Eileen Alber remembers sitting in the career counselor's office at California State University, Northridge, trying to figure out what to do next.

Budget cuts had caused the career aerospace engineer to be laid off from her job in Woodland Hills in the fall of 1998, so she decided to go to Northridge to pursue her master's degree in engineering. As she and the career counselor discussed ways to pick up the strands of her post-degree career, the conversation often turned to quilting.

"The adviser said, 'Bring in some of your work,' " Alber, 53, of Newbury Park recalled. "He said, 'The only time you're happy is when you're talking about quilts.' "

A hobby she used to relax from the demands of her engineering job suddenly began to weave itself into a plan.

In 1999, Alber started her own quilting business, The Quilters' Studio, in Newbury Park and began giving quilting lessons. It seems to have been a good move. This year, she was nominated for the 2003 Quilt Teacher of the Year Award, which is presented each year by The Professional Quilter magazine.

The Maryland-based editor of Professional Quilter, Morna McEver Golletz, said she got about 25 to 30 nominations this year from around the world. The nominees listed in the spring 2003 issue were those who took the time to fill out the questionnaires sent to them following their nominations.

"We believe that if someone takes the time to nominate an individual teacher, that teacher had an impact on the students and deserves a chance for further recognition," Golletz said.

Alber and the other 18 nominees were all named by their students. Another Ventura quilter, Jenny Carr Kinney, was nominated as well. Kinney, who is responsible for developing a quilt program for college credit at Ventura College, has been nominated before, but this was a first for Alber.

Another California quilt teacher, Linda Schmidt from Dublin, won Quilt Teacher of the Year but, as they say in Hollywood, "It was an honor to be nominated," Alber said.

Among the students who nominated Alber was Ellen Ina Gaston of Thousand Oaks.

"She encourages everybody in her class to work at their own level," said Gaston, 36, who has been quilting for four years. "Her classes don't make you feel like you absolutely have to perfect this technique this moment in class. It's sort of like a springboard for you to use in your own quilting endeavors."

Alber, who grew up on the East Coast, learned to quilt from her mother, who had learned the craft from her mother. Alber didn't really take it up as a hobby until 1976, when she sewed a quilt for her grandfather's antique four-poster bed to honor the nation's bicentennial.

She remembered how much she loved using quilting as her canvas because "it's wonderful, tactile, visual feedback."

Gradually, it became a hobby, until 1998, when she experienced those pivotal sessions with her career counselor. As she became more skilled, the largely self-taught quilter found herself drawn to the less conventional, more artistic fiber-art classes.

"What I really enjoy is doing improvisational work," she said.

When she began quilting full-time in her home studio in 1999, she found herself lost in the process.

"It's a wonderful feeling," she said. "You get kind of euphoric. There's a loss of a sense of time."

Still, working at home wasn't ideal. "As a woman, you find yourself thinking, 'Oh, I'd better clean,' " Alber recalled.

Plus, she was lonely.

"I'm a gregarious person; I found it difficult to be a lone artist in a studio," she said.

The best way to combine her art with her need for social interaction, she decided, was to teach. She began to make plans to conduct workshops through a quilting business she opened in an industrial area of Newbury Park.

She took a business class and summoned her engineering management experience to put together a business plan.

In late 1999, she opened The Quilters' Studio. Fabric sales and five or so classes a week keep the business self-sustaining -- and its owner fulfilled.

"The most joy I get is when I'm teaching a class on the artistic side (of quilting) and those who had taken the more traditional classes learn they can express themselves," she said.

Her techniques are different, but just as it's important for artists to learn about the classic techniques, Alber stressed that quilters need to master the basics. Then, they can take their quilting a little more off-the-wall with free-hand design.

"I like to teach people how to be accurate, but I also want to teach them personal expression," she said.

Making her own personal expression a career was a bit of an obstacle for Alber. For a long time, she found it difficult to view herself as a career artist.

"After being an engineer, that was a hard thing for me to work through," she said.

Finally, she learned that quilting was an ideal marriage of the engineer in her left brain and the artist in her right.

"When I have to slow down and measure, I'm working from my brain," she said. "When I can cut and sew and immerse myself in the colors, that's when I'm working from my heart."