Quilters Calendar & Guild Network

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Heather Johnston

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Home: North Little Rock, AR

Heather has had a lifelong but varied love affair with fabric. She learned sewing at her mother and grandmothers’ knees and her first sewing project was a skirt. She picked up quilting in her teens, creating a hand-stitched Cathedral Window quilt and took off from there. Most of her early quilts were her own patterns. After a decade on hold, she got back into quilting after moving to Alaska.

She has taught beginner sewing, beginner quilting, and beginner alterations classes in the local community, as well as bag making classes at her local Alaskan quilt store.

Following up on her early days, Heather loves to create quilts geared to beginner quilters and create quilt patterns for panels. She is also focused on the backside of quilts and has started making and selling personalized sublimated quilt labels. You can see more on her website at HMJ Originals.

Heather’s Lecture is on Labels for Your Quilt. She discusses the many methods of making quilt labels, including using Sublimation, and she offers advice on what to include on your quilt labels.

Heather teaches via Zoom. Please contact her at: admin @ hmjoriginals.com (remove spaces). Please let Heather know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Teacher Sample Basic Profile/Listing

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Marguerita McManus

photo of Marguerita McManus

Home: Anchorage, Alaska

My specialty is quilt–as–you–go and my first book was a best seller, going into multiple re-prints. My techniques are popular with beginner and experienced quilters because when the project is complete they have a FINISHED quilt! My techniques can be adapted to fit many types of quilting, from crazy quilting to UFO’s—I’d love to show you how! I am passionate about ergonomics and comfort for sewing and quilting and I invented an inexpensive solution that works for all sewing machines. Wouldn’t your guild members benefit from seeing it?

Learn more about Marguerita on her website: www.crazyshortcutquilts.com

Please let Marguerita know you found her on The Quilter’s Calendar!

AND

Below is a spread from the Directory of Quilt Teachers showing the 1/4 page Basic Listing (upper right):

Norene Skiles

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Home: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Norene, a retired school library media specialist, began sewing as a young girl, and has never stopped.  After sewing clothing for decades, she discovered quilting in 1996 and never stopped.  Her quilting style has evolved over the years from patterns and traditional quilting to modern Improv with a scrappy focus.  She loves to incorporate technology into her quilting and prints her own fabrics with Spoonflower.

Lectures are priced a $100 and zoom classes between $330 – $400.

Check out Norene’s website to see her listings. Luv Two Create

Please let Norene know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Sandy Fitzpatrick

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Home: Cary, North Carolina

Sandy Fitzpatrick of Hissyfitz Designs is an applique quilt pattern designer whose goal is to get as many of the quirky designs, that are spinning around in her head, down on paper for you to enjoy! 

Her fusible applique patterns are full of whimsy and will certainly bring a smile to your face.  Sandy strives to make her full-sized patterns easy to follow and fun to make.  Her classes, which focus on machine applique and free-motion quilting are equally fun. 

Having lived in many places as she and her husband moved around with the Air Force, Sandy currently lives in Cary, North Carolina. Her lectures and workshops are always an informative, fun experience. View her line of patterns and laser cut kits at www.HissyfitzDesigns.com

Sandy presents and teaches via Zoom! Here are some short descriptions, in her own words. For more workshop and presentation information, please visit Sandy’s website:

My most popular workshop is, “You Choose the Project”. Students are allowed to choose any of my applique designs for this fusible machine applique class. I also offer a Free-Motion Quilting workshop to help you reduce that pile of UFOs you have lying around in your sewing studio. 

Zoom Lectures:

My most popular lecture is, “Why Didn’t I Think of That?”  – Tips, tricks, and shortcuts to make your sewing and quilting easier and more enjoyable. How to sew a sleeve to your quilt quickly and easily, tricks to add dimension to your quilts, and organizational tips.

Free-Motion Fun and Facts – Ideas and inspiration to help you along the path of a wonderful, relaxing free-motion experience. How to set up your sewing area and taking the fear out of your quilting.

Facebook:  www.Facebook.com/HissyfitzDesigns

Instagram:  www.Instagram.com/hissyfitzdesigns

Please let Sandy know you found her on The Quilter’s Calendar!

Joy Duke

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Home: Hampton, Virginia

Joy Duke is the designer of over 135 patterns for Joyous Appliqué Designs and the author of numerous articles for Quiltinghub.com as a quilting contessa. 

Joy specializes in applique patterns that are easy, fun, and nature-inspired that all quilters are capable of making.  Joy also likes to incorporate yo-yos in unusual ways in her applique pattern designs.  Her latest passion is bamboo felt applique which allows those that are allergic to wool, or that don’t have the budget for it, to create beautiful fun pieces of art. 

In addition to designing, teaching, and lecturing for guilds (both in-person and via ZOOM), she enjoys going to the beach and spending time with her family.  Sometimes she is even found stitching on the beach or around a competition swimming pool and meets the nicest people when stitching in public.  These interactions lead her to create one of her most popular lectures/trunk shows entitled “Stitching in Public”.

Lecture titles include:

“How Do You Yo-Yo?” – This lecture and trunk show allows participants to see how yo-yos are made with a hands-on demonstration as well as a discussion on the various methods that some people use to make them. Then we explore the many ways that yo-yos can be used on our quilts, clothing, and around our homes in non-traditional and traditional ways as well as hearing another name for this familiar little gathered circle.

“Stitching in Public” – A fun trunk show where Joy shares the funny things and advice people have shared with her while she is stitching. 

“Making It Your Own” – A look at how we can take a pattern and make simple changes to personalize it either for the recipient or the maker.  It is meant to help quilters think about how they can use that pattern that they really like and “tweak it” a bit.  This was the way Joy got started designing her own patterns.

45 minute to 1 hour ZOOM lectures start at $300.  Please see Joy’s website for information on classes and lectures.

Website: www.JoyousAppliqueDesigns.com

Contact Joy at JoyousAppliqueDesigns @ cox.net [take out the spaces]

Please let Joy know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Carla Klop

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Home: Fort Denaud, Florida

Carla first learned to quilt in 1976 and for the next 30 years completed 1 quilt per year, entirely by hand. She raised a family, ran a business – a closet quilter, never joining a guild or meeting other quilters. It wasn’t until meeting her new husband and moving to Vermont (kids grown and business sold) that she discovered the rotary cutter.

With her new rotary cutter skills, she developed a series of shortcut methods. Using only a 24″ quilting ruler, Carla makes a ‘sheet’ of units such as HSTs or QSTs. These methods are now published as a resource guide titled Shortcut Sheets – Laminated cards in a binder along with patterns, tips and worksheets. There are 8 different methods, each with 5 size calculations.

In May 2024, Carla released her second publication – a book titled Panel Play which shows 20 different patterns to surround a panel and uses shortcut sheet methods to make the blocks.

Carla is working on her third publication using her Talking Points block ideas. This block is paper-pieced. The book is expected to be ready by May 2025.

Carla has been published five times in the American Quilter magazine (twice on the cover) and has featured patterns with some of Northcott’s fabric collections.

She gives a 1 hour presentation titled From Quilter to Designer either in-person or via zoom.

Carla runs a small retreat in her home in LaBelle FL where she teaches her methods in a 4 day, 3 night event for a maximum of 6 quilters.

Trunk shows can be in person or via Zoom. Each attendee will receive a coupon which can be applied to online purchases. Class fees vary and can be discussed.

White Water

For more about Carla, please visit her website: kitsbycarla.com.

Please let Carla know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!