A creative quilt maker, speaker and teacher, Patricia co-owns Okan Arts with her daughter Victoria. The small family business imports vintage Japanese textiles for adventuresome quilters. Patricia is the author of East-Meets-West Quilts, a book about making improv quilts with Japanese fabrics. These days, Patricia and Victoria are busy leading textile tours to Japan!

"Stitching in Public" is a fun look at how people see our pastime as everything but what we are actually doing. During this program I share the comments and thoughts of those that have "watched" me working on my quilts and patterns and decided to share their views on how these things can be accomplished easier/better. The general public can be quite entertaining and really give you something to think about as you stitch.

Sam loves helping people have fun while they make more stuff. She is British by birth, and lives in Portland, Oregon. She is a fiber artist and quilt pattern designer who began sewing at age 7 and quilting in her 20's. Her sense of humor developed through watching Monty Python firms and old Doctor Who episodes. She loves creative and cheeky wordplay, and creating things that use words and text as part of the design. She holds an MFA in Fiber Arts, and blends this classic training with her sense of play in all that she does. She believes that everyone has innate artistic talent, and wants to help you find yours. As a teacher, she is relaxed, encouraging, generous, and loves to share the joy of making beautiful things. As a pattern designer, she designs for the newest sewists, and up-and-comers.

Sam's lecture will show us all the nooks and crannies of her studio, and discuss how her studio fits her body, habits, and how her brain thinks. She'll talk about making sure your space fits YOU and the way YOU think, and why minimalism doesn't work.

Vicki will showcase her beautiful quilts and discuss her inspiration for creating, as well as, basic technique used in the quilt. She will share stories behind the quilts, her 40+ years of quilting, and tips passed on through 4 generations of quilters.

Vicki is the owner/operator of Calico Patch Designs is located in Morehead, Kentucky. This quilt store offers fabrics, pattern, kits, notions, supplies, classes, and is a Bernina dealer. Vicki designs patterns that are available through national distributorship, on-line sales, and at quilt shows they vend at across the country.

MJ Kinman works with fabric and paint to create larger-than-life portraits of colored gemstones. She will help demystify the use of color, and help us gain confidence in color selection to create beautiful quilts regardless of our inspiration.

Her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, national juried competitions, and private collections. It has been featured in national publications, local media, and was part of a PBS series that aired in 2019. In 2020 she was invited to have a solo show at Paducah's National Quilt Museum. Her piece Char #4 was acquired as part of their permanent collection. Her work has also been featured in numerous quilt magazines.

Annette has been creating pictoral art quilts incorporating hand dyed, painted, and commercial fabrics based on her photographs, since 2003. Her work focuses mainly on nature, including landscapes and flora, but also includes some architectural pieces.

She has won many local and national awards, has exhibited her work around the country, and has appeared in numerous publications. She taught her techniques around the country for over 10 years, but now focuses on creating her own work. She currently resides in Austin, Texas.

Karen Brow-Meier of Java House Quilts has been designing our inventive, lighthearted patterns for over 20 years. Her company's mission is to offer quilters unique and beautiful projects to create at home. Her lecture "The SMUGGLE Principles" discusses 7 design elements that help make quilts "sing!"

Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins started Piece O’ Cake in 1994 and published more than 30 books and hundreds of patterns, including 7 Blocks of the Month. Linda is mostly retired now while Becky continues writing books and teaching. Her classes are always interesting and informative, with an emphasis on teaching techniques that help you improve your sewing skills without making you crazy.

In the quilting lecture "It's Not a Quilt til It's Quilted" she discusses quilting design inspiration, fabric choices and how they impact quilting, batting, and how-to information on both hand and machine quilting.

Leanne McGiveron of Sumac Studios is an international presenter, educator, artist, designer, and photographer. She has been been designing and creating quilts since the mid-90s and working with photography even longer. Today, my focus is on expanding her #QuiltYourAdventure collection, featuring work that includes Ireland, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, with upcoming additions of Southern Africa, Jordan, and Greece.

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ZOOM ONLY Meeting. (The is no in person meeting this month.)

Lisa is an AQS Certified Appraiser of Quilted Textiles, a lecturer, quilt show judge, teacher, quilt historian and quilt maker. She made her first quilt in 1991 and has an extensive collection of antique quilts. She is a past President of the American Quilt Study Group and has been a writer and designer for multiple books. She has a degree in Public Communication and has taught junior high and high school before focusing on the quilt world.

Lecture: Unknown But Not Anonymous. Anonymous can be defined as "not identified" or "not having an identity." Some quilts have a message or a personality, even if the maker is not known. Some quilts may give us clues about the life of the unknown maker. This presentation looks at some quilts by unknown makers and what those quilts can tell us. We may not know the maker's name but the quilt can tell us so many other things!

Elita of Busy Needle Quilting is a certified instructor in using the Sew Kind of Wonderful Quick Curve Ruler methods. There is no pinning, no clipping, no finding the center, and best of all, no tears! You just going to cut, sew, and square up. There is minimal waste and a lot less stress.

In this lecture, I will talk about the specifics that make these rulers so helpful and give a trunk show of some of the designs that can be made.

Penni Domikis is the owner of Cabin In The Woods Quilters and operates a pattern and design company started in 2003. She also hosts 6 retreats a year on Lake Gaston in Littleton, North Carolina. Her lecture "Information Overload" is about navigating the endless tips, tricks, books, blogs, patterns and products of the quilting world.

A discount of 15% will be offered for Cabin in the Woods Quilters products, books, templates, and patterns sold on the website during the month of March.

Bethanne Nemesh is a classically trained artist with degrees in Art and Art Therapy. She has been mastering the art of free motion machine quilting for over 23 years and has won many major awards in all levels of national and international quilting. She is passionate about teaching this skill to others and offers lessons digitally, at retreats, and as a masterclass.

Rob Appell is a textile designer and quilt educator as the host of Man Sewing. Working in his mom's quilt shop, the Cotton Ball, in Morrow Bay California began his journey into the quilting world where he became a certified technician for Pfaff. He began teaching his self taught techniques at the quilt shop and began teaching at the store and at workshops. An invitation to design for Free Spirit Fabrics followed and then he began designing quilts for Michael Miller's new fabric lines. He has filmed with Simply Quilts, Uncommon Threads, The Quilt Show, and Missouri Star Quilt Company with Man Sewing over the past four years.

Diana Fox is a contemporary quilter. She describes her process as follows:

"Through the exploration of cloth as my medium of choice, abstraction, shape and use of color are the primary components repeated through the work. My approach is improvisational and organic, and I am most often stimulated by spirituality, nature, and world events. The beginning of a composition varies from a vague idea to a detailed sketch with a selected color pallet. Rarely does a finished piece completely resemble the initial idea, as I respond to the work as the composition develops. The creative process is the exciting part pushing me to present a unique worldview."

NESTLINGS by Robin was opened in 2004 and is a Quilt & Surface Pattern Design, Pattern Publishing, hand quilting services, & AQS Certified Quilt Appraisal business. Her designs can be found in quilt shops and magazines throughout the world.​ She has had multiple quilts juried into AQS Paducah and Mancuso Mid-Atlantic shows; but truly loves to design and bring new, original, fun and easy patterns to products and quilters of all skill levels.

A look at the history of the nearly 100 year old Dresden Plate quilt block. What inspired it? How is it being kept current? Something old is still new. We'll see traditional designs and more modern variations.