Meet the Faculty

For a thumbnail description of any class, click the plus sign next to the name.

Betty Alofs is a quilt maker, teacher and pattern designer from San Diego, CA.  She has been quilting since 1989.  In 2000, she established her own company, Betty A's Designs, to market her original pictorial appliqué patterns for City Quilts.  In 2002, she was nominated for The Professional Quilter's Teacher of the Year.  She has been the Featured Artist at the Annual Tucson Quilt Show in Arizona and has filmed a segment for the PBS Show America Quilts Creatively with Sue Hausmann and Karen Good.

Quilt Your Favorite Photos: Shoot It, Sketch It, Stitch It, Betty's book on home portraits, was released in 2006.

Her quilts have appeared in Lone Star Quilts and Beyond and Hunter Star Quilts and Beyond, both by Jan Krentz.  Her Lone Star Quilt, Undersea Reef,  appeared in the Shoreline Quilts,  and was juried into both AQS Show in Paducah and the Quilt & Sewing Fest special exhibit, Down by the Sea, at Myrtle Beach, SC.  In 2003, her "Washington DC" City Quilt was juried into the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah.  Her City Quilts have appeared in Sampler Quilts magazine and her company was featured in Quilting Professional magazine.

You can visit her Web site at www.bettyalofs.com  and see her City Quilts as well as her patterns.

Home Building

Patti R. Anderson is a quilt maker, quilt teacher and pattern designer from West Virginia. She has been sewing since she was nine years old and quilt making for over 20 years.

Patti launched her Patchpieces Web site in 1999 with the goal of getting her work known in the quilting world and as an outlet to sell her original patterns.  Patti is one of Electric Quilt software's most experienced users.  She regularly puts lessons for using EQ on her Web site,  www.patchpieces.com, to teach other users how to tap its full potential.  Patti 's books EQ5 Drawing and Electric Quilt 6 Pieced Drawing Book are available from EQ.  She is also webmistress for WV Quilters, Inc.  www.wvquilters.org

EQ6 Appliqué Design

Strip Mine

Feathered Star Medallion

Buttons & Bows

Janice Baehr learned to make Hawaiian quilts from her sister, Nancy Chong.  Although she has since gone into fabric dyeing and made contemporary quilts, Hawaiian quilting in all its evolving forms remains her first love.

In 1991, Janice and Nancy founded Pacific Rim Quilt Company.  While Nancy is best known as the teacher, Janice has been the behind-the-scenes person who manages most aspects of the business. She received her Executive Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Washington in 1997.  She runs www.prqc.com and  does the photography for their company and their Quilt University classes.  

Janice co-curated a show of Hawaiian quilts at the 1990 Northwest Folklife Festival  and the special exhibit "Hawaiian Quilting: An Evolving Tradition" at the Pacific Northwest Quiltfest 2002, both in Seattle, WA.  She serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters.  Her quilts have appeared in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (Jan 1997), Op-Art Quilts by Marilyn Doheny, and Isometric Perspective by Katie Pasquini-Masopust.  One of her Hawaiian quilts was shown in Paducah at the 1991 American Quilt Society show, and she has sold a number of her quilts into private collections.

Photographing Your Quilts

Marilyn Belford is an award-winning quilter, well known for her realistic fabric portraits and art quilts.  She comes to the quilting community after a long, successful career in the art world.  Marilyn finds the congeniality of quilters a delight.  Having been brought up in a home where sewing was paramount, it is no surprise that she now combines her love of art and sewing in a new career in quilting.  It was after moving up to Chenango Forks, NY, from Brooklyn, NY, that her interest in quilting was sparked.  Her first portrait quilt was made in December 1999 and was an immediate success, winning prizes wherever shown. 

In talking about her portrait quilts, Marilyn says,  "A face expresses much emotion.  It can tell a complete story in a single viewing.  I try to stitch a personality rather than just a face.  It is in the details that the emotions rest.  I try to give my students the technical background to enable them to produce a portrait in fabric that makes their loved ones seem to breathe."

Her works have been shown at the AQS show in Paducah, Quilters’ Heritage Celebration in Lancaster, the IQA International Show in Houston, TX, the Schweinfurth Museum in Auburn, NY and other museums and shows nationally, winning many awards. 

Marilyn's book, Time and Space Concepts in Art,  was used as a text at Columbia University, NY.  She has written an article on her method for Chitra Publication’s magazine Quilting Today, has been featured in ARTSmagazine, and has been favorably reviewed in newspapers in New York.

You may see Marilyn’s work and learn more at her Web site: www.MarilynBelford.com.  Marilyn’s three children have long since flown the nest, producing children of their own.

Realistic Fabric Portraits

Artists Revisited

Art for Quilters

Ruth Blanchet comes to Quilt University from Nelson, New Zealand.  At an early age, her mother introduced Ruth to the art of sewing, which she had inherited from her mother.  As Ruth grew, she was fascinated with creative textile art, so she began to learn from her mum the art of creating clothing.  In 1982, at the age of 18, she married.  Her new mother-in-law was also a keen crafter and, in that same year, they both attended their first quilting class.  Ruth and her husband Mark, have a family of four.  When the youngest started attending school in 1994, Ruth converted her hobby into a professional career, selling her works of art, designs and offering tutoring. 

Ruth has created many award-winning quilt pieces and has exhibited her work throughout New Zealand.  Being a native New Zealander, she has always been interested in and loves nature, which gives her inspiration.  Her work is displayed on her Web site www.ArbeeDesigns.co.nz

Bargello Seasons

A Day in the Country

Poppin' Poppies

Pacific Aquarium

Tote That Mat

Bargello Blues

Layered Machine Appliqué

Printing on Fabric

Bargello Twist

Susan Brittingham  is an experienced professional quilt maker and instructor.  She has been sewing for as long as she can remember and quilting since 1982.  Susan has conducted classes in sewing and quilting at shops and conferences across the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, and taught garment construction at Radford University's Fashion Design Department.

She has exhibited her quilts at quilt shows and galleries including the AQS show in Paducah, IQA's Quilt Festival in Houston, West Coast Quilter's Conference in Sacramento, CA; The Olin Gallery at Roanoke College, Piedmont Arts Association, Perspectives Gallery at Virginia Tech and the Staunton/Augusta Art Center.  Her quilts and garments have received recognition and awards in numerous quilt shows nationally and across the Mid-Atlantic region.

Susan lives in rural Floyd County, VA, with her husband and two cats.  Her Web page is www.susanbrittingham.com.

Miniature Landscapes

Triple Treat Tulips

Upside-Down Appliqué

Machine Embellished Surfaces

Viewpoints

On Land and Sea

To Bead or Not to Bead

Flower Power

Nancy Chong saw her first Hawaiian quilt in 1977, in Honolulu, and it changed her life.  She completed her first queen-sized Hawaiian quilt in 1980, and began teaching hand appliqué and Hawaiian quilt making in 1982, when she moved from Oahu to Seattle with her husband and daughter.  Nancy’s degree in education, her experience with all types of appliqué, and her understanding of what a beginner needs have made her one of the best hand appliqué teachers in the U.S.  Nancy’s quilts have appeared in numerous books and magazines, and she has traveled throughout the U.S. sharing her stress-free approach to needleturn appliqué.

In 1991, she and her sister, Janice Baehr, formed Pacific Rim Quilt Company to publish their original Hawaiian quilt patterns.   In 2002, they curated Hawaiian Quilts: An Evolving Tradition  at the Pacific Northwest Quiltfest.  They have produced two excellent instructional videos, "Hawaiian Quilting with Nancy Lee Chong" and "2 Fabric appliqué Quilts With Nancy Lee Chong."  You can visit  www.prqc.com to see their patterns and other interesting features about Hawaiian quilts.

Nancy was a legal secretary in Honolulu and Seattle for 25 years.  In December 2000, she quit her day job and is now teaching, lecturing, designing and quilting full time.  Her new boss is stricter about how she uses her time, but she is having the time of her life!

Hawaiian Quilting 101

Make Your Own Hawaiian Quilt

Stress-free Celtic Tablerunner

Baltimore Basics

Hand Quilting

Karen Combs is a quilter, author, teacher and designer  known for her quilts of illusions. Teaching since 1989, she encourages her students and makes the complex easy to understand.  Her work has been displayed at quilt shows and art galleries across the country.  Karen's quilt Extendus was one of the finalists at the AQS Quilt Exhibition 2000.  Being a prolific designer and author; Karen has published articles and patterns in many magazines such as Traditional Quilter, American Quilter and Quilter's Newsletter.

She is the author of Optical Illusions for Quilters (AQS), Combing Through Your Scraps,  3-D Fun with Pandora's Box,  Floral Illusions, and 3 Quilters Celebrate the 4 Seasons: By the Calendar Girls, co-authored with Joan Shay and Bethany Reynolds.  Her newest book is Celtic Pieced Illusions.

Karen has designed fabric for Clearwater Fabrics and Blank Textiles, the first of which debuted at Spring Market 2002.  You can see her new fabric at www.karencombs.com/newfabric.htm.  In addition, Karen has appeared on the TV programs, "Quilting from the Heartland," hosted by Sharlene Jorgenson, program 711 and on "Simply Quilts," Show 411. 

She lives in the rolling hills of middle Tennessee with her husband Rick, daughter Angela, son Josh, (when they are home from college), and a very sweet Shih Tzu named Cocoa.  Visit her Web site at: www.karencombs.com or her blog at www.karencombs.wordpress.com.

Combing Through Your Scraps

Patchwork Illusions

More Patchwork Illusions

Pieced Celtic Magic

Treasure Boxes

Dena Crain is an American-born designer who has been living in Kenya since 1990.  She lives with her partner, Jonathan Leakey, on the shore of Lake Baringo, 200 miles north of Nairobi.  Dena took up quilting as a way of employing local women and taught herself the basics.  As her experience and confidence increased, she began producing original works of art.

With advanced degrees in design and textiles, as well as teaching experience at the university level, Dena has developed some unusual piecing techniques and design methods.  She is strongly committed to working with fabrics and notions found in Kenya.  She uses local fabric for dyeing and printing, employing ecologically friendly cold water dyes.  Dena sells her quilts in solo exhibitions, and her commissioned works are found in hotels and offices in Nairobi.

Dena co-founded the Kenya Quilt Guild in 1994, and served for a time as newsletter editor and contributing author.  She taught quilt design and construction classes in Nairobi for several years and taught in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Good Hope Quilters Guild National Quilt Festival in July 2002.  She  was nominated for The Professional Quilter's 2006 Teacher of the Year award.  She is a Professional Artist Member of Studio Art Quilt Associates, serving as their Africa Zone Representative.  Visit her at  www.denacrain.com/blog. 

Designer Pinwheels

Math for Quilters

Reflections

Structured Fabrics

Ladders and Crystals

Darned Quilts

Barbara Dieges has been working with threads and fabrics since early childhood.  While raising three children, she designed for Bucilla Yarn and developed her own line of stitchery kits.

Barbara made her first quilt in 1969, but it wasn't until 1982 that she became a dedicated quilter.  As a member of two quilt guilds, she is involved in all phases of quilting.  Since 1992, Barbara has had 10 quilts juried into the AQS Show in Paducah, KY.  Lotus Blossom, an opportunity quilt she designed, was awarded an Honorable Mention in 1994. 

Country Handcrafts published Home Sweet Home in 1989.  Christmas Celebration was on the cover of Quilting Today and the Patriotic Celebration was featured in a later issue.  In 1994, Barbara was Featured Teacher in Traditional Quiltworks #33.  She was showcased again in issue #56.  After being juried into the International Quilt Association Show in Houston, Snow Crystals was in the IQA 1999 calendar and on the cover of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (Jan/Feb 1999).

Her book, A Thread Runs Through It..., was published in 2002 by AQS.  Even though she travels to teach and lecture nationally, she still takes time to share her expertise with local shops and her guilds.  You may see her work and patterns at www.bdieges.com

Elegant Victorian Sewing Box

Sewfasst

Fran Gonzalez, professional quilt designer and teacher, is the author of the EQ Simplfied series of books, including the new EQ6 Simplified for the Electric Quilt program.

In addition to her years of teaching here at QU, Fran has taught many quilt classes and EQ workshops in various venues, including hands-on computer lab classes at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX.  

With her practical approach to quilting and her extensive experience with Electric Quilt software, Fran has been instrumental in introducing many new and traditional quilters to the unlimited potential of computerized quilt design. For more information about Fran's classes, go to www.eqsimplified.com.

Fran and her husband Larry, a neuroscientist and college professor, live in Edmond, OK, just outside of Oklahoma City.  Their daughter, Karen, is an Art History graduate student at Duke University in Durham, NC.

EQ6 Sampler

EQ6 Building Blocks

EQ6 Advanced Layouts

Daphne Greig is a quilter, author, teacher and designer from Canada. She has been a quilt maker since 1986 and has taught quilting classes since 1990.  In 1995, Daphne and her business partner, Susan Purney-Mark, formed Patchworks Studio, a pattern design company.  Together, they have designed and published quilt patterns and co-authored the book Quilted Havens - City Houses, Country Homes, published by AQS.

Daphne maintains Patchworks Studio’s very active Web site (www.patchworkstudio.com).  Daphne’s areas of expertise include quick pieced quilts for beginning quilters, quilt design for intermediate to advanced students, foundation piecing techniques and both hand and machine techniques for depicting architecture in quilts.  "My students know me as an enthusiastic and patient teacher, one who encourages them to try new techniques and expand their repertoire of skills," she says.

Daphne lives in a rural area just outside Victoria, B.C., along with her husband, Alan, her children, Scott and Lindsay, and one very active cat.

Attic Windows

Paper Pieced Paradise

Seminole Piecing

Jane Hall learned to quilt while living in Hawaii, making a queen-sized bed quilt as her first quilt, and hasn’t stopped since.  She has lectured and taught quilt making for guilds and quilt conferences in the United States and abroad for more than 20 years.  She is a Certified Quilt Teacher, Judge and Appraiser for both antique and contemporary quilts.

Her award-winning quilts have been exhibited nationally and internationally in quilt shows, juried fiber and multi-media exhibitions and galleries.  Her quilts are included in public and private collections and in the American Quilter's Society Museum in Paducah, KY.

She has a particular interest in foundation work, and has explored methods for using foundation techniques in all kinds of piecing, traditional, innovative, as well as for designs not usually considered for foundation piecing.  Her works have been published in many magazines and books and she has co-authored five books on foundation piecing with Dixie Haywood (Perfect Pineapples, Precision Pieced Quilts Using the Foundation Method, Firm Foundations, Hall and Haywood’s Foundation Quilts, and Foundation Borders.)

Jane is intrigued by the interaction of colors in fabrics and the graphics of quilt designs, especially the geometry of patterns such as Mariner’s Compass, Log Cabin and Pineapples.  She works most often with traditional patterns, using innovative sets and coloration, taking a fresh approach to the designs.  The Chroma series of Pineapple colorwash designs is her most recent work.  Visit Jane at www.janehallquilts.com/

A graduate of Cornell University, Jane and her husband, Robert, live in Raleigh, NC, and have six grown children, 12 grandchildren and Tilly, the calico cat.

Pineapples Plus

Martine House started quilting in 1981 when she moved to the USA with her American husband and new baby.  Having grown up in France in a family of handcrafters, she found quilting gave her the possibility to work with fabrics and colors, shapes and textures, traditional techniques that could be used to express her creativity in contemporary pieces.  Over time, Martine decided that fine detailed hand techniques were her favorites and she has been teaching them since 1987 in the USA and France.

Her professional life is divided between teaching, studio work and writing.  She has written three books on quilting published in French by Editions de Saxe (embellished trapunto, small appliqué landscapes and bargello) and regularly translates the French quilting magazine Magic Patch into English.  She also created her Web site, Quilting Magazine online, to showcase her work as well as work and essays by other artists.  She sells her award-winning work through galleries and has pieces in private and public collections.  Most of her time is spent teaching.  Her classes are technique oriented and her goal is to give her students tools to express their own creativity.  Visit her at www.housefiber.com

Martine now lives in western North Carolina, and when she is not teaching or in her studio, she is having a great and sometimes hectic time with her husband and her three teenage sons.

Arabesque: An Embellished Trapunto Project

Silk Ribbon Reticule

Fabric Pages

Raymond K. Houston took up sewing on a dare in high school when a casual remark prompted a classmate to say, "Oh, yeah?  Well, let’s see YOU sew something."  He taught himself to sew by reading every available book on dressmaking in the local library.  He used the same approach when learning to quilt.  After reading several books on symmetry, an idea began to grow which resulted in the system he uses to design his quilts. 

Raymond entered cyberspace out of curiosity.  He researched the subject, then designed, built and launched Nacho Grandma’s Quilts!, exposing his quilts and design system to a larger audience.  His love of learning has been transformed into a love of teaching.  Besides teaching at Quilt University, Raymond plans to market his patterns and is working on a book proposal.

At age 40, Raymond returned to school to earn his degree as a paralegal, a subject he couldn’t simply read up on.  He has worked as a paralegal/legal secretary for a number of years.

He lives in St. Louis, MO, with Ed, his partner of 20 years, and two cats, Rambo and Sambo.  Yes, Sambo is the little black one.  Visit him at www.nachograndmasquilts.com

Symmetry Play: A Design Game

Lily Kerns's interest in sewing and design goes back to the age of three when she cut paper patterns for her baby sister.  Frequent moves with her preacher husband have allowed her to pick up a variety of skills.  Although she admits to being a Jack-of-all-trades, she prefers to be called a Renaissance woman.

Her first loves are teaching and design.  At 35, she went back to college to get a degree in art education and officially become an art teacher.  An award winning photographer, Lily worked for several years as a darkroom technician and wrote a weekly newspaper column about photography. 

Lily designed and made her first quilt in 1980.  After her husband retired in 1987, she designed and helped him build an 8-sided, earth contact retirement home, taught art part time, started a new preschool, learned to use a computer and to make stained glass kaleidoscopes and wire-wrapped jewelry.  If this is retirement, she threatens to go back to work.

Lily is active in her church, sings in two choirs, monitors a new computer lab for residents of the retirement community where she now lives, and helped found Quilt University.  The "My Ozark Garden" quilt she designed for the Ozark Piecemakers Quilt Guild, won 2nd place ribbons at Houston in 1999 and at the NQA show in Tulsa, 2001.  Her personal Web site is http://members.tripod.com/~LilyK/

Creative Color

Elegant Angel

Ozark Garden

Playing with Lines and Shapes

15 Lines & a Squiggle

Designing Quilts with CorelDraw

Journal Quilts

Fractal Fragments

Digital Fabric Printing

Lyric Kinard is an artist with a serious addiction to fabric.  Her award-winning wall quilts and wearable art are a product of her need and passion to create order and beauty, while living a chaotic life as the mother of young children.  She says that art is the only thing she does that is not undone by the end of the day. 

She loves teaching and has been doing it for 20 years.  She gains great joy from seeing students discover their creativity and transform fabric into beautiful works of art.  Lyric has authored several articles for Quilting Arts Magazine and is currently working on a book about basic design for quilters.  She wants to encourage more students to stop saying "I'm not creative" and just give art a try.

Lyric has studied with many well known textile artists around the country and continually strives to expand her skills in the art world.  She has a BA in English Literature from the University of Utah and has also formally studied music and architecture.  She currently lives in Cary, NC with her husband and five children.  Her work can be viewed at www.LyricKinard.com.

Playing with Paint

Helen Marshall of New Zealand enjoys teaching a mixture of her own original designs, both patchwork and embroidery, as projects and processes.  She explains, "These are great eye-openers to the students as I have a 'what happens if' policy,  which means we have a lot of fun and get some great results.  The classes I enjoy teaching best are the ones where the students have a lot of decisions to make and are thrilled to come up with a piece of original work."

Helen has taught in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, USA and South Africa for guilds, and at colleges, symposiums and quilt and embroidery shops.  She has exhibited widely both in New Zealand and overseas, written a Workshop by Mail for the NZ Assoc. of Quilters in 1996 and an article on the Colors of NZ for a Winter1999 American Quilter Magazine.  Two articles have been published in the New Zealand Quilter on the exhibitions she curated to the World Quilt and Textile Shows, "A Window on New Zealand," and "Colors of New Zealand."  She continues to curate international exhibits for the Mancuso quilt shows.

Helen says, "For my own work I like to use many techniques to achieve  results.  The addition of embroidery either by hand or machine gives an extra dimension to the flat surface of my quilts and vests.  Inspiration often comes from my garden.  I am also a keen photographer and take a lot of photographs to use as reference for my work."   Visit her Web site: www.helenmarshalldesigns.com

Waterlilies

Wheel of Mystery

Fireworks

Ila McCallum is an award-winning quilter who grew up on a farm in the beautiful Willamette Valley north of Salem, Oregon.  Her mother taught her to sew on a Singer treadle machine.  She made clothing as a child and also learned embroidery, knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts.  Later, she made her wedding dress on a very basic electric sewing machine.

She started quilting because she wanted to make a Christmas present for a relative and quilting soon became her passion.  Ila has made quilts for her family, for baby gifts, for charities, as shop samples and for fun. She always has projects in progress, several in the design phase, and more in the "I would like to do" category.

She has been active in the Mid-Valley Quilt Guild serving as President, co-chairing a quilt show and serving on various committees.  She has taught at shops, shows and guild events.

Several of her quilts have won prizes in competition, including best appliqué in show, first in youth size quilts and first in wall hanging.  To learn more, visit www.ilasquiltstudio.com.

Double Wedding Ring Table Runner

No-Bias Celtic Sweatshirt

Mountains in Autumn

Tilted Star

Marjorie McWilliams is a fabric designer/artist who specializes in large scale hangings known as "Art for the Sanctuary."  She creates fabric as fine art, and individually hand dyes silk and cotton fabrics for quilters, fashion designers or anyone with a passion for beautiful textiles.

Marjie has been using the techniques of batik, gutta resist, textile painting and submersion dyeing for over 30 years.  She has had many exhibits of her work.  You can see it on her Web site at www.fabricdesigns.com.

Marjie runs www.FabricDesigns.com from her studio in Woodland, CA.  She enjoys teaching her students how to make beautiful art, and encourages them with projects that stir up their artistic juices.  She was nominated for Teacher of the Year by The Professional Quilter in 2004, is a member of California Fiber Artists and has had many one woman shows.  Her work is now found on every continent except South America and yes, her hand dyed fabric is on Antarctica!

Besides fabrics, Marjie enjoys her adult children and her husband along with tennis, cross-country skiing and numerous church activities.

Cotton Dyeing Basics

Fabric Painting

Tea Dyeing

Silk Dyeing

Shibori

Quilter's Palette

Batik It

Carol Miller has been quilting since 1979 and has taught quilting for more than 19 years.  She likes to experiment with multi-fabric quilts, mixing as many fabrics as possible and still maintaining a sense of order.   She is way too much a control freak to want to draw fabrics blind out of a paper bag!

Her quilts have appeared in Judy Hopkins' Design Your Own Quilts and Betty Kiser's Further Along the Path Less Traveled.  Her articles have appeared in Traditional Quilter, Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, American Quilter and The Virtual Quilt.  A former newspaper editor, she is co-founder of Quilt University. 

Carol and Roger have two grown children.  They live in Virginia with their two cats: Lord Peter Wimsey (weighing in at 30 pounds!) and his girlfriend, the snow white 6-toed Eliza Doolittle.  Carol is also an avid gardener.

Starting from Scratch

Machine Quilting

Border Workshop

Color Companions

Exploring Log Cabin

InVestigations

Chinese Lattice

Fast, Fun, Fabulous

Gradations & Transparencies

Jane Was Nuts

Multiple Magic

Watercolor Wizardry

Nyla Morrison has been quilting for about 23 years, teaching 18 and NQA certified for 12.  She has taught mainly in Iowa and Illinois. She was the co-organizer of the Muscatine Melon Patchers, the local quilt guild,  and is second Vice President of IRQN (Interstate Resources and Quilters Network).  She lives with her husband and 4 cats.  Hand appliqué and hand quilting are her favorite things, with all other quilting running a close second.  She loves working with kids and has done a number of quilting projects with local elementary schools, including an on-going one with a 2nd/3rd grade multi-age class. She makes her home in Muscatine, Iowa.

Hand Appliqué Basics

Stained Glass Bouquet

Geese in the Sky

Intro to Celtic Appliqué

Fingers of Fire Tree Skirt

Broken Star

Traditional Double Wedding Ring

Mariner's Compass

Storm at Sea

Fancy That

Julie Brown Neu has been quilting since 1997, and managing Web site development for large companies since 1999.  She finally combined these two pursuits and launched her own site www.julieneu.com to promote her quilting workshops and lectures.  While all the quilts she made in her first 10 years of quilting were traditional, she branched out at Quilting By the Lake in 2007, and started playing with new techniques.  She chronicles her explorations on her "Creative Play" blog, which is linked from her Web site.

Julie has been active in New Jersey’s quilting community, serving as chair of both Charitable Activities and Quilt Show Hanging and now acting as Webmaster of her local guild.  She is currently planning to move back to Massachusetts with her husband, his many road bikes, and the great stash she developed while working for a wonderful local quilt shop.

Getting Started Online

Chris Pascuzzi   Chris has been sewing since she was a child.  She discovered the art of quilting 15 years ago. Chris loved the concept of using basic geometric shapes to produce an infinite variety of designs.  She also liked the idea of using many different fabrics together.

Though much of Chris’s early work is very traditional, she now considers herself a contemporary quilt artist.  She likes to use things in new and unexpected ways.  Chris believes in the importance of good workmanship but also supports the idea that there is often more than ONE right way to do something!

Chris lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia with her husband and three children.  She teaches locally and produces work on a commission basis.

Fun Fish

Tools of the Trade

Susan Purney-Mark took her first quilting class over 20 years ago, and since then, quilting has been a very important part of her life.  Susan's studies have included intensive design courses in England and Canada, as well as quilting techniques, history, fibre and dyeing workshops.  She began teaching in 1993 and has enjoyed sharing my expertise and enthusiasm with students across Canada.  Susan formed Patchworks Studio, a quilt pattern company, with her partner, Daphne Greig, another Quilt U faculty member.  Patchworkstudio.com offers a variety of original designs, quilting software and feature a "series of the month".

Susan co-authored Quilted Havens: City Houses, Country Homes.  Her patterns and articles have appeared in American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine, American Quilter Magazine, McCall’s Quick Quilts Magazine and Canadian Quilter.

Susan encourages quilters to enjoy the process, to gather as much knowledge as possible and to challenge themselves with new techniques and processes.

Quilting Designs

Hand Piecing

Bethany Reynolds  has been quilting and teaching since 1982.  She is the author of  Magic Stack-n-Whack Quilts (1998), Stars a la Carte (2000), and Stack-n-Whackier Quilts ( 2001).  She has published numerous patterns for quilts and wearable art under her BSR Design, Inc., label.  Bethany has a knack for finding ingenious ways to get great results with less work, and loves sharing her tricks!  Bethany lives on the coast of Maine with her husband Bill, son Sam, and dog Cyber.  You can visit Bethany's Web page at www.bethanyreynolds.com

Stack-n-Whack™ Hexagon Stars

Stack-n-Whack™ Fan Quilt

Linda Schmidt still uses some elements of traditional quilting, but most of her work involves wearable art and landscapes, particularly changing photographs into fabric art.  Her work can be seen at  http://home.comcast.net/~shortattn 

Linda was chosen as the 2003 Teacher of the Year by The Professional Quilter Magazine, and has won prizes including First Place, Best of Show, Judge’s Choice, and Viewers’ Choice at many of the quilt shows in the US - AQS, IQA, NQA, PIQF, PENQV, Road to California and others.  She has exhibited and taught nationally and internationally; judged wearable art at the national level; was chosen as a Fairfield Designer twice and will be a Designer for 2004’s Bernina Fashion Show.  She has been teaching for the last 8 years in both English and French. 

She has several pieces in traveling international exhibitions, including the Husqvarna Spirit and Strength Exhibition; the Women of Biblical Proportions Exhibition; and the 2003 Journal Quilts. She has five part-time paying jobs (secretary, teacher, writer, maker of commission quilts and giver of talks and workshops), three children, one husband, a five-bedroom house she cleans herself, one goldfish, two flutes, two guitars, one piano, and a suddenly useful B.A. in French.

People in Places

Mermaid Lagoon Jacket

Filament Fantasy

Elements in Fabric

Waves and Waterfalls

Michele Scott is a quilt artist who specializes in teaching, lecturing, designing, and one-of-a-kind hand painted fabrics.  You can regularly find her original designs in McCall’s Quilting or Quick Quilts magazines. She began quilt making in 1994, and knew  that she had found her calling in textiles and color.  Michele’s high energy can be found in her variety of classes that range from Beginning Machine Quilting to Painting Landscapes. 

Her goal is to conduct upbeat classes that teach sound techniques and give all levels of quilters new confidence. She currently teaches locally in a variety of quilt shops and nationally for guilds and shows. 

Her array of Landscape and art quilts can be found in shows across the country.  She won the Excellence in Fibre Art at the International Icarus 2000 Art Show in Kitty Hawk, NC, for her quilt,  “The Original Flying Machine”.  She lives in Philadelphia, PA.  In addition to her quilting activities, she is a special education teacher. 

You can visit Michele's Web site at www.piecefulquilter.com.

Curved Piecing Made Easy

Painted Landscapes

Using Fusing to Express Yourself

Cindy Thury Smith has been making quilts for over 35 years and began teaching quilting in the pre-rotary cutter days. She enjoys making sturdy, practical quilts, including crazy quilts.  She has been the recipient of scholarships from both the American Quilters Society and the Crazy Quilt Society.  Her quilt designs, articles and poems have appeared in various magazines such as Quilt, Quilt Almanac, Crazy Ladies Gazette, Computer Quilting Bytes and Home Brewers Newsletter. 

Cindy has developed a printed fabric foundation for crazy pieced blocks that avoids many of the construction problems beginners encounter.  She uses it as a teaching tool.  

Cindy belongs to several quilting groups and is a founding member of the Minnesota Crazy Quilt Enthusiasts.  She has taught at the National Crazy Quilting Conference in Omaha, NE, at the Crazy Quilt Festival in La Bourboule, France, and at Fiber Art 2002 in Nashua, NH. She is now boiling wool (recycling old woolen clothing) and making boiled wool quilts.  You can visit her Web site at www.quiltsbycts.com. 

She lives in Hastings, MN with her husband, Kevin, and two 4-footers whose main occupation is to shed dog hair over everything and minutely inspect each of her quilts.

Crazy Quilt Piecing

Tessellating Stars

Crazy & Sane

Hetty van Boven was born in Holland and moved to Australia in 1964 as a newlywed with her husband, Gerry.  In 1980, she started to teach herself quilting from American books and magazines.  Not many  Australians were aware of Patchwork and Quilting then. She was asked to teach for the first time in 1984, 20 years ago!  Soon making, teaching and writing about quilts became a full time occupation.

Hetty traveled extensively, teaching a variety of workshops.  Since she returned to many groups regularly, developing new workshop projects was important, so she has kept current with new trends and techniques.  She has taught in the Netherlands, Alaska, US, and Canada, as well as in Australia.

As well as teaching, she designs projects for books and Aussie magazines.  Some of her publications are: From Australia, with Love: A Patchwork Year; Double Wedding Ring, a set of acrylic templates with an instruction book; and From My Garden, With Love, a book on shadow appliqué, self-published in 1997, which evolved into Shadow Appliqué, published by That Patchwork Place in 2003.

Hetty organizes "Quilt ESKape" for out-of-town quilters in her hometown of Esk.  You can visit Hetty at www.hettyvanboven.com

Fabric Greetings

Joan Waldman is a quilter, teacher, designer and author.  She began stitching before she was old enough to go to school.  Joan has been an active quilt maker for nearly 40 years.  When she began quilting, there were no quilters in her area, so she began teaching classes at a local fabric shop.  From those classes, the Calico Quilt Club was organized.

Joan had her first book published in 1996, Bargello by the Block (Animas --now out of print). Her second and third were published by AQS, Flower Patterns in 2000 and Pick-a-Pattern Appliqué in 2002. Her latest book, Quilt Savvy-Embroidery Stitches, will be released by AQS in the fall of 2004. She is on staff of Crazy Quilt Newsletter.

Joan has received the Golden Thread Award from the Nebraska State Quilt Guild and has had quilts shown in State Fairs and the Nashville AQS show. Her Journal Quilts were in Houston for two years. One of her quilts was featured in the Quilt Art Calendar and she has a piece traveling with the United We Quilt exhibit.

Joan lives in a small town in central Nebraska with her husband, Harold, and several quilt inspecting cats.  She has 3 grown children and 6 grandchildren.

Drunkard's Flowers

Joanne Winn is a quilt teacher and designer currently living in Canton, Ohio.  The sole designer of quilt patterns for the company she founded in 1989, Canada Goose Designs, Joanne has now added digitized CD’s, combining both quilting and embroidery for home embroidery machines to her company catalog.

Joanne’s career began in Canada 25 years ago, where she taught dressmaking, tailoring and Stretch and Sew for the Continuing Education Department of a local high school.  After her family moved to the United States, Joanne joined a quilting guild in Vernon, CT.  She taught in shops throughout the region.

When they moved to Pennsylvania, Joanne opened The Quilt Basket in Beaver Falls, a store which is still thriving.  She is one of the founders and charter members of the Beaver Valley Quilt Guild. As a full-time traveling teacher for many years, she has made a lasting impression on hundreds of students, and trained numerous women to teach quilting.  Her innovative methods are used to provide easy ways to accomplish the task without sacrificing accuracy.

She enjoys working with designs that have circular movement, such as the Mariner’s Compass and Double Wedding Ring.  A machine quilter before machine quilting was acceptable, she has stimulated acceptance of machine techniques including appliqué.  Currently, she is doing appliqué, embroidery and quilting using the hoop method on an embroidery machine.  You can visit her at www.canadagoosedesigns.com, which also provides lots of free tips and techniques for quilters.

Beginning Machine Embroidery

Digitized Quilting

Embroidery on Patchwork

Tip:  For information about when classes will be offered next, see our Class Catalog.