2025 – 2026 Monthly Meetings

The BackStory: The Hidden Stories of Quilts and How to Keep Them from Fading Away

The nonprofit Quilt Alliance has an easy-to-remember vision statement: No More Anonymous Quilters. We help quilt makers and quilt owners document, preserve, and share the stories of quilts and their makers. This talk will focus on the ways Guild members can use each project to record and preserve stories in our community. Three key steps for quilt documentation will be emphasized: labeling, photography, and writing.

About Quilt Alliance

Quilt Alliance is a nonprofit organization established in 1993 with a mission to document, preserve, and share American quilt heritage by collecting the rich stories that historic and contemporary quilts, and their makers, tell about our nation’s diverse peoples and their communities. 

Quilt Alliance website: https://quiltalliance.org/

Preserving Indigenous Culture Through Textiles And Traditional Crafts

Shannon Gustafson is a talented artist and fabric designer. She and her artist husband work to preserve the Ojibwe culture in arts such as beading, textiles, painting, woodwork and graphic design. Join us to learn more about Shannon’s art and her textile journey.

More About Shannon

Shannon Gustafson (Anishnawbe) is a registered member of Whitesand First Nation and lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Find Shannon’s fabrics in your local quilt store or online.

Shannon’s website: https://www.rsgustafson.com/

A Piece O’ Cake Life

After 28+ years as an author and teacher, Becky has had a lot of questions about her quilting life. This lecture answers those excellent questions.

Becky’s Bio

Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins launched Piece O’ Cake back in 1994, creating over 30+ books and hundreds of patterns, including 9 Blocks of the Month. These days, Linda is retired, while Becky continues to write books and teach. Becky’s classes are always engaging and full of helpful tips, focusing on techniques that make sewing more fun and less stressful.

In addition to her creative work, Becky wears many hats—she’s a wife, mom, grandmother, and even a certified yoga instructor, always striving for balance, strength, and joy in everything she does.

Visit Becky’s website: https://pieceocake.com/

Using Up The Bits: How To Organize Your Scraps and Idea Into Ready-to-Go Quilt Design

Lynn will share her strategies for organizing your stash and turning the fabrics you already own into beautiful quilts. She has many tips for managing your fabrics, improving your piecing and more.

Lynn’s Bio

Lynn Dykstra has been quilting since childhood thanks to having a mother who encouraged nurturing that creative side. An active blogger since 2015, she shares patterns and ideas and encourages others to adapt them.

She served as Illinois Quilters Inc. as  president for three terms. Lynn is a nurse and teaches at Northern Illinois University. She grew up on a farm in Iowa which she continues to manage with her sisters. Lynn and her husband of 40 years are empty nesters and live in the west loop of Chicago.

Lynn’s blog: https://kleinmeisjequilts.blogspot.com/

Exploring the Spectrum: A Journey Through The History, Theory, and Psychology of Colour

Embark on an exploration of colour where we delve into the fascinating history of colour. From ancient pigments to the modern colour wheel, we’ll trace the captivating journey of how humanity has perceived and harnessed the power of colour.

Uncover the secrets of basic colour schemes and discover how they influence art, design, and our daily lives. We’ll explore classic combinations like complementary, analogous, and monochromatic, showcasing real-world examples that bring these concepts to life.

Ana’s Bio

Ana Buzzalino is a creator, maker, fibre and mixed media artist, surface designer, teacher, and lecturer. Her love of layers and texture combine in her original work. She achieves results using a combination of different surface design techniques. A lot of her work for the past few years has used aspects of history with an impact on our culture today.

In the current climate where everything is new, instant, and shiny, history has relevance; old buildings have a soul that modern buildings do not possess. She finds herself returning to those old buildings to look at the marks of passing time. 

Ana’s work has won numerous awards at national and international shows. Her work has been accepted into the Festival of Quilts in the UK where she won an honorable mention, Quilt Canada where she’s won several awards, and the International Quilt Festival in Houston where she won first prize in Abstract in 2017 and a third prize in Abstract in 2019.

Ana’s website: https://www.anabuzzalino.com/

Legacies of the Honorees

The Quilters Hall of Fame celebrates quilting as an art form by honoring the lives and accomplishments of those people that have left legacies to the world of quilting. They are a very diverse group of people, men women, artists, authors, historians, curators, researchers, TV personalities, business owners. Most were quilters, but some never made a quilt. This presentation will describe a few of the honorees and the legacies they have left to us.

More about Deb Geyer and The Quilters Hall of Fame

As a creative quilt artist, Deb is passionate about telling stories through the art of fabric and thread. She is
committed to supporting the quilting community, both honoring the legacy of past quilters and
championing the artistry of contemporary quilters.

The Quilters Hall of Fame, in Marion, Indiana is a non-profit organization whose mission is to celebrate the art of quilting and the people who have made major contributions to the quilting world.

Quilters Hall of Fame website: https://quiltershalloffame.net/

Finding Pride and Joy in Quilting

Veruschka delves deeply into her personal journey through the art of quilting. Beginning with traditional quilting practices, she will explore her evolution into designing intricate, large-scale Foundation Paper Pieced (FPP) quilts and patterns.

She will cover a range of foundational topics in FPP, including insights gained from her own experimentation in design, the essential elements for successful pattern drafting, common pitfalls to avoid, and practical tips and techniques to enhance FPP skills. Additionally, she will discuss modern approaches to color and fabric selection, strategies for minimizing bulk, and other advanced techniques vital to creating quality quilts.

Veruschka’s presentation style is highly interactive, allowing ample opportunities for attendees to pose questions tailored to their interests. She will complement these discussions with live demonstrations illustrating key concepts and a curated trunk show featuring select quilt pieces.

Veruschka’s Bio

Veruschka Zarate of Pride & Joy Quilting is an Accomplished Award-Winning Quilt Maker and Pattern Designer, specializing in the technique of Foundation Paper Piecing. She is a BERNINA and Handi Quilter Ambassador and recently released a New Thread Collection with WonderFil Specialty Threads.

She has been Faculty for many Quilt Conventions such as: The Modern Quilt Guild’s QuiltCon, Road to California Quilt Show, Empty Spools Seminar, The French International Thread Arts Convention, BERNINA Academy in Australia and New Zealand’s Quilt Symposium to name a few. Her Quilts have received several awards, including: The National Association of Certified Quilt Judge’s Award of Merit for Outstanding Achievement in Quiltmaking, QuiltCon’s First Place in Piecing, and Quiltcon’s Peoples Choice.

Visit Veruschka’s website: https://prideandjoyquilting.com/

Walk A Creative Path

Bethanne’s journey as an art quilter from her beginnings making traditional quilts, then branching out into pattern manipulation, to her current pictographic silk art quilts is explored with a slide presentation.  Bethanne will explore how her silk quilts come to be, from initial sketches, paintings, photography to final creation and finish details.  Additionally, Bethanne discusses how any quilter can learn to recognize inspiration and document and organize it to facilitate quilt design through sharing her own techniques and sketchbooks in this funny guild pleaser.

Bethanne’s Bio

Bethanne Nemesh is a classically trained artist with degrees in Art and Art Therapy…but more importantly…she has been mastering the art of free motion machine quilting for over 23 years! She has extensively shown her quilts and has been honored to win many major awards in all levels of national and international quilting. Her deepest love is teaching.

Bethanne’s website: https://whitearborquilting.com/

Canada’s Mississippi

Michael Rikley-Lancaster, Executive Director / Curator of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario, will share the history and development of the woollen industry in the Mississippi River Valley, including the effects which the industry had upon the social, cultural and industrial development of the Region.

Michael’s Bio and More about the Mississippi Textile Museum

Michael has been Executive Director/Curator of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum since July 1, 2007. One of his most exciting projects at the museum has been the Millworkers’ Reunion. This began with recording oral histories from former millworkers – memories from the actual folks who worked in the mill makes the past come alive – and it led to a number of thrilling artifact donations to the museum, including paystubs, tools, photos, and even water purifiers.

The Mississippi Valley Textile Museum collects, preserves, and tells the stories of the mill workers and the local labour history while offering an open, inclusive space for the local community and visitors from across the globe. Through contemporary textile and textile themed art and historical interpretation and programmes the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum conserves and interprets the industrial textile heritage of the Mississippi Valley.

Mississippi Valley Textile Museum website: https://mvtm.ca/

Quilts and Their Stories

Royal City Quilters’ Guild’s own Helen Martin’s love of vintage/antique quilts began when her mother gave her wedding quilt to Helen and her its story. This was also the beginning of Helen’s hobby collecting quilts, blocks and tops from the early 1800s, four-block quilts from the 1870s, crazy quilts from the late 1800s, red work quilts from the 1920,  and the beautiful 1930s quilts up to quilts she has made.

Helen’s Bio

Helen began quilting in approximately 1965. Her mother made a quilt for our wedding in 1963 and had used the good corners of old flannelette sheets for filler. Then she discovered polyester batting and the tiny quilting stitches she make using it. She took our quilt apart and I helped her re-quilt it. This was Helen’s first attempt at quilting and she loved it. Helen has been quilting ever since.