Quilters Calendar & Guild Network

resources for quilt guild volunteers

Amy Friend

Amy Friend

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Home: West Newbury, Massachusetts

Amy Friend is a former museum curator turned designer.  She designs modern quilts and specializes in foundation paper pieced designs.  She authored the books Intentional Piecing, Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Design, and Petal + Stem. 

Amy runs community block swaps several times a year as well as block of the month and quilt along programs.  She is an award winning quilter and her quilts have been exhibited at a number of quilt shows as well as museums.  Amy is a national quilt teacher and lecturer, both on Zoom and in person.

Amy enjoys speaking to guilds about the modern quilting aesthetic and design principles like alternate gridwork and negative space.

She also teaches her own foundation paper piecing technique that considers directional fabric, the grain of the fabric, and minimizes waste. 

Her most popular workshops include Improv Paper Piecing where she teaches her unique approach to modern quilt design where participants each design their own improvisational block and repeat it through paper piecing. 

Another is Large Scale Intentional Piecing where fabrics are kept directional in order to harness the power of stripes or other motifs while foundation paper piecing on larger foundations.

While most of Amy’s classes are more appropriate for the intermediate to advanced quilter, she also teaches beginner paper piecing and welcomes beginners into any of her classes, spending extra time with them so they can succeed.

Visit Amy’s website: During Quiet Time

Amy’s YouTube Channel: During Quiet Time

Please contact Amy at [amybfriend] @ gmail.com (remove brackets and spaces)

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

Private Zoom Training

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Does your guild need help transitioning to using Zoom? Experienced Zoomer and Zoom Transition Trainer Marguerita McManus is available to help! Contact MMQuilts @ gmail.com for more information. In “Six Sessions to Success” you will have everything you need to run your guild meetings – no matter how large your guild – via Zoom. Full board & committee training for

  • Creating your guild’s plan for meetings to increase membership
  • establishing the best settings for security and meetings
  • creating meeting templates and recurring meetings
  • learning the in-meeting controls and how they work
  • running a mock-meeting and using the controls
  • follow-up after your first meeting, planning programs, tips on hiring truly “Zoom Ready” national teachers and more…

Marguerita has been on-camera for 15 years, uploading videos to YouTube that have over 2.5 million views. She has been a professional in the quilting industry for over twenty years. Contact her at MMQuilts @ gmail.com

Ronna Bruce

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Home: Sherman, Texas

Guild To Guild Virtual Teacher

Ronna is a leader in transitioning guild activities to Zoom. She was the mastermind behind moving her guild onto the Zoom platform in March of 2020 and in the use of Facebook for Guilds.

Ronna offers her Facebook Expertise to guilds:

Facebook Groups for Guild Revenue – One hour lecture, or coaching with your guild board, with full demonstration and “How-To” handouts of how to create and use Facebook Groups to hold auctions; sell goods donated to the guild and for members to buy-sell between members. A very affordable guide to get your members motivated and your guild started with Facebook Groups! $150 – 1 hour lecture or coaching session.

Ronna’s presentations are thorough and expertly presented and she patiently answers all questions. She has my highest recommendation! ~Marguerita

Ronna has created some wonderful games for quilt guilds and she shares them on her website – https://sites.google.com/view/ronna-bruce-designs/home?authuser=0

Contact Ronna at rkbruc3 @ gmail.com to book her lecture today!

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

Trudy Cleveland

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Trudy Cleveland is a professional quilter and photographer residing in Oceanside, California. She has merged her two passions of quilting and photography into presentations that reveal the impact photography has on our artistic endeavors. She shares what she has learned along her journey of photographing quilts, inspiring her audience to begin routinely taking photographs of their textile art. Using only a smartphone she shares the process to achieve professional grade images.


Both her textile art and photography have been on exhibit in juried shows including Road to California and The Hoffman Challenge. Her photography has been featured in “Fons and Porter Love of Quilting” magazine.
Power Point Lectures: “Shoot Your Quilt”: 45-60 minute presentation discussing: Why, How and When you should photograph your quilts/textile art “Upgrade Your Quilt Toolbox”: 45-60 minute presentation
How to use your household electronics to improve your quilting process.

Get the most out of your computer applications, printers, lasers and the internet to step up your textile art experience.

Workshop: “Photographing Your Quilt”
How To Photograph Your Quilt Using A Smartphone
How To Edit Images Of Your Quilts/Textile Art


Lectures and Workshops can be done in-person or on Zoom platform. https://trudycleveland.com/newsite/

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

Ellen Lindner

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Home: Melbourne, Florida

A former flight instructor, Ellen didn’t try her hand at art quilting until her forties.  After learning the basics, she quickly began to experiment, and over the course of years, developed her own fabric collage technique. Now using her teaching skills at a lower altitude, she teaches online and in person, as well as via her episodes on Quilting Arts. Ellen has also written two eBooks and several articles.

Her classes are perfect for traditional quilters who want to try art quilts, but are looking for direction. In some classes the students learn a technique, such as Double Reverse Applique. But most cover an artistic concept, such as color or design. Some of these actually have “artistic courage” included in the supply list! Ellen thinks these are the absolute best classes, because her students learn so much.

www.AdventureQuilter.com

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

Irene Blanck

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I live in Melbourne, Australia. I have been quilting for the last 30 years but only started designing since 2007. I have done all sorts of quilting but my love is needleturn applique.

I enjoy teaching classes in all aspects of needleturn applique and instilling in quilters the love for needleturn applique. I try and make my classes fun and stress-free. I like to think of my classes as “sit and sew” sessions – or “mini quilt-ins” – where we have a fun and relaxing day, chatting to friends as well as learning a new technique or perfecting on techniques.

In my classes I teach all the short-cuts which I’ve learnt over the years – mostly from making mistakes and doing things over and over again. I have been extremely fortunate to be able to teach in Australia, the US and Europe. Quiltmania published a book of my quilts in 2015 – titled “Focus on Applique” and I think this helped launch my international career.

I recently watched Irene do a trunk show via Zoom, then a demo on her clam shell hand applique techniques and she was wonderful.

She is very entertaining, her quilts are gorgeous and she clearly demonstrated and explained the entire process she uses, from start to finish, for her clam shell quilts.

She was actually onscreen for almost two hours, laughing and joking with us through it all. She even gave us a sneak peek of what she’s working on now, a 2021 applique BOM that is stunning. Book her soon, she’s an expert at live streaming and a wonderful teacher.

Marguerita McManus
Irene, demonstrating her clamshell technique.

Hire Irene soon before her schedule books up, your guild will love her! She’s very experienced at presenting virtually via Zoom and she’ll inspire you with her gorgeous quilts and easy to follow tips.~Marguerita

Download Irene’s Current Contact and Rates Info (2020) — [ddownload id=”17273″]

Visit Irene’s website for more info on her – https://focusonquilts.com.au/irene/

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

Barb Eikmeier

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Home: Lansing, Kansas

Barbara J. Eikmeier (Barb) has been quilting since 1984 and teaching quilting since 1990.

She is the author of four books, published by Martingale and Co, including “Back Basting Applique Step by Step”, has designed seven fabric collections for Paintbrush Studio Fabrics and is a Bluprint instructor (formerly Craftsy).

In 2016 she became the authorized distributor for the Magic Triangle Ruler. Married to a retired army officer, she has lived in several regions of the US and South Korea. Barb considers herself a traditional quilter and although appliqué is her favorite quilting technique she also offers programs on sashings, random block samplers, solids, and other traditional quilting techniques. She lives in Lansing, KS with her husband Dale and two dogs and is pleased to now offer all regular lectures as virtual programs.

Barb has announced a retirement date: November 2024. I saw Barb do a trunk show via Zoom on July 11, 2020 and she was MARVELOUS! Hire her fast before her calendar fills up! ~Marguerita

From Barb’s Trunk Show for The Applique Society in July 2020. Used with permission.

Find out more about Barb on her website and drool over her quilts at https://www.barbsfavorites.com/

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

Stephanie Hackney

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Home: Austin, Texas

Stephanie Hackney is a world-traveling branding professional and professional speaker who’s known for her expertise on batting (wadding).

Stephanie has shared her knowledge through lectures at many major quilting industry shows and events, including: Quilt Market, Quilt Festival, Road to California and AQS Spring Paducah (as well as numerous other AQS events).

She has also provided batting education to the members of numerous guilds in North America, as well as to customers of numerous retail stores, and she is often called upon to share this education (and sales training) to industry sales teams.

She serves as the director of sales and marketing for Hobbs Bonded Fibers, an industry leader in non-woven textiles manufacturing, and has made it her mission to provide quilters, sewers and crafters with the knowledge they need to choose the best batting option(s) to garner the results they desire in their quilted, sewn and crafted projects.

The lecture she offers, ‘Batting: What’s Inside Matters,’ is presented via a 1-hour lecture and customization of the information is possible.

For more information on Stephanie’s professional background, please visit her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniehackney

Please let Stephanie know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar.