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.

 

Leslie Anthony

Bio coming soon!

 

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. 

 

Ellen Ault

Tampa, FL

MK Quilts

mkquilts.com

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Ellen Ault is a professional longarm quilter and the Creative Chief Officer for MK Quilts. Ellen leads the longarm studio and manages the full service quilt shop. She teaches piecing classes locally and shares her love of free motion quilting and rulers on MK Quilts University. She has been longarm quilting for 10+ years.

 

 

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. 

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

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

 

Glo Jensen

Pensacola, FL

sallietomato.com

Glo spent 24 years serving in the US Navy and now she is the proud owner of the Pensacola Retreat Center where she teaches classes and retreats for Sallie Tomato and Legit Kits. With a Doctorate in Education, Glo loves to explore patterns and teach others to do the same.

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.

 

Angie Lamoree
Weaverville, NC

Once upon a time (2005), Angie took her first quilting class just for the heck of it. After all, when you have five kids, you need to get out every once in a while, and just do something for yourself. She was hooked from the first lesson. It wasn’t long before her husband, DJ was trying his hand at it too, and was actually really good.

 

One day, Angie had the idea that if she was going to be a quilting addict, she might as well make a business of it, and get others hooked. After getting DJ and the kids on board, in April 2017, the little shop on Main Street in Weaverville, NC opened for business. Happily situated in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, the suburb of Asheville is a cultural mecca of handcrafters and artists.

Angie & DJ believe that quilting/sewing/crafting is a way to transform thoughts and emotions into beautiful, one-of-a-kind handmade items. And when helping those pieces make their way into the world, they believe in providing the highest-quality fabrics, tools, and supplies along with friendly, supportive help…and 5 Little Monkeys prides itself on making sure you have that.

 

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 own 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 found the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo, to be a great source of knowledge. Discovering Lorraine Henry’s fitting classes, she resonated with the Seam Method of pattern alteration. Susie trained with Lorraine and Judith Rasband in 2024 to ensure the method's continued availability and is now ready to share her expertise.

 

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
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.

 

GlitterBugFairy

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. The 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.

 

Carrie Philpott
Big Rapids, MI

Carrie simply loves to sew! Once she took her first sewing class at age 14, she has never looked back from the textile/fashion/sewing/quilting/embroidery world.  This has led her on an international journey through all phases of the textile/fashion world at the manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and consumer level.

 

In the 1990’s, Carrie discovered both sewing machine quilting and embroidery.  Since that time, she has created her own digitized embroidery designs, quilting patterns, clothing, and costume lines.

 

Her teaching career has spanned 3 continents with certifications from Sue Hausmann, Martha Pullen, Connie Crawford, Nancy Ziemann, and many others. Her quilts have been displayed at numerous major national shows and as part of Michelle Obama’s Quilts of Valor display in the White House.

 

Not having space for a longarm quilting was thrilled to discover Westalee Design rulers and templates that worked with her Sew Steady Table. The new EmbroideLee collections perfectly compliment her love of machine embroidery.

 

Classes with Carrie bring a wide variety of quilting, sewing, embroidery and crafting techniques from beginner to advanced level with excitement, humor, and fun

 

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!

 

Jerry Stube
Lakewood Ranch, FL

Bio coming soon!

 

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.