Meet the Teachers

 

We take the time to search out the best in the industry, introducing you to exceptional designers, best-selling authors, creative thinkers and visionaries. Taking classes at Original Sewing & Quilt Expo adds to a memorable and satisfying experience.

 

Libby Ashcraft

Fort Worth, TX

libbyashcraft.com

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Libby has been teaching sewing, embroidery and embroidery software for over 20 years. She has specialized in embroidery software, but has recently expanded her expertise to include electronic cutters such as the Silhouette Cameo and Brother Scan 'N Cut. Libby is a Terri Johnson Creates Licensed Instructor and teaches the Silhouette Cameo at workshops and classes around the country. She teaches three software clubs a month in her local area, providing unique and detailed lessons for her students, with many lessons based on student requests. Libby is a presenter the All Things Silhouette Conference, Original Sewing & Quilt Expo events and other events. As a Martha Pullen Licensed teacher, Libby travels the U.S. helping bring the joy of sewing to many students. In addition to her teaching, Libby is a Technical Sewing Editor for Classic Sewing magazine.

 

Deb Atchison

Prosper, TX

debatchison.com/quilting.html

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Deb Atchison is an experienced educator, international technology consultant, and quilter that enjoys leading students of all ages through the process of creating beautiful works of art with fabric! Teaching is her lifelong career and quilting is her passion. Combining them both...her dream job! Deb has many years of training students of all ages including adult learners. As a technology education expert, Deb has taught numerous workshops virtually as well as face-to-face! She is certified in Scrappy Applique, and is a Legit Kits Ambassador and Educator and enjoys teaching quilters of all experience levels how to make beautiful works of art with Legit Kits! Deb enjoys sharing her love of applique using embroidery machines as well.

 

Pam Damour

Champlain, NY
The Decorating Diva
pamdamour.com
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Known as the "Decorating Diva" Pam learned early in life, while spending time on her grandparents’ farm, that making something from "scratch" was not only a way of life, but it was the better way of doing things. Holding on to those values she went from farm to fabric and has had a very successful 30+ year career as an interior designer and sewing professional. Pam offers professional drapery workroom training. As a seasoned career speaker, she travels internationally teaching her specialty techniques that have brought her years of continued business as the "Couture of Home Dec Sewing". She is the author of Pillow Talk, Cheaper by the Dozen, Got Quilts?, The Tangled Home, Hold Everything and producer of 12 Home Dec DVDs. She has designed many patterns, rulers, scissors and other sewing related notions. An interior designer by profession and a quilter by passion, Pam lives on the shore of Lake Champlain in a log home, nestled at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains, where she teaches sewing retreats. Her down to earth nature, never forgetting her roots, combined with her professionalism creates a warm and creative experience.

 

Christina Doughty

Grangeville, ID

www.yourbestfriendsquiltshop.com

I am passionate about providing quilters of all skill levels with the supplies they need to bring their creative ideas to life! I opened Your Best Friend's Quilt Shop in October of 2014 because it had been a dream for a long time that I felt couldn't wait any longer. I have been quilting since I was 18 year old. I have two wonderful children who are very supportive of my shop as well as a wonderful husband who helps in the shop from time to time. So any given day you could see them in the shop helping you with your quilting needs.

 

Alba Fekete

Oakland, NJ

JUKI America

Alba Fekete has been sewing since an early age, enjoying garment sewing hand embroidery and cross-stitch. She has worked in the industry for 35 + years with her own custom sewing and embroidery business as well as selling embroidery and long arm designs through Quilting The Thread Art Way. Alba has also been working for sewing machine manufactures continually since 2007. Alba has been published in many magazines such as, Sew News, Designs in Machine Embroidery, Creative Machine Embroidery, Vogue Pattern Magazine and trade magazines.

 

Stephanie Folsom
Cape Coral, FL

beachpotatoembroidery.com

Stephanie has been sewing since she was nine years old and learned about machine embroidery in middle school on a Bernina 200. She has been a part of the sewing, embroidery, and longarm communities for the past ten years. While she loves making new designs and playing with all the fabric, her first passion is helping others. She enjoys teaching sewing classes and events, as she loves being hands on with her favorite people. She also serves her local community by working as a 911 emergency dispatcher at night. She is also a mom and bonus mom to a ten and nineteen year old.

 

LuAnn Hartley

Lexington, NC

Sanluchell Designs

LuAnn Hartley has been teaching a variety of classes for over 30 years. Her background includes education consultant, sewing machine sales, and a store owner for over 25 years. She has a passion for embellishing, quilting, and creating new ways to use techniques for both sewing and serging. She has taught all over the country and at major quilting shows.

 

Lauren Jackson

Brooksville, FL

Bold Notion Quilting

boldnotionquilting.com

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Lauren is a Free Motion quilting instructor and Longarm quilter at Bold Notion Quilting.com; she is a military wife and mother of two, who found her love of quilting while learning to make memory quilts for her little ones. Not knowing there was a difference between piecing a top and quilting your quilt, she soon found out there was a whole new world to quilt making. Lauren began longarm quilting in 2014 and the rest was history! Over the course of the next few years she dove into the artful world of Free Motion quilting, realizing there was a real need for good content and direction, she taught herself and others, at local shops, how to be bold, jump in and tackle new designs. Her passion is to use the love and craft of quilting to create fun and innovative content; and to develop a supportive network for quilters to learn new techniques and reach their fullest potential. Her vision is to embolden quilters at every skill level through quality instruction and implementation of innovative techniques.

 

Jessica Kaufman

Asheville, NC

WAXON Batik & Dye Studio

waxonstudio.com

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Jessica Kaufman has her M.A. in Crafts Education, and loves nothing more than creating and leading workshops in a variety of fiber and textile arts. She teaches up and down the East Coast, online, and in her Asheville studio. Before creating WAXON Batik & Dye Studio, she taught all workshops through her NYC-based business, happygocrafty.com, which still hosts over 80 free instructional knitting videos.

 

HollyAnne Knight
Duluth, GA

String & Story

stringandstory.com

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HollyAnne is founder and CEO of online quilting education company String & Story and proprietor of String & Story on Main, a boutique sewing and quilting shop in Duluth, GA. HollyAnne specializes in teaching free motion quilting and quilting with rulers on the domestic and longarm quilting machines, quilt design, and guiding Quilting Rockstars worldwide to finish their quilts with confidence.

 

Susan Luaces

Tampa, FL

susieluaces.com

Susie began sewing at nine, taught by her mother, and honed her skills through high school classes, sewing magazines, and books. She created her clothes, including tailored suits. Despite college and a career in engineering limiting her sewing time, her passion never waned. After leaving engineering to focus on family, she dedicated more time to sewing. Susie has sewn clothing, Halloween costumes, wedding dresses, home décor items, quilts, toys, and nursery items, with garment sewing being her favorite. She has teaching experience from her engineering career as a part-time fitness instructor and as a sewing instructor at Joann Fabrics. Since 2002, Susie has found the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo a great source of knowledge. She discovered the Seam Method of pattern alteration; from there, the sky was the limit. Susie has spent years training with Lorraine Henry and Judith Rasband to ensure the method's continued availability and is now ready to share her expertise.

 

Donelle McAdams
Marion, IN
Representing Sew Steady
sewsteady.com
sewbizmarion.com
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Donelle McAdams is the owner of SEW BIZ, Marion, Indiana, now an online quilt resource. Donelle is the designer of Quick Easy Mitered Binding and Border Tools for the Sewing and Quilting industry that are sold internationally and she is also a pattern designer. Previously a Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher, she has been a quilt store owner for 36 years. She has taught a variety of SchoolHouse and Take & Teach classes and Business Management Seminars at International Quilt Market, Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff Sewing Conventions, Vacuum & Sewing Machine Dealers Trade Association Convention and has participated as a Quilt Store Owner/Educator on numerous panels and advisory boards. She writes a column Profitable Promotions - for FabShop News, an industry magazine and also writes for VDTA. As a promoted Educator for Sew Steady/Westalee Design Templates, Donelle teaches classes in Ruler Work Quilting. Her love and enthusiasm for sewing and quilting is infectious. Taking a class with Donelle is guaranteed to be information-packed, inspirational and FUN!

 

Jill McCloy

Toledo, OH

Jill McCloy Designs
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Jill's sewing career started at an early age – she received her first sewing machine for Christmas just after her fourth birthday. In high school, she did custom sewing and taught at fabric and sewing machine shops using original patterns. In 1992 Jill was hired by Viking Sewing Machines, Inc. as a national educator designing projects for the Viking Club and teaching at Viking World Conventions. She then became an independent educator working with many brands of sewing machines. Jill was featured in the Threads magazine design challenge in 2000, wrote for McCall’s and Threads magazines, designed embroideries for Cactus Punch and taught at many Expo events. Her specialties are machine knowledge and creating original designs. She has over 50 patterns and recently had a truly beautiful line of fabric come out with Northcott fabrics. 

 

Linda McGehee

Shreveport, LA

Ghee's

ghees.com

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Designer, Linda McGehee has a diverse sewing background with 50 years experience from garments to handbags, piecing to heirloom, surface manipulation to combining a variety of methods into a sampler of various techniques. Linda has traveled the globe demonstrating and lecturing from her books and patterns. She is much sought after at trade and machine conventions, consumer shows, guilds, shops & television. Her style is easy and fun with a flair for detail.

Kathy McMakin
Birmingham, AL
Kathy McMakin is one of America’s foremost authorities in machine embroidery and heirloom sewing. She teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced sewists worldwide and inspires confidence in her students. Kathy has taught for 40+ years as the President of Martha Pullen Company and Editor-in-Chief of Classic Sewing Magazine. Today, she lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, and she follows her greatest passion, teaching at events nationwide.  Kathy has been a guest instructor for every major sewing machine manufacturer worldwide. She has authored several smocking, sewing, and serging books and has produced and appeared in numerous machine embroidery, sewing, and serging videos. Her guest appearances on sewing television shows are many.  She and her husband have two grown children and several precious grandchildren.

 

Susan Miller

Doylestown, OH

Susan has been quilting, sewing and embroidering for many years. She has a quilting studio in her home where she provides longarm quilting services to her customers. Over the years, she has taken Martha Pullen’s Teaching classes for sewing and surging, also Quilt in a Day teacher training and event training with Eleanor Burns Master Quilter in Paducah, Kentucky. Susan has taught at a local quilt shop many classes: longarm program, Kids sew, machine usage classes and embroidery programs. Susan also plans event classes for quilt guilds in her local area. Sewing and quilting has been her love and hobby for over 40 years.

 

Carol Mitchell

Taylorsville, NC

Barn Quilt Squares by Carol

www.barnquiltsquares.com

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I am a traveling Barn Quilt square painting teacher located in Taylorsville NC. I have been teaching for 12 years. Barn quilt painting is something I am very pasionate about and really enjoy teaching others how to make a 2 x 2 MDO board come alive for them. My boards are weatherproof and will last outside a very long time. We live on a farm in NC and this is part of my agriculture background but barn quilts are also for houses and garage and can also be mounted inside the house.

 

Shanna Neylon

Ashland, Nebraska

https://glitterbugfairy.com/

GlitterBugFairy started in 2014 with Shanna and Andy Neylon selling embroidery vinyl out of their tiny living room and has grown to offering all sorts of embroidery and crafting supplies for both small and big-time crafters, long timers and newbies, experienced sewers and others just getting your feet wet. They print custom vinyl with their specialty printer, which means endless possibilities of new vinyl and bag designs!

 

Pattie Otto
Falling Waters, WV
Great Copy Patterns and Embroidery
greatcopy.com
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Pattie Otto, owner of Great Copy Patterns and Embroidery has a passion for everything sewing from garment design to machine embroidery and enthusiastically shares this during her classes both locally and across the country. In addition to designing her line of patterns, authoring books and magazine articles, she performs alterations on a variety of garments from prom, pageant and wedding attire to other garments such as skirts, pants, etc. Her home studio is well stocked with machines, fabric, thread and everything she needs to create beautiful garments and accessories.

 

Rhonda Pierce

Willowbrook, IL

Schmetz Needles
SCHMETZneedles.com

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Rhonda Pierce has a dream job. . . teaching sewing enthusiasts about the hardest working 2” piece of steel in the sewing machine – the SCHMETZ needle. After presenting 200+ virtual classes, she is happy to meet stitch fans in-person. Rhonda created and published 100 issues of SCHMETZ Inspired to SEW. She publishes the must read SCHMETZneedles monthly newsletter. She is a certificated FitNice System Instructor. Her quilt, Color Splash, hung at three International Quilt Festivals. Rhonda’s personal blog is www.SewMoreStitches.com. With quilt shop, wholesale management experience, and the love of sewing, Rhonda delivers a unique perspective as VP Marketing Director of Euro-notions, and Spokesperson for SCHMETZneedles.com North America.

 

Sara Robitaille and Debbie Love

Orlando, FL

Salty Sews

saltysews.com

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Debbie and Sara, the dynamic duo of the sewing world, mix a dash of sass with their sewing expertise. They've spun their love for stitching into a wild ride of teaching and inspiring. Brimming with years of know-how, they're not just about the thread and needle; expect a hearty dose of humor in every class. They're the go-to gals for a good laugh and a sewing skill or two. Known for their sharp wit as much as their sharp needles, their classes are where you stitch up something cool and maybe get roasted a little – all in good fun!

 

 

Jim Suzio

Pittsburgh, PA
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Jim Suzio is an award winning artist, designer, digitizer and sewing instructor (including embroidery software, heirloom, fashion and serger sewing). A self taught sewer, Jim was inspired to try the craft after watching a neighbor's enthusiasm in the art. A new sales position at a machine dealer found him literally "thrown" on stage at an ASG convention where he was discovered by Sue Hausmann, host of the PBS series "America Sews with Sue Hausmann." Jim soon found himself teaching all over the US, Canada and Australia for Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff Sewing Machine Companies. His work has been featured in numerous books and magazines and several ads for Husqvarna Viking and the launch of Ty Pennington's new fabric line. he has been seen on several television programs here ("America Sews with Sue Hausmann,"and "It's Sew Easy") and in Canada ("the Big Breakfast Show").  

 

Chelsea Swindle

Lebanon, TN

She Sews Seams

shesewsseams.com
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Hello! I’m Chelsea with She Sews Seams, and I am passionate about sewing. I had the great fortune to take sewing classes during high school from one of the best seamstresses I’ve ever known. She didn’t realize it at thetime - but her influence and teaching have shaped the rest of my life. That was over 25 years ago and I have been creating and learning ever since. If there is one theme that has consistently run through the fabric of my life, it is sewing. My goal is to make sewing approachable and attainable to ALL people, no matter their experience, budget or location. You can find me on social media creating bite sized bits of sewing content to help you along your sewing journey. My life outside of sewing has blessed me with my perfect soul mate of a husband. We have been married for 12 years and our love language is sarcasm. We have three beautiful, quirky and energetic children who keep us on themove. I am also a self proclaimed crazy plant lady.

 

Tisha Thorne

Lanham, MD

Sew Creative Lounge
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Tisha Thorne is a certified sewing instructor with over two decades of experience teaching locally in the DC area and across the United States. Extremely passionate about sharing her love of sewing and quilting with students of all ages, Tisha has led sewing programs at esteemed organizations such as Sew Creative Lounge, Howard University Hospital, Hancock Fabrics, and Prince George’s County Sports and Learning Complex, among others. Driven by her mission to teach the world to sew, one stitch at a time, Tisha continues to inspire and educate aspiring sewers and quilters nationwide.

 

Joe Vecchiarelli
Glendale, CA
French European Dress Forms

frencheuropeaninc.com

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Joe Vecchiarelli, founder and president of French European Inc., has worked in the fashion industry for over 40 years. During his college years, Joe worked in the family business, sharpening scissors for the industry's top designers. He later graduated from USC's business program and began to realize that opportunities in the apparel business were unlimited. Mr. Vecchiarelli's career took another fascinating turn when he made a foray into the entertainment business working in production with shows like Dancing with the Stars and The X Factor. A few years ago he was approached by NBC to help produce the competitive design talent show, Fashion Star. Presently Mr. Vecchiarelli is ever so busy maintaining his business and helping fashion students and enthusiasts grasp their dreams and become successful within the industry.

 

Kris Vierra

Kansas City, MO

Quilter on the Run

quilterontherun.com

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Kris has been sewing or quilting for over 20 years. She loves sharing her passion for quilting and all things related to fabric, believing that quilting should be fun and not stressful. Kris teaches at national shows and guilds across the country, and has won numerous national awards for her machine quilting skills over the years. Most recently Kris was award Best Long Arm Quilting at AQS Paducah 2018, Phoenix, and Des Moines, 2016, and the PFAFF Master Award for Machine Artistry at the International Quilt Festival Houston, 2015. Two of her quilts, Tiger, Tiger and Star of India, are part of the permanent collection at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah. She loves traveling and leads quilt tours all over the world. Kris believes that no matter what language you speak fabric is universal. Check out her Stress Free Quilting™ Series for tons of quilting tips and tricks.

 

Alicia Welcher
Heron, MT

aliciawelcher.com

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Alicia is a designer, author and sewing instructor who specializes in heirloom and serger sewing. She has appeared Martha's Sewing Room with Martha Pullen and has published countless projects under the Martha Pullen Company label. As a beginning and advanced instructor at the Classic Sewing Teacher Licensings and events throughout the country, she has earned a following of devoted sewists. She was also the Assistant Editor of and a contributing designer for Classic Sewing magazine.

 

Hope Yoder

Sarasota, FL

Designs by Hope Yoder

hopeyoder.com

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Hope Yoder is an entrepreneur, fabric designer, and course creator. She was the inspiration behind Embellish products. She writes for several magazine publications and has been featured in numerous courses for her creativity and savvy business tips. You can find her behind the computer designing or in front of her laser or embroidery machine dancing to Cupid's Shuffle. Her superpower is helping others by teaching, mentoring, and inspiring!