Quilters Calendar & Guild Network

resources for quilt guild volunteers

VIRTUAL-Live-Online

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!

Joyce Hughes

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Home: Kintnersville, Pennsylvania

Joyce Hughes  is an award-winning self-taught quilter, fiber artist, and author. Her first quilt was a tee-shirt quilt, which she enjoyed making, but felt limited in the ability to express her artistic capabilities. Within several months, she began to design pictorial landscape quilts using raw edge applique, thread painting, and a variety of embellishments. Never knowing the “rules” she broke a lot of them, but with exciting results!

Amazingly, her first art quilt, “Mother’s Day”, was entered into a national show and won a blue ribbon. This has led to numerous awards, recognitions, and opportunities in the quilting world. Several proud accomplishments for Joyce are: “McCall’s Quilt Designer 2012 – Professional Category” for McCall’s Quilting Magazine; also an endorser and sample maker for Northcott and Timeless Treasures fabrics, and Ambassador for Mettler Threads and Brother Sewing.

Currently, Joyce has a second book, Thread Paint A Garden Quilt (released October 2020) focusing on raw edge applique and thread painting to add shading, highlighting, and definition. Joyce’s first book, Creating Art Quilts with Panels is about working with Fabric Panels to create dimension and texture with threads and embellishments, creating a style of her own! Joyce loves to teach and share her tips. One of her greatest accomplishments is when a student creates their own artwork following Joyce’s technique of Dimensional Thread Painting!

Lecture Description:

“My Journey into Quilting”… It is a very open and inspiring talk about how Joyce started in quilting, leading into Art Quilts with Thread Painting, finishing with ideas to use with Panels as Art Quilts. 

Join the many people who leave very excited to try something new with their quilting . Joyce’s  main subject matter will be working with fabric panels. Showing many “Before and after” Art Quilts. Exploring how panels will be able to be used on your personal projects. Many panels are looked at and passed over. Joyce often here’s, “What do you do with this”, it’s so big, the colors are dull, etc., etc.  With a little embellishing and/or thread painting on the fabric, it soon becomes a piece of art.

 Learn about the preparation of the Panel for a project, the freedom of using thread painting and showing that layering thread lets you achieve different effects on the quilts. Then, add embellishments of ribbon, markers, paint, crystals, etc., The Panel is now unique and one of a kind!

Class Description:

Want to learn Dimensional Thread Painting but you think it is too hard. I often hear, “I am not creative and can my Machine do this? etc., etc., Yes, You are Creative and Yes, you can do this on your Domestic Sewing Machine!!! 

In this class you will start with a Beautiful Panel to Create a piece of Art! You will learn the proper steps of Dimensional Thread Painting and find it to be a fun and creative technique. Explore the various thread selection, setting up your machine for stitching techniques with free motion quilting of zig zag and straight stitching, bobbin work and embellishing with netting and crystals. See the fabric come to life as you sew and layer the threads on top of your design. You will use Thread as Paint –sew with different types of threads and color combinations.  Learn how to create interesting texture and dimension to your quilting project. You will leave with a full knowledge of Dimensional Thread Painting and create a One of Kind piece of Art!

Learn more about Joyce on her website www.JoyceHughesOriginals.com and contact her at joyhughes1 @ verizon.net [remove spaces]

Please tell Joyce that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Beth Sullivan

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Beth Sullivan of Beth Sullivan Designs lives in Bellingham, MA with her husband and three teenagers.

After making her first T-shirt quilt for herself in 2000, she started making them for friends and family. When her children were born she turned it into a part time and eventually full time business. She has now made over a thousand T-shirt and memory quilts in her career.

Beth specializes in using unique materials in memory quilts. Her motto is that if it can be washed, sewn and made to lie flat, it can usually go in the quilt. After answering hundreds of questions about T-shirt quilts from quilter friends for many years, she now lectures and teaches classes in the planning and construction of these unique quilts. Lectures and classes are available in person or virtually via Zoom. 

LECTURE: Quilts to a Tee: Using T-Shirts and Unique Clothing in Quilts 
This one-hour lecture for guilds and groups is designed to provide inspiration and guidance for quilters who are thinking about tackling a T-shirt or memory quilt.  It is available in person or virtual via Zoom. Quilt samples and photos are used to show how quilters can expand the possibilities of the conventional T-shirt quilt to include anything that can be washed, sewn and made to lie flat. The design and construction of a variable layout quilt is discussed as well as the use of partial seams in construction of unique quilt designs. Using interesting items is a focal point of the lecture as well including the use of sweaters, jeans, ties, bibs, bathing suits, baby clothes, and many other cloth items. (Pricing: $275 ($225 if booked with a workshop)) [January 2021 pricing]

CLASS: T-Shirt Quilt Starter Workshop (3 hours, maximum of 12 students)
In this 3-hour class, students will learn how to design their own T-shirt quilt based on the unique clothing items they have. They will learn how to prep T-shirts and other clothing for use in quilting including rough cutting, fusing, and final cutting. They will design their own T-shirt quilt including their own layout plan, tackle unique items, and start on the T-shirt prep. They will not be able to sew at this class but will finish with an understanding of what they need to do when they start sewing, with the unique plan in place and a good start at block prep. This class is offered in person or virtual via Zoom. 

Find out more about Beth on her website http://www.bethsullivandesigns.com/ and contact her beth @ bethsullivandesigns.com

Be sure and tell Beth that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Beth Helfter

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Home: Pepperell, Massachusetts and live online streaming for guilds.

Author, pattern designer, and national quilting instructor Beth Helfter has one rule about quilting – it’s supposed to be fun. Along with her company motto of “Inspired Designs, Relaxed Attitude,” Beth brings visionary designs and techniques to her patterns and exuberance and encouragement to the classroom.

Beth prefers to dig into her stash to create designs and patterns that appeal to her senses of color and value, using as many different fabrics as possible. Keeping to just a few color families in each quilt palette is one of her best tricks to keeping scrappy quilts from getting out of hand but allowing them to sing with tone and movement. Her popular lecture “Consistency in the Chaos” showcases several ways of looking at categories of scraps as it seeks to inspire quilters to think about scrap quilts and pull fabrics to make them shine without overwhelming the eye. Beth has decided she will never solve the mystery of why even scrap quilters can never use up their fabrics, and no longer even tries.

Her penchant for scraps and her need to use as many fabrics as possible in her quilts led her in 2017 to develop the Accordion Sewn HSTs™ method of creating half square triangles that don’t have a match and yet waste no fabric. Delving into the method further, she discovered “ordering” the accordions could lead to the creation of whole blocks and quilts from a single accordion.

Her first book on the method “Oompah! Jazz Up Your Scrap Quilts With Accordion Sewn HSTs™” was published in 2018, and “Another Round of Oompah” was published in 2020. It’s been called “life-changing,” “magical,” “addictive,” and, her favorite, “witchcraft,” and is the basis for her “Oompah! Accordion Sewn HSTs™ lecture and many of her most popular workshops. She’s currently at work on new variations of the basic Accordion Sewn HSTs™ for patterns and workshops.

As a traveling quilt teacher, she’s taught for guilds coast to coast, and never tires of the ah-ha moments and banter of a classroom full of quilters.

Visit Beth’s website: EvaPaige Quilts

Visit Beth’s YouTube Channel: EvaPaige Quilt Designs

Email Beth: evapaigequilts @ charter.net (remove spaces)

Here’s Beth’s portion of an interview among national quilt teachers done in May 2020:


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

Julia Graves

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Home: Leesburg, Virginia

Julia Graves is a Zoom-experienced lecturer and teacher on a variety of quilting subjects, with a focus on color and design that are applicable to all your future quilts. 

Her Amazing Abstracts class teaches how to use color and value to create amazing movement and drama.  Her traditional piecing classes that focus on color and value include Tricks with Transparencies, Luscious Luster, Rainbow Drops and Shimmering Triangles.   Other fun classes include creating your own gemstone in Gemstone Bling and Color Exploration where we play with color to see the effects we can achieve.  She has lectures on Color, Design, Landscape Quilts, Personalizing and Memory Quilts, Community and Faith in Fiber and her very popular My Quilting Journey.

Let There Be Light

Julia’s two most popular bookings are:

  • Color Exploration Lecture – This lecture will discuss how to select beautiful color combinations for your quilts and provide tips on how to fix color combinations that just don’t seem to be working.  Includes a slide show and trunk show illustrating classic color combinations and fascinating color illusions.
  • Amazing Abstracts Class – Create an abstract quilt that has amazing movement and drama. Go from inspiration to a simple sketch, then have fun “coloring” your sketch with bits of fabric to create a mock-up of your design – see before you sew!  The design is gridded and blocks are foundation pieced using an easy sew and flip method with room for creativity and improvisation.  Lots of discussion of design principles and how to use color and value to create the drama and desired effects.  

Julia started her quilting business, Special Occasion Quilts LLC, in 2007 and teaches, lectures, designs patterns, makes commission quilts, longarms for others and sells & services APQS longarm machines.  She won Best Longarm Machine Workmanship Wall Quilt Category at the 2016 Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, is a Gem Affiliate teaching the gorgeous gem patterns by MJ Kinman – Textile Artist, has had quilts published in books by Gloria Loughman, Katie Pasquini-Masopust and MJ Kinman, was an Artist in Residence at Empty Spools in 2019, and will be teaching at Empty Spools in 2021 and 2022 and Hudson River Valley Art Institute in 2022.  

Julia has been sewing since she was ten and always loved fabric, needle arts and the entire creative process.  She did her apprenticeship as a quilter by making a quilt for each of her nieces and nephews (and thinks she should have counted them before making this promise – there were 32!).  She has since made more quilts than she can count, many for charity, and is partial to scrap quilts and working with color to achieve amazing results. 

Visit her gallery on her website at http://www.soquilts.com.  Contact Julia viat email –juliagraves82 @ gmail.com. Julia has videos of her on this page: http://soquilts.com/classes-and-lectures/

Be sure to tell Julia that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Rachel Derstine

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Home: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Rachel Derstine is an award winning fiber artist. Her works are featured in invitational and juried gallery shows and fine art/craft shows throughout the country. Her work has been purchased and installed in institutions such as Epic Corporation in Madison, WI, and the Milton Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA.

Rachel specializes in improvisational piecing, vibrant landscapes, couching (stitching yarn to quilt surface) and teaching of basic design elements. She has experience giving online presentations and classes.

Having grown up in Japan, this influence is evident in her style and use of kimonos, silks, ikats, hand dyed and batik fabrics. She includes traditional techniques of quilting as well as her own innovative materials and methods to achieve her desired designs.

Lecture Topic and Description

From Inspiration to Art Process

PowerPoint lecture presentation on the topic of where I find inspiration for my art: Other artists, photographs, influences from life experiences. I include process photos and discuss how to make effective quilts using art concepts such as limiting color palette, simplifying the background, using repetition of line, shapes, value and color throughout the work.

Workshop – Strata Quilt

We will do curved piecing of coordinated hand dyed and commercial fabrics for the background. Easy free motion and walking foot quilting designs will be introduced. Organza circles will be stitched to the surface with single or double needle applique. Yarns will be couched to the surface for movement and definition. Kit optional – $30.

Workshop – Artful Couching

Learn the art of couching with yarns to create texture, flow and extra pizzazz. This is a full day class. We will first create our quilt sandwich and learn some quilting designs created using the walking foot. We will then focus on mastering couching techniques. Students will bring a striped batik or gradient fabric and coordinating yarn to make this 18″ x 45″ table runner size quilt. This class will show you the many ways to use couching for definition and sparkle, by incorporating a variety of cording, yarn and metallic threads in your work.

Please visit Rachel on her website at https://rachelderstinedesigns.com or for individual online classes visit: https://artfulquiltingandsewing.com

Contact Rachel at rachelderstine @ gmail com and watch her on video on her YouTube Channel – Rachel Derstine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXbECzO6YvG9Nlhku9Q7i8Q

Please tell Rachel that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Sue Hurley

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Home: Princeton, NJ

1 ¼ hour class: Free Motion Quilting with Rulers $200

Your quilt top is finally pieced and your pattern ends with those three scary words ‘Quilt As Desired‘. Now what? Take a deep breath, drop those feed dogs and try free-motion quilting with rulers!
Up until a few years ago, quilting with rulers on your domestic machine was unheard of. Rulers were the tools of longarmers. That’s not true anymore! Now quilters are using rulers to create beautiful and precise designs, from straight lines to curves to feathers and so much more.

When ruler quilting started gaining popularity around 2017, Sue was teaching a free-motion quilting class at her local quilt shop. At that time, there wasn’t much information available about quilting with rulers on the domestic sewing machine. Thinking rulers would be a good class for the shop, she watched videos, bought a ruler foot and some rulers and started playing. That’s exactly how she describes quilting with rulers – it’s like playing because it’s so much fun!

Whether you’re a true beginner to ruler work or you’ve had some experience with rulers, you’ll learn something from this presentation. Many quilters believe that you must be an experienced free-motion quilter to use rulers. That’s not the case. Beginners seem to find working with rulers easier than doing straight free-motion work. It just takes a little practice.
Sue loves to share her quilting knowledge with others.

During the first half of her presentation, she’ll discuss the ruler foot, rulers and what to look for when purchasing rulers, and supplies needed for ruler quilting. She’ll share a lot of information and helpful tips that she’s picked up along the way.

In the second half of the presentation, Sue will demo a few rulers. She’ll show you how easy it is to stitch straight lines with the straight-edge ruler and how to stitch a perfectly round circle with a circle ruler. Time permitting, she’ll also demo a clamshell ruler.

Sue is an avid quilter who has been quilting for 36 years. She started out as a hand quilter, then moved on to machine quilting with a walking foot. Free-motion quilting quickly followed. After retiring from her computer programming job in 2008, she started teaching at her local quilt shop. Free-motion quilting and Ruler Quilting are two of her most popular classes. Sue is Zoom ready. You can reach her at shurley36 @ hotmail.com.

Be sure to tell Sue that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Gloria Stickney

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Home: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Owner: Sew Fabulous, Inc.

Sew Fabulous is the “Zoom” for you!!

A treat for your guild…We have door prizes and online discounts for those who participate in our zoom presentations! Just ask.

I offer 2 Zoom guild presentations which you can choose from:

1) I specialize in teaching the Square in a Square system designed by Jodi Barrows. The unique system to make precise triangle points with speed and accuracy with only squares and strips. Our presentations are interactive and fun. We have a trunk show of 20+ quilts as well as live demonstration of the Square in a Square technique and how we add our own twist of colors and designs.

2) Finishing quilts. Since COVID, everyone has been working on quilts and now we’re looking at how to finish them. We illustrate 4 types of machine binding including a “no seam” fussy cut binding technique. We call the presentation “Finishing Quilts: Door #1, Door #2, Door #3 and Door #4”

We have 20+ quilts for a trunk show as well as live demonstration. We would love to host your guild meeting and take a twirl around our Sew Fabulous quilting space! Find the next inspiration for your quilting project at Sew Fabulous, Inc.

Gloria started sewing at 6 years of age and has been professionally quilting since 2006. By day, she is the Grants and Contracts Manager for the Physics Department at Wake Forest University and Sew Fabulous is her play job! In 2006, she designed the Dreamin’ Deacon© quilt for Wake Forest University. This quilt literally launched Sew Fabulous and the business has been growing and expanding every year since then. She has licensed several handcrafted items for the Wake Forest University collegiate licensing.

Gloria has been teaching quilting classes for 12 years and provided many guild demonstrations using the Square in a Square system. Her students include beginning to advanced quilters. She discusses the use of creating intricate pieced blocks with speed and accuracy. Gloria specializes in teaching the Square in a Square technique, making custom theme-stitched t-shirt memory quilts, provides edge to edge longarm quilting services, and creating Wake Forest University licensed products.

One of her popular Zoom guild presentations is Finishing Quilts. Gloria will discuss 4 ways to bind quilts by machine. One of the techniques includes a fussy cut binding with no seams. Watch those mitered corners!

You may contact Gloria Stickney at gloria @ sewfabulousquilts.com and find out more about her on her website www.sewfabulousquilts.com

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