2024 – 2025 Monthly Meetings

Japan 2.0

Meet the Next Gen of Japanese quilt artists. Japan’s history and cultural norms set very clear rules for who is and who is not considered a Master, and this lecture will explain why, and how, that happens. But in the Japan 2.0 universe, there is a community of quilters for the 21st century who are operating outside the rigid cultural lines of the traditional Master/Student relationship. They are creating original, modern quilts with a global eye while still managing to reference the Japanese aesthetic.

Teresa’s Bio

Teresa Duryea Wong is an author, lecturer, and quilt historian. She is the author of Sewing & Survival: Native American Quilts from 1880 – 2022, and five additional books covering Japanese quilts and textiles, American quilts and cotton, and quilts for social justice. She is a contributing writer for Quiltfolk. Teresa is a member of the International Quilt Museum advisory board and the Quilt Alliance board. She has been recognized as a scholar by the Visions Museum of Textile Art in San Diego and the Texas Quilt Museum. Her lectures are popular with American quilt guilds, and she is invited regularly to lecture at the annual Quiltcon and International Quilt Festival events. She is also a quiltmaker and antique quilt collector.

Teresa’s website: https://TeresaDuryeaWong.com

Aurifilosophy: It’s all about the Thread!

Cotton thread education that will help you achieve brilliant results with all those amazing weights of luscious Aurifil thread. I’ll share a structured presentation and large trunk of Aurifil projects, most quilted on my home machine ~ AND ~ pieced, embellished, quilted, and finished exclusively with Aurifil thread.

We’ll cover thread basics, including information on weight and ply, spool positioning, bobbin weights, needle and tension settings. I’ll offer helpful tips and tricks, share projects and photos aimed to inspire and expand your use of Aurifil threads on all your “quilty” projects.

You’ll leave tired and inspired — with a head full of knowledge and excitement to get home and stitch – promise!

Karen’s Bio

Karen resides in the Finger Lakes Region of Central NY and travels globally to share her passion for quilting and thread.

Karen’s website: https://redbirdquiltco.com

Symmetry & Surprise: The Kaleidoscope as Design Inspiration

KALEIDOSCOPE – the very word promises surprise and magic, change and chance. Exploding with visual excitement, a kaleidoscopic design organizes an abundance of color and shape into a complex, coherent and unique whole. This slide lecture traces my evolving quilt series in which the multifaceted, luminous and random nature of a kaleidoscope is explored on a quilt’s flat surface.

Paula’s Bio

Paula’s quilts have achieved international recognition for the innovative and complex designs inspired by the bilateral symmetry of kaleidoscopic images. Honored by inclusion in the Twentieth Century’s 100 Best American Quilts, her designs have inspired products including the vast carpet in the Hilton Americas hotel in Houston, TX and were showcased in the American Folk Art Museum’s first one person exhibition highlighting the work of a contemporary quilt artist (2009).

Paula’s website: https://www.paulanadelstern.com/

Scrap Attack

In this lecture we will discuss where scraps come from and how to organize them so you can use them. Terry will share how she used her to create the 50 plus projects she will share with us. This colorful presentation should inspire you to create your own scrappy masterpieces. Please join Terry and let her share her love of quilting with each and every one of you.

Terry’s Bio

Terry Rowland has been an avid quilter since sewing her first quilt in 1989, a Pinwheel quilt, in which she used a rainbow of colored broadcloth. Terry is a wife and mother of 4 daughters and is currently living on a farm in Central Alberta.

Terry is known worldwide for her enthusiastic approach to quilting, as well as her distinctive use of color. She always challenges herself to learn and develop new techniques to incorporate into all of her projects. She has learned a lot over the years, along her quilting journey, which sometimes includes what not to do.

Terry’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/p/Terry-Rowland-T-Row-Studios-100057711420871/

Graphic Quilts of the 20th Century

This presentation is packed with graphic, visually stunning quilts from the whole of the 20th century. Many of these have a surprisingly modern aesthetic! Throughout the conversation, we’ll put these quilts in context: historically, socially, artistically. We’ll explore some of our connections with the past that inform us, inspire us, and drive us in the art and practice of quilt making today.

Tara’s Bio

Tara Miller is an independent researcher, designer, enthusiast, lecturer, and instructor who recently left a 22-year career in the software industry to pursue All Things Quilts full time. Tara serves on the Board of Directors of the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG), is a member of the Modern Quilt Guild, and founded the Atlanta Quilt Study Group in 2019.

Her patterns and articles have been published in Quiltmania, Simply Moderne, Simply Vintage, and Modern by the Yard. Her work has hung in both the Benartex and the Hobbs booths at the 2018 Houston Quilt Market, in the 2019 Georgia Celebrates Quilts show, and in the 2019 Smoky Mountain Quilt show.

Tara teaches quilting techniques through her pattern workshops, delivers lectures and trunk shows about quilting and women’s history, and sells her original quilt patterns and quilt-themed shirts on her website. In Spring 2023, you can also find her as one of the featured quilters in Issue 30 of Quiltfolk magazine!

Visit Tara’s website: https://quiltdistrict.com/

Small Spaces

Don’t let the small size of your space keep you from having hours of fun; it’s about learning how to prioritize. Let me show you some creative ways to utilize every square inch of your playground. Lilo Bowman, the author of “Love Your Creative Space”, will share some ideas for making the best use of your space.

Lilo’s Bio

Lilo Bowman has worked as a floral designer, translator, tour guide, wedding planner, and is now editor-in-chief of TheQuiltShow.com. Her work has been varied, often challenging, but always creative. Since early childhood, she has been instilled with the desire for and love of doing something with your hands, learned by observing the varied and beautiful items crafted by both of her grandmothers. Raised in a German culture, Lilo was always keenly aware of and fascinated with objects (whether utilitarian or decorative) that were attractively displayed while still being orderly.

Food, travel (both as a military wife and tourist), and curiosity about other cultures have also played a large role in shaping Lilo’s sense of taste and design and her understanding of how others prioritize the items they choose to have in their homes. Being surrounded by strong, independent, and civic-minded female role models has instilled a sense of “you can do this” and “consider others” along the way.

When not working, Lilo travels, gardens, works on DIY projects with a ragtag bunch of rescue pets nearby, and spends time with her extended, loud, noisy, always food- and travel-talking family.

ALL TOGETHER NOW: Harnessing hope by working together for change.

In her talk Berene encourages leaning into discomfort and tells the story of how her work has evolved by embracing the emotional ride that the past few years have been for us all.  

To quote Berene from her website: 

“Quilts hold the spirit of their makers, and the secrets of their thoughts pondered while stitching. They are beautiful treasures that provide us with warmth & comfort, but they can do more for us if we so choose. Quilts can be posters for our ideas, messengers of our messages, and uniters of our communities. They hold great power.”

Berene’s Bio

Berene Campbell of Happy Sew Lucky is a modern quilt designer, speaker and community project instigator. Her quilting and sewing patterns feature inspiring messages of positivity and hope, with the goal of making the world a kinder and more peaceful place. A “collective energy” enthusiast, Berene uses quilting to corral fellow creatives to work together for change. These projects include collaborative community installations, fundraisers for social justice causes, and the Handmade Collective Awards – a scholarship fund at Toronto Metropolitan University set up for the maker community to fund awards for BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ students.

Berene’s website: https://happysewlucky.com/

Finding My Voice in Modern Quilting!

This lecture focuses on my path to becoming a modern quilter and how I’ve applied many traditional
techniques in my modern quilts. I’ll discuss the progression of my work and show my Radial Quilts, Watercolor Quilts,
and a few others too! I’ll share information on design inspiration, favourite artists, and discuss some quilting highs and
lows along my journey. I look forward to sharing my quilts and stories with you!

Audrey’s Bio

Audrey began quilting in 2005. In 2018, she set a personal goal to exhibit her work in a juried quilt show, which motivated her to design and create a series of original quilts. Since then, her quilts have been exhibited and recognized at Quilt National, International Quilt Festival, and QuiltCon.

Audrey’s website: https://www.cottonandbourbon.com/

Using Quilts to Illustrate Your Stories

Every quilt has a story – when, why, for whom, colour and design choices, techniques selected and more. Some of that might be on a label on the back.  Trudy Cowan, art quilter and teacher takes her quilts themselves further into the realm of storytelling and illustration.  How do the image, fabrics, embellishments and techniques convey and support the tale you wish to tell?  She’ll bring her first quilt, an assortment of her designs and techniques, and the quilt and beadwork illustrations she created for her children’s book, The Little Grey Mouse: A Fable in Fabric, published by Frontenac House Press, November, 2018.  

Trudy’s Bio

Trudy Cowan began “playing with needles” when she was a child, learning and later teaching many techniques including knitting, embroidery, crochet, even beadwork. For years she designed and made much of her own clothing, even a bathing suit that she wore “once”.  A career in museums and historic sites included storytelling to connect young people to history and opened her to the textile and visual arts of past eras and world cultures.  All this needle and art experience came together as she retired from full-time heritage work in 2005 when quilting came into, and took over, her life.  By 2008 she was enticed into designing and creating her first art quilt.  Her time is now filled with expanding her repertoire of award-winning textile art and travelling to present talks, trunk shows and workshops.  Trudy was named Quilter of Distinction at the Heritage Park Quilt Festival in 2017.  Her quilts, including commissions, live happily in collections across Canada and the USA.

Visit Trudy’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063518378269

Once Upon A Quilt

With this retrospective presentation Dominique invites us into her world of creation.

Through a series of photos using a storytelling angle, Dominique explains the inspiration, and the technique behind finalized work created since 2010.

Dominique’s Bio

Dominique is a self-taught fiber artist. Quilting is her medium to tell her stories. She knows the rules, patterns and techniques. She uses them as a mean to transport, express, touch and reinvent. First, a story emerges and then it starts building up, taking shape and growing in three dimensions. She assembles it in her head, design it to the last detail and once ready, she turns it into a sketch.

Sketches become paper models, who then become patterns. With Stéphan, her husband and accomplice, she pushes back all limits and frontiers. Her artwork plays with the wind, defies gravity, invites to exploration and interaction.

Dominique’s website: https://dominiquehrmann.com/en/home/