There’s a phrase that goes, “Once a teacher, always a teacher.”
For Jeri Cook, that statement symbolizes a lifelong journey of learning, giving, and teaching that has stretched far beyond the Houston Independent School District, where she worked as an educator and administrator, and into the quilting world, where she shares a passion for quilting that has both extended to her community and transcended borders.
Jeri’s quilt journey began like so many others: with her maternal grandmother, Myrtle Deadrick, at her side. Growing up in Port Lavaca, Texas, on the Gulf Coast, Jeri, her three siblings, and many cousins frequently visited their grandmother’s home 30 miles away in Palacios. “It started in Vacation Bible School, where my grandmother was teaching us how to embroider and do little bitty projects,” Jeri said. “We grew up with her actually doing hand quilting in the front room of her house.”
Myrtle, who was also an exceptional embroiderer, favored Pinwheel blocks and made quilts from old clothing with multiple sheets sandwiched between layers as batting. Those quilts were functional, staving off the cold in the winter. They were also an extension of the family’s faith and goodwill. Each year, Jeri’s grandmother and great aunts attended a church assembly, where they would donate quilts to raise money for missions around the world. “We’ve always given quilts away,” Jeri said.
Those early lessons were foundational for Jeri, though she didn’t finish her first quilt—done in Georgia Bonesteel’s lap quilt method—until her early 20s, after graduating from the University of Houston and settling in the city to raise a family. Soon, she, too, was making quilts to give away, including one for a co-worker who was having a baby. “It started out with somebody having a wedding, somebody having a baby, and I just started making quilts that way,” Jeri said. “It was kind of organic.”
Jeri continued on that path, recruiting others in various quilt pursuits along the way. For Christmas 2004, she and her sister, Dawn Broussard, made quilts for everyone in the family. “From November to December, she made 14 quilts, and I made 12 quilts,” Jeri said.
People continued to gather around Jeri, which is how the Quilty Queens got their start. In the mid-2000s, a colleague asked Jeri to teach her to quilt after spotting the ones she used to liven up her tiny office. Jeri obliged and soon had a group of like-minded women, whom she sent off to purchase fabric. “It was amazing because they picked out fabric that they loved,” Jeri said. “I gave them a little mini project to do.”
Jeri has also donated her time and knowledge to her church, St. John’s United Methodist Church, teaching members of the unhoused community to sew bags and pouches, providing them with a warm place to work as well as a skill. “Some of these people would go back on the street after our classes,” Jeri said. “They didn’t necessarily have a place to stay, but it was warm [in the church]. They were loved. After all of that, they were creating something. Then, later on, we found out that they were selling their little items in the community.”
Even as Jeri has rallied her quilty troops, she’s evolved into making art quilts and recognizes herself as an artist. She calls herself an “eclectic quilter” and dabbles in just about everything, the result of the many classes she has taken during the annual Houston International Quilt Festival. Jeri and Dawn have attended the event since the 1980s—she’s missed only two years, both times because of international travel plans, another passion. The sisters have taken as many as four to five classes each year since the early 2000s, sometimes together and sometimes separately as their interests have diverged. Jeri cites Charlotte Angotti of Quilt Maker’s Studio and Gyleen Fitzgerald of Colorful Stitches among her favorite teachers.
“Now we can’t find anything because we’ve taken everything,” Jeri said with a laugh, adding that she continues to take classes from teachers who inspire her to learn about new tools and strategies.
Her most recent quilt work has focused on portrait collage. One quilt, made during a challenge with the National African American Quilt Guild, of which Jeri is a member, is a self-portrait she made from a photo taken during a trip to Dubai, and it hung in the Houston Museum of African American Culture in the fall of 2025. Another collage quilt of the late jazz musician Joe Sample (a family friend) traveled with the National African American Quilt Guild to appear in a quilt show in Alsace, France. Joe was a composer and keyboardist who collaborated with icons like Tina Turner and Joni Mitchell, and Jeri’s quilt is a tribute to him, complete with a fusible keyboard that winds its way across the work. It also mentions the many artists Joe influenced, including rapper Tupac Shakur.
Jeri’s influence continues to extend worldwide with Nigeria, Africa-based Quilt Africa Fabrics. The shop hosts virtual programming and workshops, including an annual international summit. Jeri has volunteered as program coordinator since 2022 to help facilitate and plan Quilt Africa’s virtual offerings. Past presenters have included Sherman, Texas-based art quilter Leo Ransom of Lion’s Den Quilting, Maine-based Susan Carlson, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based fiber artist Sherry Shine.
Jeri marvels over Quilt Africa Fabrics’ ability to connect quilters worldwide, especially during a global pandemic and with poor internet. Other presenters have included North Carolina-based textile artist Hollis Chatelain, Spain-based quilter Cristina Arcenegui Bono, and the late modern quilter Carole Lyles Shaw. Jeri has reaped the rewards of her work with the organization, gaining new knowledge and tips for free. “It’s kind of like cheating when she gets all of these people, then I have the pleasure of getting to know them and sharing them with the audience,” Jeri said of Quilt Africa Fabrics’ leader Miriam Galadima Benson.
Stephanie Moss was a presenter at Quilt Africa’s 2025 summit. A Houston, Texas-based quilter , she was one of the original Quilty Queens, having learned to quilt from Jeri. “She’s really patient, but she also pushes you and challenges you,” Stephanie said of Jeri. “She is going to want you to take that class or ask us to do some fabulous quilt as a group that most of us don’t know how to paper piece or whatever. But she’s going to have us paper piecing.”
In addition to continuing on with portrait quilts and myriad others, Jeri has a very special task on her to-do list. Before her grandmother died, she gave Jeri a number of blocks that she had embroidered. Jeri didn’t finish the quilt before Myrtle’s death but did so years later. Unsatisfied with the final result, however, she plans to painstakingly take the original quilt apart and remake it, adding Pinwheels to the border in honor of her grandmother’s trademark style.
Refinishing her grandmother’s quilt represents a full circle moment for Jeri, whose love for quilting began with Myrtle’s teaching and has become embedded in the fabric of her life. “Quilting is really my life. It’s my passion. It’s what sustained me when my husband passed away,” Jeri said. ”I love having my quilting room that I can go in and just not have to go to a store to get anything. I can just go in and open up my cabinets and find something and be creative.”
Courtney Mabeus-Brown has been a journalist for more than two decades and a quilter for about two years. She bought her first sewing machine during the COVID-19 pandemic, making bags and small home accessories before a friend got her hooked on quilting; she’s now made three quilts, and there is no end in sight. Courtney lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and cat in an old 1880s home. Her award-winning journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Virginian-Pilot, and many others, and her sewing work can be found on Instagram at @SundrySouthKing.
