My interest in sewing started as a young girl, stitching clothes for my dolls by hand. My mother was not a sewer but a fine knitter and I believe I followed in my aunts footsteps. 

My very first quilt was made when I lived in the Nurses home at the hospital during my general training. 

 I have been lucky in my life to have had two wonderful careers. My first love was midwifery and I was honoured to be included in life's most precious every day miracles. Each birth a special one! 

 I have tried almost every craft and over 30 years ago stumbled into quilting and here I have remained. An interest became an obsession which then became my career, including teaching and designing. 

 I would describe myself as a traditional quilter with a modern twist. I love scrappy quilts and the more fabrics I can use in a single project the happier I am. In my perfect world I would hand stitch everything but with today's busy lifestyle I do machine piece occasionally. 

I have owned quilt stores for 18 years and currently own amitie Textiles at 87 Beach Road Torquay Victoria Australia www.amitie.com.au 

The store offers an eclectic mix of fabrics including Japanese, Liberty of London, linens from Europe and a wide collection of patchwork fabrics. We offer wonderful service and classes and host both local and international tutors. 

 While living in the Middle East with my husband a few years ago I had 

time to spend expanding and developing my range of patterns under my own label. At this time I also started to design fabrics for Moda, one of the largest fabric companies in the USA and write my first book "Quilt Lovely" published by F&W Media. This in turn has lead to invitations from all over the world to exhibit my quilts and teach.

My days are filled with sample making and pattern writing which is very exciting. To view these go to www. jenkingwelldesigns.com 

I pinch myself regularly!! To think a girl from a farm in rural Australia could be the featured artist at a quilt expo in the USA, the Netherlands or Norway. How lucky am I ???

 Carmen Geddes brings her love of quilting and people together for a fun day of learning. Enjoy her friendly, low-key approach and her great quilting techniques! Her expertise is helping her students build confidence. She was named Teacher of the Year at HMQS. She has taught at many quilt shows around the country including Houston Quilt Festival and Road to California. Her quilts have been featured in Fons and Porter Scrappy Quilts and Love of Quilting, Quilter's Newsletter, and McCall's Quilting and Embroidery magazines. She is a teacher for Imagine with Riley Blake. She resides in Eagle Mountain, Utah. She has developed the Tensisters Piping Tool and the Tensisters Easy Piecing Grid with its companion books, “Ten Quilts for Ten Sisters” and "Quilts for Kids".

 Chelsea Briner is a wife, mother of 3 and an avid seamstress. She has always enjoyed all things domestic, which is why she graduated with a degree in Family Consumer Science (aka Home Economics). She LOVES to teach and she especially loves to teach others to sew. She has taught both beginner sewing and fashion design to more than 700 high school students. In 2012, she started her own PDF pattern shop selling children’s clothing patterns. You can now find her teaching children and adults alike how to sew on her blog, GYCT Designs. When she is not sewing, she enjoys reading a good book, spending time with her children and planning more sewing projects to do.

Connie Spurlock, owner of and a designer for Sew Wonderful Dreams lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and has been teaching across the US for more than 20 years.  Schooled in marketing but with a passion for teaching, Connie brings "can~do" projects to students on every level. Our specialties are paper piecing and appliqué but we love our "freedom projects" for sweatshirt jackets and tote bags ~ patterns geared for fun and easy sewing.

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 DeLoa Jones has been an avid quilter for 39 years and has had a longarm quilting business for 19 years. Sheis an international that enjoys teaching new techniques and shortcuts to help her students achieve their goals in their quilting journeys.She has written 5 books and has many longarm rulers and stencils that she has developed. She is the mother of 8 and grandmother to 12. She lives with her husband Dave in South Haven Michigan.

Quilting has been a major part of Denise's life.  Her mom opened a quilt shop when she was four years old. She remembers going to work with her every day, playing with all the fabric and admiring the beautiful quilts. As she got older she learned to make quilts of her own and teach others how to quilt as well. Denise went on to own her own quilt shop until she met her husband and moved to Utah in 2010.  She currently manages Nuttall’s in Salt Lake City, teaches piecing and both domestic and longarm quilting classes to students all over the world, and is a Bernina Longarm Specialist.  She loves making quilts, especially for other people,  she puts alot of thought into the choices she makes. Denise especially loves the joy quilts bring to the people she gives them to. She also loves teaching other people how to quilt so they can share their gift with others.  

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Dorie Hruska has a deep passion for color, texture and design. She is a 4th generation quilter beginning at 15 secretly creating a Lone Star quilt for her mother. After purchasing her first longarm in 2002, she opened her successful longarm business, Forever Quilting. Dorie's work has been featured in several books and publications and she has won numerous awards for her machine quilting at the local and national levels. Although she uses a variety of quilting designs and styles, Dorie is best known for her connecting designs, as seen in her new book, Making Connections.

foreverquilting@ymail.com 

Emily Taylor has been a professional in the quilt industry since her first fabric collection debuted in 2009 with Riley Blake Designs. She produced over a dozen fabric collections as a Riley Blake designer. In 2017, Emily began creating collage art quilts. She now sells her patterns and teaches her unique technique for creating stunning collage quilts. In addition to being a designer and entrepreneur, Emily is a wife and mom to three children. She loves living in Utah, where she enjoys skiing and mountain biking in her free time!

 Eva Birch has been a Longarm Quilter for 10 years.  She has been teaching both locally and nationally for the past 3 years. Eva has received several national awards for both customer quilts and her own. Her work has been published in several quilting publications.  She is the co-author of the book “Applique for Modern Beginners. Eva enjoys quilting with a passion and loves to share her creativity with her students and other quilters.

Karie Johnson Nelson fills her bucket by quilting with her mom and hiking in beautiful places. These two loves merge with small landscape quilts that are quick to put together and are a great memory of sunshine and adventure. 

You may have taken a class from or known her mother, Carol Byington Johnson, who started landscape quilting at the Bryce Canyon Quilt retreats in the 1980's and has been a Silver Thimble recipient and Utah Quilt Guild member since 1981.

If you have ever explored the beauty of the western landscape you will be addicted to these quilts. Karie is excited to continue the landscape quilt tradition and bring you fun new patterns and fabric kits.

 Kris Thurgood started out as an elementary school educator. These days, she’s taking the quilting world by storm with her unique brand. Mike and Kris are the parents of four children. After Kris came to him with a dream, Mike was able to quit his job as an engineer to devote all his time to My Girlfriend’s Quilt Shoppe. The Shoppe and all their employees have become like a family to them and their children. Mike and Kris have created a haven where creativity and friendships are their first priority.

 Marie is an educator in the Handi-Quilter studio and has taught Pro-Stitcher for over 7 years. Quilting and teaching are her passions. Her teaching tips and techniques have been featured on Quilt it-The Long arm Quilting Show for QNN, American Patchwork and Quilting and Quilter's Newsletter as well as webinars, HQ Live and many instructional videos for Handi-Quilter. Her quilts and tips are in a variety of magazines. She teaches full time for Handi-Quilter and quilts non stop..

 Melissa started quilting as a hobby in 2005 but since starting her blog, Happy Quilting, in 2010 her hobby has turned into a passion. Her passion for quilting has lead to creating her own designs that she shares as tutorials, published works, a pattern line, and even her own book, Irish Chain Quilts. Melissa loves designing and finds inspiration in just about everything and anything. Melissa, her husband and their five little children live in Cedar City, Utah. To see more of her daily quilting adventures check out her blog Happy Quilting.

 Patricia discovered the joy of quilting after completing her second quilt while attending a WonderCut retreat by Alice Walter and Deb Hopkins (designers or the WonderCut rulers). As Quilter's Rule developed the Design Tools line, Patricia has developed a knack for designing different patterns. She demonstrates the techniques at shows and teaches a classes on these techniques. With the innovation of a ruler foot that would allow quilters to use templates on their home machine. She has instituted “Design Basics 101”, which are step-by-step instructions using design templates to create your own patterns.  She looks forward to sharing her techniques to help you develop your own style and expertise. Patricia represents the family owned and operated business, Quilter’s Rule, and attends over 20 quilting shows a year. 

  I first found my love of sewing on a treadle machine, using a phone book to be able to reach the pedal. I pull from years of experience: from making my own school clothing in third grade, working in a jacket factory, a restaurant owner, computer programmer, accountant and now Long Arm quilter to combine techniques that apply across that experience to identify and solve problems (sometimes with some McGuyvering!) and increase your productivity. In all my classes, the goal is to give you an advantage: consistently square quilts, binding using the Long Arm, shortening your learning curve on pantos and rulers, and avoiding problems in quilt tops and backs in preparation for Long Arming.

We are Elizabeth and Elizabeth, two girls who married brothers and ended up with the exact same name.  We are also the same age, both former school teachers, have the same number of children, live in the same county, have dogs rescued from the pound, and share a love for sewing, quilting and the art of homemaking.

Together we blog over at Simple Simon and Company where we get the opportunity to share tips, tricks, tutorials, recipes, and thoughts with our readership.

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Sewing and drawing have been part of my life since pre-school, so when I stumbled upon a longarm machine, it was love at first sight! Looking for a career that would put my creative talents to use, I retired from the insurance business and began quilting for hire, and now travel internationally and teach longarm quilting both privately and for Handi Quilter, Inc. There’s nothing I enjoy more than sharing my knowledge and love of quilting with others, or to hear a student remark, “I can’t wait to get home and do this myself!”. When I’m not enjoying the marvelous community of quilters, I spend my time at home in Central Texas with my husband and two pups.

Hi there! I’m Teresa, a maker and writer with a penchant for sewing, quilting, teaching, and adventure.  I stumbled into the quilting industry in 2011, after decades of sewing anything and everything, when I joined the crew at The Fabric Shop Network and later become the editor of WebCentsmagazine, from its inception until mid-2013 when I left to work for Robert Kaufman Fabrics in Los Angeles, California. As their Media Relations Specialist I was able to combine my love of fabrics, sewing, blogging, social media marketing and publishing.