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About the Faculty

Frieda Anderson

Frieda received her BS in art history, with a minor in ceramics, at the University of Vermont. She also has an associate's degree from Harper College in Fashion Design. In her second floor studio in Elgin, IL, Frieda creates contemporary art quilts and one of a kind wearables. Her specialties include, fusing, creative machine quilting, and designing elegant and original garments.

Jodi Barrows

Quilting visionary, author and President of Quiltingly Yours, Inc., Jodi Barrows has been leading a Quilting Revolution before anyone knew there was one! She called it the Square in a Square® Revolution, and over the past 20 years she has remarkably touched tens of thousands of quilters throughout the world with her stunningly original message. Jodi's well-rounded background and interests played an integral part in formulating this innovative quilting technique. Her artistic abilities as a sewing designer and teacher, and her eager interest in history, spirituality and personal growth, have been the underlying forces throughout her life and education.

JoAnn Belling

JoAnn Belling has enjoyed the sewing machine since she began producing her own clothes at age 12. In 1965 she began quilting with heavy polyester fabrics and no formal instruction. Her quilts have been featured in national publications, and she has taught classes across the United States and in Japan for the past several years. JoAnn has received many ribbons and two Best of Show awards at the Iowa State Fair. JoAnn lives in Des Moines, IA, where her background as a photographer is evident in the composition theory she brings to planning and designing quilts. She is a specialist in precise machine piecing, color and design, borders, and back-art. She incorporates planning and shortcut methods into all her classes.

Nancy Bergman

Canadian Nancy is best known for her landscape quilts. Her designs are drawn from the natural world. After a thirty year career in teaching art among other things, quilting has given her a new media to teach. She has developed techniques for the pictorial and landscape quilter that make it easier to audition fabrics.

Cindy Blackberg

Cindy lives in Sorrento, Florida with her husband Bob. She began quiltmaking in 1974 when her two sons were young. After a move to south Florida in 1977 she began to teach quilting. In the last 25 years Cindy's teaching skills have earned her a loyal following throughout Florida and across the United States. Cindy's work is based on traditional patchwork patterns. She is a frequent contributor to American Patchwork & Quilting. Cindy is best known for her fine handwork skills in piecing & quilting.

Karen Kay Buckley

Karen took her first quilting class in 1982 at an adult education program at the local high school. In 1986 she opened a small quilt shop in Pennsylvania where she taught all levels of classes and eventually began creating here own patterns and classes. After selling the shop she devoted her time to teaching, designing and writing. She has four books published with AQS and her own line of patterns. With over 250 quilts Karen's personal work has received numerous awards including six Best of Show awards. 1997 brought her designation of Teacher of the Year by the Professional Quilter Magazine.

Linda Carlson

Linda has taught hand appliqué and machine piecing classes from Alaska to the Caribbean, and from Houston, TX, to Duluth, MN, since the 1980s. She has been a guest artist for the Elly Sienkiewicz Appliqué Academy. Bringing her national show judging experiences back to her students has provided them with great insight to the skills required to produce award winning quilts. Already equipped with two Bachelor degrees in education (elementary and music) Karen is also certified by the Library of Congress to transcribe Braille. These degrees and experiences prepared her for a career in quilting in that she possesses a good sense of humor, is patient, flexible yet guiding, and allows her students to follow the creative beat of their own drummer.

Sandi Cummings

A contemporary art quilter from Moraga, California, Sandi is best known for the vibrant, carefree use of color and lively movement in her quilt designs. Her work has been juried into many art quilt shows, including Visions, Women of Taste and Quilt National. She has numerous pieces in both personal and corporate collections. Sandi has a new book out with C&T Publishing entitled Thinking Outside the Block. In addition to making art quilts, Sandi has taught classes and classes for several years. She enjoys sharing her techniques, which offer a bridge into the world of contemporary quilt making. In her classes she emphasizes experimentation and encourages students to develop original design concepts-all of this with the idea of working hard but having fun.

Nancy Eha

Nancy is a lifelong Minnesotan current living in Stillwater, MN. The best way to describe her quilts is: EXCESSIVELY BEADED. She teaches extensively nationally, has appeared on Simply Quilts and in numerous books and magazine articles world wide.

Beth Ferrier

A highly experienced quilter with a gift for teaching, Beth offers fun and informative classes for beginning and experienced quilters. With a degree in biological sciences and hours in education classes, Beth brings her experience as mom to four active boys to her classes. A quilter since 1975, it did take long for her to begin designing patterns. A teacher by nature, it was only a matter of time before she began instructing quilters. Beth can be found at Applewood Farm Publications.

John Flynn

Montanan John Flynn is a prize-winning quilter, author, designer and inventor of the no-baste machine quilting system, the Flynn Multi-Frame. With over a dozen years of experience leading quilt classes coupled with his engineering background, John brings a unique blend of skills to the classroom. He is always challenging himself to make piecing and quilting techniques faster, easier and more accurate for his students. What time saving trick will you learn in his next class? There is a difference between making a living and living. John Flynn is fortunate to be able to make a living at something he loves: quilting.

Diane Gaudynski

Now a Master Quilter, Diane has been a quilter since the 1970s and began machine quilting in 1988 with Harriet Hargrave's first book firmly in hand. An accomplished designer with quilts in museums and private collections, Diane has appeared on many television shows and writes articles about the ins and outs of this art for American Quilter, Quilter's Newsletter, Threads, and other magazines. The author of the best selling book "Guide to Machine Quilting", she is known for ornate original quilting designs and subtle and sophisticated use of "mud"colors. Living in Wisconsin, her three cats help Dianne and one will try anything she can think of to eat cotton batt, but Diane usually wins.! She has been teaching various quiltmaking techniques for 14 years and loves to encourage beginners so that they too can sleep under beautiful quilts.

Sherrill Kahn

Sherrill was an art teacher for thirty years with emphasis upon drawing, painting, fiber, and design. Since retirement from teaching in public schools Sherrill has taught nationally and internationally for stores, conferences, guilds, and educational institutions. She owns Impress Me, a rubber stamp company with her husband Joel. She has three fabric lines with Robert Kaufman, a paint line and paint studio with Jacquard, and rollagraphs with Clearsnap. She has written over thirty-five magazine articles and two books. In addition, Sherrill makes creative books, innovative jewelry and dolls, paints and decorates every surface imaginable, and constantly explores new materials and new techniques. She lives by four simple words "Have Fun", and "What If?"

Jeana Kimball

Best known for her appliqué design work and her ability as a teacher of hand stitching techniques, Jeana comes to us from a rural town in Southern Utah where she builds on the traditions of six generations of quiltmakers in her family. Quiltmakers have enjoyed Jeana's work for over fifteen years in published works including Red and Green, Fairmeadow, Forget-Me-Knots and Loving Stitches.

Billie Lauder

Billie has been teaching quiltmaking since 1976 and is a certified teacher of art and anthropology. A third generation quilter, she has inherited her love of quilts from her grandmother and mother and has the ability to make quiltmaking easy and understandable for every level of quilter. She is best known for her mystery quilts. Her teaching techniques and quilts have also been featured on seventeen episodes of the Home & Garden Television Network's series Simply Quilts hosted by Alex Anderson.

Mickey Lawler

Using her grandmother's quilts as her only guide, Mickey began making quilts in 1968, and within ten years had constructed and hand-quilted over 100 full-size and crib-size quilts. In 1983 she started painting cotton to satisfy her own need for landscape and textural types of fabric and subsequently created Skydyes, a business specializing in hand-painted fabrics. Her exhibits and awards for quilting and surface design include the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Fabric Gardens exhibit which toured Japan in 1992 and Art Quilts: Playing with a Full Deck. Mickey is the author of Skydyes: A Visual Guide to Fabric Painting and coauthor of Not Just Another Quilt. She has taught her serendipitous style of fabric painting extensively for the past 15 years.

Bonnie Lyn McCaffrey

Bonnie has been quilting for over twenty years. Her quilts have been exhibited across the country. She was chosen as the recipient of the Jewel Pearce Patterson Scholarship Award in 1998 and traveled to Europe to attend European Quilt Market and International Quilt Expo in Austria. Since then she has crossed the Atlantic several times to teach in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Denmark, and Sweden. Bonnie's quilts have been seen in such publications as American Quilters Society Magazine, Quilting International, Quilter's Newsletter Magazine and Craftworks. One of her painted faces was on the cover of Quilting Arts Magazine. Bonnie specializes in kaleidoscope quilts, free form applique quilts, dimensional quilts, layered quilts, Fantasy Fabric, Fantasy Floral quilts and her newest venture - Painted Faces. She loves visiting with guilds everywhere and sharing her quilts and inspiration. Her goals are to travel, teach, and create visually pleasing fabric wall quilts that work well in homes and offices.

Sharon Pederson

Sharon, from Canada's west coast, has taught coast to coast in Canada and the United States, off shore she has taught in Hawaii and England and on Cruises to Mexico, the Bahamas and Alaska. She believes strongly that you can do anything on a machine and you should have fun doing it.

Jane Sassaman

Jane is a contemporary quilt artist, fabric designer, author and teacher whose critically acclaimed work inspires creative confidence in aspiring artists of all backgrounds. Her internationally known quilts are known for their bold designs, celebrating the energy and miraculous beauty of garden flowers and plants (and the occasional skeleton!). Jane is also an accomplished teacher of design and quilting for guilds and conferences around the world. She travels internationally, teaching groups and individuals how to nurture creativity, sharpen powers of observation and overcome creative obstacles. Jane spends part of her creative time designing fabric. Her first line, The Exotic Garden, debuted in 2002 and introduced the quilting, interior design and wearable markets to Jane's extravagant vision of flora and fauna in undeniably Sassaman colors. Inspired by the likes of Arts & Craft founder William Morris, the Finnish design company Merimekko and textile artist Kaffe Fassett, Jane has unapologetically produced exuberant large-scale design motifs drenched in exciting color.

Jeannie Spears

Jeannie was a founding member of Minnesota Quilters and publisher of The Professional Quilter Magazine. She went to Quilter's Newsletter Magazine in 1992 and retired in 1999. She is certified as a teacher and judge by NQA. She says that combining photos and quilting is one of the most creative things she has ever done.

Larkin VanHorn

The Duchess of Detail, The Empress of Embellishment, Larkin Van horn's art is exemplified by the titles of the classes and lecture she will present for MQ. Her own work, and the work of her students, is attractive from across the room because of shapes and colors, up close it's a wonder due to the textures of her fabrics and the great array of embellishment that she adds to every piece. Nationally known for her quilt and wearable art, she also has her first book in print and is always generous with her knowledge and enthusiasm. Larkin was surprised to find herself teaching in 1992, but found she loved the challenge and excitement of the classroom. Larkin's classes will stimulate your creativity. Larkin will share her own unique perspective and techniques, as well as encourage individual expression and exploration.

Barb Vlack

For nearly twelve years, Barb has been training herself to become an expert user of Electric Quilt software. She wrote 3 books, published by the Electric Quilt Company, to share tips and tricks for using the programs. She is internationally known through the Internet for her EQ expertise and has taught in Japan and throughout the United States. All of the quilts that she makes are designed in EQ.

Laura Wasilowski

A contemporary quilt maker, teacher and creator of hand dyed fabrics and threads Laura has a degree in Costuming from the College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, MN and a Master of Art degree in Fiber from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL. She is owner of ARTFABRIK. Vivid fabrics and whimsical stories make up her pictorial art quilts. Her colorful, hand-dyed fabrics and stories of family, friends, and home are her inspirations. Each wall piece is her own design of fused appliqué and machine quilting.

Darlene Zimmerman

Darlene lives in rural southwestern Minnesota with her husband and one daughter still at home. She enjoys every facet of quilt making, from designing tools and quilt patterns to writing books and creating reproduction fabrics (Granny's) and other fabric lines with Chanteclaire Fabrics, Inc. Her quilting career began 12 years ago with the invention of a tool to cut quarter-square triangles - Companion Angle, followed with her first book, Companions: Quilts and Miniatures. She went on to develop other tools (Tri-Recs, Easy Dresden, Easy Square, Easy Scallop) and publish 3 other books with a friend, Joy Hoffman (The Quilter's Kitchen, Calming the Storm and Quilts To Come Home To). Most recently Darlene has published Quick Quilted Miniatures with Krause Publications.

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