Barbara “Barb” Patrick, the owner of Bitty Birdie Design in Newtown, CT, lovingly creates whimsical, sophisticated quilts and accessories from textiles she discovers from around the world.  Her specialties include uniquely designed baby quilts; T-shirt memory quilts; bereavement memory quilts; pillows; embroidered baby onesies; zippered pouches; aprons and more.

Barb’s love for quilting started when she was a stay-at-home mom with two young boys 21 months apart, and “needed to fill her time while they napped,” she says.  She had never sewed anything in her life and asked her mom to show her how. She then purchased her first sewing machine and became completely obsessed.  

Bitty Birdie Design (named for her love of birds & OCD need for alliteration) was officially born in 2007 out of a studio space in her stunning 1785 country house complete with antiques and shelves of gorgeous modern and vintage fabrics.

Barb’s days are filled with designing and creating artistic pieces that run deep in her heart and represent important milestones in people’s lives that make the work feel truly sacred to her. And it shows in everything she designs and each recipient’s reaction to the finished products.    

From baby quilts (her favorite) and onesies for newborns, to high school graduation T-shirt quilts that will accompany a child to college (“childhood in a blanket”), to bereavement memory quilts or pillows made from a lost loved one’s clothes (“such deeply important work”), Barb cherishes and relishes every step of the process.

When she isn’t designing, creating, sewing, or sourcing fabric, she is with her husband, three teen children, and their rescue dog Pippa & golden puppy Murph, living life to the fullest.