Susan Mapa is obsessed. Obsessed in a patient, calm, creative way.

When it comes to her passion, quilting and sewing wearable art, she calls it her “solitary” hobby.

“It’s something you have to lock yourself in a room and concentrate on it,” Mapa said this week. “It takes time, effort. When you start a project it kind of consumes you, you have to get it finished.”

After garnering a first-place award at the California State Fair in 1957 for a skirt she made, Mapa put down the sewing machine for a while.

“You get busy with your career and everything else,” Mapa said. “So I stopped sewing for a while.”

This year, the Colfax resident took home the Best of Division and Best of Class awards at the California State Fair for her “Mitered Square Poncho” in the California Creative Arts category after switching her art form to a less time consuming, more portable creative outlet.

“Knitting is something you can do anywhere,” Mapa said. “My husband likes to watch TV and I can sit there and knit. I can do it while he’s fishing, at the airport — anywhere.”

Marking 51 years since her first award at the fair has brought her life full circle, she said.

“It is like your life goes in circles and comes back around,” Mapa said. “There is this thing I have always been interested in and that has always been important to me. Things like that I think you always find a way to come back to it.”

Mapa got into knitting after joining an Auburn-based quilting club with a friend in the early ’90s.

She made a few pieces of wearable art, which she won state fair awards for in 1993 and 1994.

“I just love the creative aspect of it,” Mapa said. “I love that you can take a piece of fabric and go anywhere with it, make it your own.”

Husband Gene Mapa said his wife’s hobby is great for him.

“I get to do a lot more TV watching,” he said.

But he admits Susan’s need to reach perfection gets him a little irked sometimes.

“I cringe when I see her ripping out handfuls of yarn,” he said. “All these hours of work just to start over. I think to myself, ‘Why are you doing that?’”

Susan Mapa explained that “getting it perfect is more important than finishing it.”

Plans for next year’s design are already in her head, Mapa said.

“I’m already thinking while driving down the road, ‘what color am I going use, what pattern?’” Mapa said. “My mind is already going.”

And while she may not have her priorities in order, Mapa said, her obsessive hobby is what makes her happy.

“Maybe all the dishes aren’t done and maybe all the laundry isn’t put away,” she said. “But I need to be creative, I need creativity in my life. This is what I enjoy; This is what makes me happy.”