Quilters Calendar & Guild Network

resources for quilt guild volunteers

in-person

Sarah Goer

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Home: San Jose, CA

Sarah helps quilters build their improv piecing skills in a fun and playful way, inspiring them to create their own unique designs. Her workshops are a bit of a choose your own adventure, packed with tips and tricks as well as permission to play. As a former middle school math teacher, Sarah combines 11 years of classroom experience with over two decades of quilting experience to bring clear instruction to her quilt students. Students appreciate Sarah’s easy going, nurturing style.

Sarah is available for in-person and virtual events. Learn more about Sarah on her website: https://sarahgoerquilts.com/teaching/

Karen Bolan

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Santa Rosa, California

Karen Bolan is a clear and patient teacher, thoughtful and entertaining lecturer, and clever and instructive quilt pattern designer. Her original award winning quilts and quilting philosophy integrate a love of geometry, experimentation, interconnection, depth, and texture. Karen offers virtual programs or travels to you from Santa Rosa, California.

Learn more about Karen on her website: Karen Bolan

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

Marge Tucker

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Phoenix, AZ from Nov to early May

Norwell, MA from early May to end of October

Marge Tucker is an international award-winning quilt artist and quilting instructor.  The first quilt she made, over twenty-five years ago, was for friends expecting their first child.

“At that time, I didn’t know that quilting would become my passion and now my profession.  I feel so fortunate to be able to share and continue the tradition of quilting with my students.”

Burst

“I started with traditional pieced quilts but am now focused on abstract improvisational design in my work.”

Marge has received numerous awards for her quilts including, “Best of Show” at Mancuso Quilt Show Visuals #4 in 2021, “Best use of Color-Innovative Quilts” at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in 2022, “Best Machine Quilting” at QuiltCon 2019 as well as “Best Sewing Machine Workmanship Award – Modern” at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in 2019 as well as numerous other awards for her quilts.

Her quilts have been published in several of Gwen Marston’s book (Minimal Quiltmaking and Free Range Triangle Quilts).  Several quilts have also been featured in the periodical Curated Quilts  (Black and White Issue #10 and Collaborate Issue #18.  Another quilt, “Burst” was accepted into the Excellence in Fibers 11th Anniversary exhibit.               

Coming Into Light

A recent solo exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum, displayed a collection of Marge’s antique and vintage quilts along with her contemporary designed quilts. 

Marge teaches throughout the United States (and abroad) as well as from her studio in Rockland, MA. 

View Marge’s Website here: Marge Tucker Quilts

See Marge’s YouTube channel: Marge Tucker

Marge’s Intro video: Marge Tucker’s Intro Video

Marge’s Instagram: Marge Tucker Quilts

Contact Marge here- [margetuckerquilts] @ gmail.com (remove brackets and spaces)

Please let Marge know that you found them on The Quilters Calendar!

Dawn Heese

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Home: Fayette, MO

Dawn Heese is an author, pattern designer, and Marcus fabric designer. She is a fourth-generation quilter and grew up stitching from a young age.

Her career in the quilting industry was launched with the publication of her first book, Geese in the Rose Garden, published by Kansas City Star.

The following year she started Linen Closet Designs, named for her grandmother’s linen closet filled with vintage quilts. Here she produces patterns for quilts, punch needle, cross stitch, and hooked projects as well as fabric.

Dawn’s work is regularly featured in magazines in the US and abroad. She teaches and presents trunk shows and workshops nationally and in France, sharing her love of applique and quilting

Dawn has several trunk show presentations and workshops to choose from including: Working with Wool and The French Connection.

Dawn’s ninth book was released in 2023. It is her third book with the French publisher, Quiltmania and is co-authored with Bonnie Sullivan. Dawn and Bonnie are co-creators of Made by Hand, a yearly membership dedicated to all things made by Hand. 

Click here to go to Dawn’s website- linenclosetdesigns.com

Click here to go to Dawn’s Facebook Page and view her videos- LinenClosetDesigns

Contact Dawn here- [dawne86] @ hotmail.com (remove brackets and spaces)

Please let Dawn know that you found her on The Quilters 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!

Carol Wilhoit

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Home: Wheaton, Illinois

Carol loves making quilts that incorporate many different fabrics and she enjoys machine quilting (walking foot, free motion, and quilting with metallic thread.)  She enjoys making small quilted projects such as runners, tote bags, zipper bags and pincushions.  Small projects facilitate play with color, design and new techniques with minimal investment in time and materials.  

Carol likes to find ways to make the quilt construction process easier while producing better results. She has also refined techniques for building, organizing, and using a stash that make it a joy to have and to use.  She has been teaching quilting classes for more than a dozen years.  She loves sharing her ideas with others and encouraging students as they try new projects and techniques. She teaches both online and in-person, for quilt guilds and quilt shops, and at quilt shows.  

Get your Stash Together:  Organization for Quilters

Some quilters find that their fabric stash, scraps, quilting tools, books and magazines have become a burden, as they don’t have a good way to manage these precious resources. Knowing how to approach the task helps transform the dreaded stash into a collection that is a delight to use. This lecture provides many practical ideas for making your fabric, tools, thread, books, and magazines readily accessible. Topics include how to fold and store fabric so that it’s easy to view and locate, labeling, using your computer as a tool, and many ideas for actually using your stash. 

Infinite Opportunity:  Quilts Hidden in Your Stash

As quilters, we love to collect beautiful fabrics – yet we don’t always know how to put them all together to make quilts that we love.  The term “scrap quilt” may bring to mind the use of leftovers that don’t look particularly good together.  By contrast, while STASH quilts utilize your stash and scraps, they contain thoughtfully selected materials, and look BETTER because of the variety – not tired because they were created just to use up fabrics.  The lecture addresses several key design principles that make multi-fabric quilts work and includes pairs of quilts to show the impact of incorporating these considerations. Multiple examples of color combinations are provided to give ideas for selecting and using fabrics from your stash to make fabulous multi-fabric quilts. 

Learn more about Carol and find out about her classes and lectures on her Website at : Carol Quilts

Visit Carol’s Instagram page: Carol Quilts 123

Contact Carol via Email: carolquilts123 @ gmail.com [remove spaces]

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

Julia McLeod

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Home: San Francisco Bay Area, California

Author of ‘Patchwork Luxe’ from C&T publishing, Julia McLeod specializes in making quilts from neckties, kimonos, sari silks and other reclaimed textiles. Her mission is to give quilters the confidence and techniques to cut into their treasured textiles and make beautiful quilts.


Visit Julia’s website for details of her fun and informative lectures and workshops.

Learn more about Julia on her website: https://juliamcleodquilts.com/ .

Be sure to tell Julia 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!