Amanda Carita

Bonsall, CA

Amanda's Bundles

amandasbundles.com

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Amanda Carita is the owner and founder of Amanda's Bundles. She has a passion for sewing and sharing her love and knowledge of fabric. She founded her business on the dream of making beautiful, affordable fabric available to everyone.

 

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.

 

Tamara Evans

Flower Mound, TX

Sewing has been a lifelong passion for Tamara. While raising her children, she discovered the limitless creative options of machine embroidery, software, quilting and began a home-based embroidered gift business. Coming back to the corporate arena as a professional in the sewing industry, focusing on new product development, creative project design, embroidery education and quilting with an embroidery focus was full circle. Her joy is education, publishing articles, teaching at trade shows, conventions, and other events. Her goal is to simplify the tedious and frustrating aspects and inspire creativity and confidence. Now, as an impartial independent expert, she will educate and inspire students of all skill levels.

 

Amanda Gerard

Oceanside, CA

Sew Besite

sewbesite.com

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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!

 

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.

 

Jaymi Horne

Carmel, IN 

Cranky Kangaroo

crankykangaroo.com

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Jaymi Horne has been sewing professionally for over 20 years. She began quilting as a creative outlet, and fell in love with Foundation Paper Piecing. Dubbed the “FPP Queen” by her Instagram followers, she has designed over 50 Foundation Paper Pieced patterns, has been published in Make Modern Magazine and featured in local art shows.

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

Ellen Murabito

Woodbridge, VA

The Upcycle Lady

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Ellen Murabito . . . aka The Upcycle Lady . . . has always enjoyed sewing. Dabbling with upcycle sewing as a teen, it wasn’t until 2019 that she went “all in” and committed to a “no new fabric” mantra. Ellen is proud to say that it has been five years since she has purchased fabric off the bolt! She earned her Sustainable Design Entrepreneur Certificate from FIT New York in 2020, which opened her eyes to just how important the re-use of existing garments and textiles has become. She is leader of the Woodbridge Sewcial Club (based in Woodbridge, VA), a neighborhood group of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Sewing Guild, where she teaches thrifting and sustainable fabric sourcing, and upcycle sewing skills, and has been asked by the Director of the ASG to do a presentation to a national ASG sustainability group. Ellen is super-passionate about upcycling and it shows, in everything she teaches and creates, and she is here to encourage and teach YOU how to introduce upcycling to YOUR sewing skill set!

 

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.

 

Judy Phillips

Stow, OH

Sew Deja Vu

sewdejavu.com

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Ten years ago Judy Phillips opened Sew Deja Vu's doors with a mission to meet the needs of modern sewists. Bringing the newest notions, technical skill classes, and modern trendy fabrics to the hands of sewists and quilters everywhere. The quilt-covered walls and bolts of fabric provide creative inspiration for anyone who enters the store.

 

When Judy shared her passion for the art of sewing, she created a community of not only amazing customers but life-long friends. The home store is located in Stow, Ohio but on occasion, you can find Judy Phillips and the Sew Deja Vu crew traveling to different quilt expos and events. Giving her the ability to share her expertise with a larger audience, and watch their creativity bloom with every class she teaches.

 

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!

 

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.

 

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").

 

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.  

 

Michelle Umlauf
Sabillasville, MD
Sewing Machine Artistry
SewingMachineArtistry.com
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Michelle Umlauf has made a career for herself in the sewing industry working as an independent educator. She loves to share her passion with others and enjoys sharing her knowledge. She began taking teacher certification courses with the Martha Pullen Company and Sulky of America. Today she is a Demonstrator for Clover and a National Educator for Baby Lock, Sulky of America, and Pam Damour - the Decorating Diva. She helped found and hosted the Sewing Online with Sulky webinar. Michelle enjoys traveling across the country working for one of these companies in their booths or teaching in a classroom at national expos. She also enjoys bringing classes and lecture/demos to sewing shops, quilt guilds, and online. When she is home, she enjoys spending time with her family at their home in the mountains of Maryland. Her German Shepherds and rescue kitty enjoy taking mom on nice long walks in the woods! To learn more about Michelle, lookup her Facebook page Sewing Machine Artistry and join her for a UFO Friday Live. Become one of her "Sewing Friends" at SewingMachineArtistry.com.  

 

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.

 

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.