Katie (Purcell) MacNeil was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and has had the great priviledge of raising three sons and is the proud Grandmother of two girls. She is an avid painter of seascapes and portraits, but for the past five years she has channeled her creativeness into the art of making "Beautiful Tartan" blankets. The research of a family name, the development of a tartan into a pattern and finally into a blanket, is a sheer sense of joy to her. She has lived on three continents and now resides in her native Nova Scotia.