a really young quilter who is just breaking in their voice.

Are there any specific skills you would like to explore or expand on to grow your personal making practice? Either at work or in another making realm.

A couple of years ago, I bought a kit from an Australian textile artist, Ruth De Vos, because I wanted to learn and practice a technique that she uses. I have no idea what the technique is called, but it's a hybrid of EPP and hand piecing. She uses interfacing for the templates which are adhered to the wrong side of the fabric. Then the fabric pieces are hand pieced together.

I finally got into using the kit this year and really enjoyed the technique. I'd like to use a similar technique on a future project and I've been experimenting with different types of fusible interfacing and hand piecing them together. Also, I'd like to see how easy it will be to remove the fusible interfacing after piecing everything together.

- I Am Korean Adjacent close up

Is there a sewing term or technique you favour? Why does it speak to you as a maker?

I really enjoy most handwork techniques. I like the way handwork finishes - slightly imperfect and soft at the edges. It's also really forgiving. I also like how portable handwork projects are as well and they're really great for the summer and traveling.

My favorite handwork technique is needle turned or turned edge applique. I like how it's still tidy with the turned edge and the technique can produce organic shapes better than machine piecing them.

Thanks to PreQuilt you have the capacity to design a quilt and visualize it in a variety of colour combinations at your finger tips! How does this influence your decision when purchasing/deciding to invest in a designer’s pattern to make?

Right now I don't have a lot of time to make quilts, so when I do, I want to make sure that I really like the intention before getting started. That's when I really appreciate being able to audition my fabrics in PreQuilt and the designer coloring pages are excellent for that!

Because I have a stash full of beautiful fabrics, I usually start there. I've created a custom fabric pull in PreQuilt that has my fabric stash documented and I will often start auditioning a favourite fabric and then find other fabrics in my stash that would compliment it. I'll buy whatever I don't have in my stash once I have everything planned out.

And it's not just designer patterns I do this for. I'll do it for my own quilt ideas as well. Hot tip: Print out your quilt from PreQuilt in color and then keep all your fabrics and WIP together with the quilt printout. You'll always remember what you're working towards.

What’s the last creative pursuit you worked on (or are still working on!) and what did you like most about it? Is there anything about the project that is holding you up? How do you get over that hump?

Right now I'm working on 2 different projects and I'm stuck on both of them! The first project I have the design finalized and I'm trying to figure out the best way to construct the quilt. Do I EPP and then applique the blocks? Do I hand piece them? Will templates help? The other project I have the construction technique figured out (hand pieced), but I'm still trying to finalize the design.

For both projects, my favourite part is the tinkering. I often tinker with an idea, test it out, find something that blocks my progress, put it down, think about it a lot in the background of life, and then pick it back up and tinker with it again after a new idea for a solution has worked its way to the surface.

Sometimes these projects can be worked on in the background for several years. My quilt, I Am Korean Adjacent, took about three or four years to finish. Now that I'm chatting about this, I really should circle back around to some older ideas that I have figured out how to make and just finish them.

- ssamsol on rami - the flatfelled seamed jogakbo (patchwork bojagi) sample

Start small. And I think this is true for both your own quilt ideas as well as working from a pattern.

But specifically for working on your own ideas, start small. Don't put too much pressure on yourself to make the idea a bed sized quilt. If you can take the idea all the way from beginning to end on a small quilt, you'll run into all the challenges that you would on a big quilt, but the scale of the project will be small enough to still be able to push through and finish it. Then, if you still like it, go big.

Connect with Laura and PreQuilt on Instagram and explore your own quilt designs using PreQuilt online at at prequilt.com

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The Person Behind is a regular series where you can meet and learn a little more about the makers, designers and creative business owners of the products we love and carry at the workroom.

Read all the profiles including :

• Laura Fullerton of Capstone Pattern Co.
• Janine Vangool of UPPERCASE Magazine
• Stephanie Turner of Patch and Dot
• Michelle Galletta of Kiriki Press
• Julia Sutton of Santosha Farm