Susan Else brings scraps of cloth to life.

The rooms of her high-ceilinged Victorian studio/home are populated with
Else's ingenious three-dimensional figures, frozen in movement. A
patterned elephant walks a tightrope surrounded by quilted vines and
leaves. Multicolored cats stretch and preen as pawns on a giant quilted chessboard. A woman runs on her bright bedspread, corded hair flying.

"I grew up watching people make art," says Else, who was a recent Open
Studios participant. Her father was an accomplished painter, her mother a
talented sculptor. "But I always loved textiles." Two little dolls that she made at age 9 peer from a nearby wall... read on!

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