Hello! I’m Sarah Ruiz, a quilter and aerospace engineer living in Houston, Texas.
I’ve been sharing slices of my life online since the late 1990s so this ol’ blog covers a lot of ground, from 20-year-old college student to closing in on 50 and married with a teen + tween! These days I write mostly about my quilting life both here and in my email newsletter.
My quilts and have been displayed at shows including QuiltCon, AQS Paducah, and the International Quilt Festival, and my quilts and patterns have been featured in publications including QuiltCon Magazine, Curated Quilts, and Make Modern. My patterns, classes, and more are available for purchase in my shop.
My creative and technical sides have always been intertwined, from drawing Disney characters and memorizing constellations as a kid to supporting the space station and dreaming up new quilts today. I bumbled through my first quilt in 2003, motivated by a stack of running shirts and with massive assistance from a patient fabric store employee. That t-shirt quilt sat unfinished until a spontaneous decision in 2011 to take a quilting class changed everything.
Quilting perfectly combines my engineering and artistic mindsets, and I love the puzzle-solving required to turn an idea into reality. I design modern quilts that bring new twists to traditional patterns and feature bright colors, bold lines, and graphic shapes. My designs are easy to make, but pack a visual punch.
In my professional life, I’m an aerospace engineer currently working in private industry on a new rocket program. In December 2025, I retired from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where I worked for more than 28 years. I held several different roles at NASA over the years and while they were all fun, my most “glamorous” role was working as a flight controller for the space shuttle from 2005-2011. I’ve written a number of things about working in Mission Control and my specific roles there.
“Saroy” is a combination of Sarah and what used to be my middle name.
You can get in touch via Instagram, Facebook, or info@sarahruiz.com.
A few places you might have seen me elsewhere:
- Quiltfolk Issue 38
- Rev Craft Biz podcast
- Quilter on Fire podcast
- Craft to Career podcast
- Women @ NASA
- Kindle Curiosity podcast
- Yes and Yes True Story series
- The Lively Show podcast
- The Sarah R. Bagley Podcast
- Moms Make it Work series with My Life in Transition
- Everyday Professionals series with Delaney Paige
