About Us
Original Sewing & Quilt Expo was started in 1995. With long hours, a little sweat, and much laughter, our first event (then Original Sewing and Craft Expo) opened on Friday, October 13, 1995, in Reston, Virginia. Coincidentally, the Expos were halted on Friday, March 13, 2020, in response to the worldwide pandemic. Thankfully, the Expos stayed relevant via online education until in-person events resumed over a year later.
From the beginning, Original Sewing & Quilt Expo has been committed to producing high-quality events where participants feel welcomed and comfortable and find inspiration and motivation. The goal is to enhance their fulfillment and self-satisfaction by pursuing their sewing interests. In response to quilters who wanted more, the name and composition of the event evolved to Original Sewing & Quilt Expo.
The classes and workshops offered in the Expo’s classrooms are designed to create an atmosphere of exploration and creativity in all areas of sewing, quiltmaking, machine embroidery, embellishment, and related arts. The Exhibit Hall is thoughtfully arranged to feature special exhibits, stage shows, and an extensive range of shopping for supplies, equipment, and tools available from retail vendors across the U.S., Canada, and beyond.
Over the years, our staff has evolved, but we remain a small, closely-knit, hard-working team. Our team members reflect a significant percentage of those who attend the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo — sharing your passions, attitudes, dreams, and challenges in sewing, quiltmaking, embellishment, and machine embroidery. We strive to build events that help you achieve maximum satisfaction and creative harmony in your lifelong pursuit of sewing.
Our Team
Betty Bramlet | Onsite Coordinator
Betty brings decades of experience to the show staff with her detailed brain and talented knack for organizing and keeping the team on track. Betty was an avid Expo goer, traveling to several cities to attend the Expo before joining the onsite team in 2022.
Jim Beckstrom | Onsite Coordinator
Jim is the muscle behind the operation and assures freight is handled safely. He secures the scores of quilts that travel with the Expo under his watchful eye to ensure nothing is damaged or lost. Jim works in customer service during the Expos, always bringing truckloads of humor and smiles wherever he goes.
Zoë Cornwall | Customer Service / Administrative Assistant
Zoë is the voice on the phones, keeping everything running smoothly in the office and warehouse. She’s a lifelong crafter, knitter, and quilter who has created stunning and award-winning works. One quilt was recently recognized by a celebrity who invited her to his annual summer picnic to honor her work. She’s also a loving wife and dog mom who likes to garden and cook. Whether it is a sewing machine humming or the sauce bubbling on the stove, Zoë likes keeps busy and active.
Kari Eckel | Onsite Coordinator
Kari is a Registration Specialist for Original Sewing & Quilt Expo, and has been sewing for many years. She graduated with a B.S. Degree in Fashion Merchandising and worked for several years in retail department stores. Kari sews dolls, stuffed animals, and clothes, and also enjoys weaving, cross-stitch, embroidery, scrapbooking, painting and drawing. She is involved with the local historical society and has been a girl scout leader for three years. She enjoys spending time with her husband, a retired NASA engineer. Her other hobbies include riding horses, helping her daughter show her dog and rabbit, gardening, and playing games and cooking with her two children.
Joy Ercanbrack | Director of Education
Joy is a lifelong sewist who has made a career in the home sewing industry, doing what she loves – elevating the craft for all involved. It’s never work, she says, but a passion and purpose to bring new ideas and techniques to market while also cherishing those time-honored methods and traditions of sewing, quilting, and machine embroidery.
With years of experience collaborating with top designers, manufacturers, and makers, Joy brings both professionalism and a sense of curiosity to the Expo. She has attended numerous conferences and conventions over the decades and works closely with Expo Instructors to create engaging classes that inspire confidence and satisfaction.
When Joy isn't behind the sewing machine or working on her computer, she enjoys the great outdoors with her beloved husband, breathing in the fresh mountain air, appreciating the sounds of nature, and spending quality time with her three sons. You might even find her helping out on the family farm. No one can deny, she lives up to her name.
Kristina Koening | Customer Service / Administrative Assistant
As a wife, busy mom of four, dog mom of two, and Etsy shop owner, Kristina likes to get away to the Expo office, where she helps design classes and prepare materials for hands-on classes. Kristina works closely with instructors and sponsors to ensure specialty threads, needles, stabilizers, fabrics, and more are packed and ready for students. Kristina is a lifelong sewist and says the Serger is a game-changer.
Earp Goodman | Onsite Coordinator
Earp is a retired UPS driver who discovered the Expo through his love of quilting. During a quilting class at a local quilt shop, distracted by reloading his sandwich on the frame, he unwittingly agreed to travel with the Expo, and the rest is history. Earp enjoys setting up the Expos and working in customer service. He always takes time out to sew a few quilt blocks in the sewing for a cause booth and brings laughter wherever he goes.
Mark J. Ingraham | Director of Events
Mark Ingraham's career in the sewing and quilt industry began as a 6-year-old star attraction at his father's Singer store in Madison, WI. Mark completed the world's longest buttonhole in this period and later repaired sewing machines. Post high school Mark participated in various live events called Art Without Walls. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Mark worked with producers and directors to build audiences for Film Screenings, off-Broadway, and Broadway shows in New York City. On a break from his busy life in the city, Mark attended the newly established Expos in Reston, VA, and Minneapolis, MN. Immediately, Mark recognized a place to share his talent, so he packed his suitcase and moved back home.
Mark soon added his unique and progressive vision to the Expo. For more than 29 years, Mark has assisted hundreds of businesses and thousands of enthusiasts reach new plateaus in their sewing lives. Mark has a refined aesthetic judgement and a contagious sense of enthusiasm. His organizational and management strengths continually move the Expos in new directions. Mark and his wife Tina are the proud parents of two enterprising children – Aaron and Amy. He enjoys all styles of music, working with his hands, playing golf, bowling, and coaching youth soccer.
Susan Mathes | Onsite Registration Manager
Susan was a volunteer for the first Expo in Reston, VA in 1994, and now works as the On-site Registration Manager. She began sewing in 6th grade and has enjoyed taking classes and becoming a certified instructor from well-known educators. She has made many garments for her three children, who have given her eight grandchildren to sew for. Her sewing interests run the gamut from garments, quilts, and heirloom to collecting fabrics and machines. Her most outstanding achievement has been a beautiful Martha Pullen christening gown with lots of lace and machine embroidery. In addition to traveling with her husband to places like England, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, France, and Hawaii, Susan works and teaches part-time at her local machine retailer and quilt shop.
Susan Miller | Instructor and Demonstrator
Susan is a loving Wife, Mom, Sister, and talented quilter and instructor. When she is not teaching in her studio, longarming for others, helping on the family farm, or relaxing with her husband, she’s off with her gal pals to Expos for fun and lots of learning. At the Expos, Susan teaches, demonstrates, and supports many areas as needed.
Darcy Nicholson | Event Manager Extraordinaire
Darcy is the shining smile that greets vendors and students as they enter the Expo each morning. She is the mastermind behind our exhibits and knows all the inner workings of the Expo. Darcy joined the team after working in a busy quilt shop, excited to travel and bring more of her talent and experience to the Expo. Never idle, Darcy likes to crochet, garden, cook, and socialize with family and friends.
Liz Pierson | Onsite Coordinator
Liz is a retired firefighter who enjoys an active lifestyle. She’s a quiltmaker, and she says the Expos have improved her quilting skills immensely. She comes to the Expos by chance as the winner of the sewing machine in the evening super prize drawing. One thing led to another, and next thing she knew, she was on the team helping to hang and take down quilts. Soon, Liz traveled to all the Expos and even roped her husband into helping out, with the promise of an ice-cold Miller Lite afterwards. When Liz isn’t at the Expos or quilting on her Gammill, she’s driving snowmobiles, pontoon boats, and tractors.
Heather Shaw | Vendor Sales Manager
Heather joins the Expo with decades of experience working at a local sewing machine retailer and working hands-on in an industrial sewing facility. Having been trained by one of the top sewing machine retailers in the country, she understands the needs of the business owner and the needs of the customers coming for help or just to see what’s new. Heather is familiar with all facets of sewing and comes from a family of sewing and quilting enthusiasts. When she’s not helping vendors at the Expo, she’s a Mom, a dog mom, and she helps out on the family farm.
Amy Strumbly | Production & Marketing Manager
Arts and crafts are literally Amy's life. Her mom never gave her coloring books, insisting that they didn't foster creativity. Because of this, Amy became very good at drawing her own stuff and everyone believed she was going to go to art school. Despite having a way with pencils and paper and also being voted "Most Musical" in high school, she ended up studying filmmaking instead and wound up working in an art museum for a decade. These days, you can find her working on various embroidery projects, attending too many dance classes, and creating costume pieces for her fellow dancers. For the Expo, she manages the website, print material, production calendar, and a ton of other things that are very important.
And congrats - you made it to the end of the bio page. If you’ve made it this far… email astrumbly@hoffmanmedia.com and Amy will tell you a sewing-related joke!