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.

 

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. 

 

Donna Bularz

Bernina of America

Donna Bularz is a longarm and quilting specialist for BERNINA of America and has been a professional  longarm quilter and teacher for over 10 years. Her quilting skills involve free-motion, rulerwork and  computerized custom quilting. In addition to quilting, Donna loves tending plants of all kinds and  especially her violets, orchids and Christmas cactuses. Her teaching style leaves students relaxed and  entertained and eager for more. Donna has been a teacher at Houston Quilt Festival for the last 3 years  and enjoys meeting and teaching to all skill levels. She also has two small bichon pups named Peaches  and Punkin and resides in rural Wisconsin.

 

Linda Davis

Hurst, TX

Sew It Up BERNINA

sewitup.com

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Linda has been inspiring the quilting community at Sew It Up for more than 13 years, sharing her sewing knowledge through teaching from our Quilt it Up Club over donuts & coffee, to virtual Zoom classes during the pandemic. She has lived in Washington, Michigan, California, and now Texas, where she is a busy Mom & Grandmother to twelve children. Outside of quilting, she loves spending time with her family, researching family history, and dolls. She uses her Bernina Q24 nearly every single day, and especially loves working with Lori Holt, Alison Glass & Tilda fabrics. Linda is responsible for creating so many beautiful samples for our store, and we are very fortunate to have such a kind and patient teacher here at Sew It Up!

 

Eric Drexler
Port Charlotte, FL
Sulky of America
sulky.com
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Eric has been in the industry over 40 years. Free-motion artistry has been his life-long passion. He has made numerous large and small works of machine art, some of which have been featured in Sulky Books and at Trade and Consumer Shows all over the country. Through his association with Sulky of America since the beginning, he has had the pleasure and honor of being inspired by some of the world's greatest creative sewers and quilters. Eric loves life and he loves to teach and share his exuberance for creative sewing. He is passionate about inspiring students of all ages so they can discover and enjoy a lifetime of creative fun. His infectious smile and warm humor puts everyone at ease and makes them ready and eager to learn. He is widely sought after to teach and share his contagious enthusiasm at Consumer shows, Sewing and Quilting Guilds and on many PBS shows.

 

Heather Dunn

Indio, CA

Heathers Quilts

etsy.com/shop/HeathersQuiltsnKits

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Heather Dunn has been sewing and quilting for many years. She loves fabric and designing her own quilts. Teaching is definitely a passion of hers and teaching others how to make a quilt is at the top of her list! Heather works closely with Carmen Geddes of TenSisters Handicraft, creator of the EasyPiecing Grid. Making quilt samples you'll find within the pages of TenSister's pattern books, Heather has become an expert with the EasyPiecing Grid technique. Come see her work in person and sign up to learn this clever technique from this talented quilt maker!

 

Thomas Friedenbach

Hurst, TX

Sew It Up BERNINA

sewitup.com

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Tom is currently a Bernina technician at Sew It Up Bernina in Hurst, Texas. He has formerly worked as both a professional embroiderer and as a costumer with Travis Halsey in Chicago.

 

Amanda Gerard

Oceanside, CA

Sew Bestie

sewbestie.com

facebook | facebook group | instagram | YouTube

With over 25 years of sewing experience, Amanda started Sew Bestie in Oceanside, CA in 2018 to share her passion and received Small Business of the Year in 2019 from the city of Oceanside and in 2020 from the state of CA. Since opening the first location, Amanda began traveling to teach at various events, retreats and expos all over the US and beyond! Her specialty is taking complicated concepts and breaking them down for understanding. Her favorite fabric bases to work with are smooth and clear vinyl for bags and accessories, cotton lycra for clothing and after years of trial and error, has finally accepted zippers as a preference over buttons! Amanda is SEW excited to bring her designs to OSQE in 2024!

 

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.

 

Barb Hembree

North Richland Hills, TX

Richland Sewing Center

richlandsewing.com

Over the past 25 years Barbara has taught Brother classes at Richland Sewing Center in her spare time. From embroidery digitizing to creating ScanNCut projects, her passion for learning new techniques shines through as she shares her knowledge. Now that she has retired she can't be more tickled to create and design in her sewing room every day.  

 

Lorraine Henry

San Diego, CA
Lorraine Henry for Conselle

conselle.com

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Lorraine is a specialist in sewing, fitting and pattern alteration for Conselle Institute of Image Management. With a degree in Clothing and Textiles she has been a university instructor. Teaching pattern alteration and fit is her favorite thing to do. She has done this at international sewing shows for many years. Her Two Easy Measuring tape set has been an aid for achieving good fit for fashion sewers throughout the world. With 40+ years experience as a custom dressmaker/tailor/teacher, she has a wealth of knowledge to share with you about sewing and fit.

 

Rae Imdieke

Midlothian, TX

Emporium Threads

emporiumthreads.com

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At 18, Rae began teaching herself how to sew as a form of creative expression. She brings more than 15 years of sewing experience to the table when teaching others how to craft unique and one of a kind handbags as well as personal accessories. Her teaching style has been touted as "Easy to follow", "Great for beginners", and "Patient and detailed". She offers a wide selection of staple bag making hardware, tools, notions and templates, curated for those who seek the best quality on the market for their handmade items. Based in central Texas, she runs her online web store and travels the country teaching in person bag making classes and vending her exclusive merchandise. Additionally, she offers online tutorials via YouTube.

Lindsey Johns
Charlotte, NC
Inside The Hem

insidethehem.com

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Lindsey Johns is the host of the popular YouTube sewing channel, Inside The Hem. There she posts videos highlighting garment sewing. She's taught beginner and advanced sewing classes on everything from unboxing a sewing machine to fitting tips and sewing skills. She's also appeared on It's Sew Easy TV showing simple skills for improving garment sewing.

 

Joyce Keske

Minong, WI

Joyce Keske Design

Joyce started her sewing career in her early 20s making leather jackets. She started her own bridal business, which led to working for David’s Bridal where she was named “Alteration Manager of the Year” for the entire United States. Later she became a Baby Lock Ambassador where she discovered her passion for teaching. She now travels the country teaching for her company, Joyce Keske Design.

 

Judy Kessinger

FitNice

fitnicesystem.com

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Judy Kessinger started her career traveling nationwide holding seminars for Hancock Fabrics for over 25 years. She also designed costumes for national and international figure skaters and created a fast and easy way to conquer fitting problems for that field.

 

Judy’s next goal was to make stress-free sewing with simple solutions for fitting. Her personal style included many relaxed, comfortable but well fitted outfits. In her search for the “perfect” pattern she decided to use her experience and create the system herself. The Master Tops and Master Pants patterns were born! Once you FIT the basic pattern, you create an entire wardrobe with 5 pattern pieces

 

With the addition of her remarkable books, Design It Yourself the techniques book, Simple Sewlutions and her newest, Top It Off, she has completed the perfect system.
                   
She is known by many as the Fit Doctor, curing the ills of the sewing “blues”. Sewing is the easy part but it’s the FITTING that makes garments come alive and compliment the body instead of just covering it!
     
Judy has been blessed to have touched the lives of countless women, teaching them the tricks of looking trim and feeling fantastic by simply fitting themselves properly.

Marsha Kirsch
Bay Village, OH
The past 12 years Marsha has been a national educator for SVP worldwide. She is greatly loved for her enthusiasm and lively presentations while sharing masterful technical skills or the inspiration that sewers take away from her events. Using her education background she imparts an empowering "can do" attitude, opening up doors to creativity, and fun ways to embellish projects with exciting results. Student smiles at the end of her events are her reward. Marsha enjoys creating and designing garments, purses and home decor projects which incorporate a creative touch, especially through embellishment. She has had publications in Design in Machine Embroidery and Classic Sewing magazines and had appeared with Sue Hausmann on PBS and Behind the Seams, an internet sewing show through SVP.

 

Heather Kojan

Owings Mills, MD
Heather Kojan Quilts
heatherkojan.com
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Heather has been sewing since her teens and quilting for more than 25 years. She considers herself a modern quilter, with traditional roots. Heather is the founder of the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild and loves speaking to different groups and sharing the modern aesthetic. Foremost a teacher, she teaches modern quilting classes in local shops, guilds and shows across the country. Heather was a contributing author to the book Classic Modern Quilts and a featured quilter in The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood. You can also find her work in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine and Modern Patchwork magazine.

 

Lisa Magnuson

Chelmsford, MA

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Lisa loves crafting of all sorts including sewing, needle felting, crocheting, and Ukrainian egg decorating. She also loves teaching and helping others learn these arts. Lisa created a series of “I Made It” workshops and has taught many courses throughout New England as well as national sewing expositions. As a felting artist, Lisa loves to help others learn this fun craft.

 

 

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

Colorado Springs, CO

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
Martha Pullen Company

Classic Sewing

classicsewingmagazine.com
thesewingcollection.com

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Kathy McMakin is one of America’s foremost authorities in the field of heirloom sewing by machine and by serger. She teaches beginning and advanced sewers from every corner of the world and inspires a new level of confidence in her students. Kathy is the Director of Education for Martha Pullen Company and produces sewing and serging events held all across the United States. As the team leader and instructor for the Martha Pullen Teacher Licensing Program for both face-to-face and online curriculums, she can be found designing, serging, sewing and writing instructions on almost every day of the week.

She has been a guest instructor at events for every major sewing machine manufacturer in the world. She has authored several smocking, sewing and serging books and has produced and appeared in numerous sewing and serging videos. Her guest appearances on sewing television shows are many. Kathy is going on 30+ years with Martha Pullen Company and lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband. They have two grown children and three absolutely 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.

 

Megan Nixon
Sweetly Unique Boutique

Goodyear, AZ

sweetlyuniqueboutique.com

boutique facebook group | pattern facebook group

 

 

 

Kathy Ruddy
Mukilteo, WA
kathyruddy.com
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Kathy is an international sewing celebrity, educator, pattern designer, Serger and fitting expert. Active in the sewing industry since 1962, she is the star of 10 Serger and sewing videos and author of 12 Serger and sewing booklets and her new enhanced books on CD called Three ways to Learn CD'S. You can look at pictures of her projects from start to finish, read the words next to the pictures as you listen to Kathy impart her wisdom and experiences as she develops her projects. If you like a hard copy you can print off as many pages from the CD as you like. Her specialty is to show how to sew and serge fast and easy without sacrificing quality, fit or fashion details. Her fresh, fun classes are brimming with surprises and ideas.

 

Dianne Springer

Ruston, LA

Dianne Springer Designs

diannespringerdesigns.com

Dianne loves every aspect of craft and art she has attempted, inluding sewing, painting, glass blowing, sculpture and knitting. She acquired a Master's of Fine Arts degree in 1998 and after teaching in the Talented Visual Arts program for 25 years in the public school system, she began a new phase of art...quilting. In addition to teaching various aspects of quilting, Dianne designs fabrics and products, vends at quilting events and is the author of "Scrap-O-Later Quilts and More".

 

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"). 

 

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.

 

Kelly Williams

Westerville, OH

Hoffman Media | Classic Sewing magazine

classicsewingmagazine.com
thesewingcollection.com

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Kelly Williams a talented designer and seamstress, began sewing at the young age of 9. Her passion for sewing sparked a love for fashion as she designed and created stunning prom dresses featured in the pages of Sew Beautiful and Threads magazines. In 2008, Kelly was awarded grand prize in the JOANN Fabric and Craft Store’s “Sew Your Own Prom Dress” contest. She inspired sewist of all ages by modeling her prom dresses and Princess Diana replica wedding dress during the fashion show at the Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion and later became an instructor for the teen classes at the school while attending Kent State University obtaining a degree in Fashion Design. She spent 10 years working as a Technical Designer adjusting patterns and correcting fit for a fashion retailer then joined Classic Sewing magazine as Assistant Editorial Director, where she combines her fashion and pattern making skills with her love of sewing.

 

Joline Wunderl

Southlake, TX

Sew It Up BERNINA

sewitup.com
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Joline Wunderl is a lifelong sewing enthusiast with a special fondness for sewing for herself and her daughter. She spent many years teaching middle and high school English. In 2015, she happily merged interest and experience and became an educator at Sew It Up Bernina. Now an experienced and enthusiastic machine embroiderer, she enjoys teaching students at all levels the amazing things they can do with their embroidery machines!