2024 Instructors
Heather Blokzyl
Teaching: Barn Quilt Painting
Heather Blokzyl is the owner of Flying Fox Barn Quilts from Towanda, PA. She creates one of a kind hand painted barn quilts for interior and exterior decorating.
Karen Comstock
Teaching: Hand Applique
Karen Comstock is a quilt designer who lives in Cary, NC. After years of perfecting her patterns with students, Karen officially launched her company, Quiltricks, in 2005. She has produced award-winning quilts, five dozen patterns, and traveled from Florida to Oregon exhibiting her work. Her designs have appeared in American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine, 100 Blocks From Today's Top Designers and McCalls quilting among others. She is, as her husband likes to say, a calendar girl; her Ohio Cabin quilt was featured as the full-page January illustration of the Better Homes and Garden Quilting Calendar 2003. "Patterns," a national exhibit devoted exclusively to her work, was on display at The National Humanities Center in North Carolina. One of the co-founders of the BeeFF's bee in Cary, she hosts meetings, amateur work days and group retreats in her home. Known as a caring instructor with a warm sense of humor, she is eager to share her love of the craft with quilters of every level.
Kelly Davis
Teaching: Sticks and Stones Table Runner, Hexie Puzzler, Raw Edge Machine Applique
Kelly is the owner of Hoppin Bobbin. Hoppin Bobbin operated in Aberdeen, MD for 9 years as a Brick and Mortar store and was featured as a Top Ten Shop in Quilt Sampler Magazine in 2016. Over the years Kelly has taught many quilting classes, taught at Schoolhouse at International Quilt Market, spoken at Guilds and enjoys sharing her knowledge with the Quilting Community. She jokingly calls herself a “Pressing Maniac” and a “Grainline Geek” but anyone that has taken one of her classes will let you know the importance of those characteristics. While Kelly closed the Brick and Mortar store in September of 2019 to have more time to spend with her family, she continues to Longarm Quilt for her customers and designs her original patterns out of a home based Quilting Studio located in Quarryville, PA. You can find Kelly vending at Local and National Shows, Teaching at Shows and Local Quilt Shops or schedule an appointment to visit. To view Kelly’s schedule, contact information and products on her website, visit www.hoppinbobbin.com or follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Hoppin-Bobbin.
Denise Delp
Teaching: Basic Machine Quilting, Machine Quilting Feathers
Denise Delp opened In Stitches Quilt Shop in Sept. of 2007 and has taught many classes on a variety of subjects. Denise has been a long armer for 12 years now and specializes in pantographs and custom quilting. She started with making fleece blankets and selling them at craft shows many years ago as a self taught quilter (at least in the beginning!). Denise believes in extending your education with quilting and "stepping out of your comfort zone" to grow as a quilter and sewer. That is the only way to become a more confident quilter and to have a variety of skills available to you.
Kathy Farra
Teaching: Love Your Featherweight
Kathy Farra from Harmony, PA- aka Machine Lady, LLC is dedicated to preserving sewing history by helping people use their Singer 221 Featherweight sewing machines effectively. We are a full service repair shop and we attend several quilt shows each year. At quilt shows our focus is on selling Featherweights and accessories including: power cords, bobbins, walking feet, ¼” feet, books, oil, motor lubrication, and other parts. We also bring other vintage Singer machines for sale. Please stop by our booth and test drive our machines to find the machine that fits your needs. We also have some hand crafted items for your Featherweight machines, including custom made Featherweight tables and other unique accessories.
Dawn Heefner
Quilt Appraiser
Dawn Heefner has been an AQS-Certified appraiser since 2003, practicing in the Pennsylvania-South Jersey-Delaware-Maryland area. Her work covers newly made quilts as well as antiques. She is a member of PAAQT, the Professional Association of Appraisers of Quilted Textiles, and adheres to Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). Dawn has participated in quilt documentations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and has co-authored several of the resulting books. She has been active in the American Quilt Study Group, and has studied textiles and quilts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Andrea Hoke
Teaching: Lucy's Terrace, Intro to Handquilting: Traditional vs Big Stitch, Bloom Quilt, Wonky Log Cabin
Andrea has been sewing ever since she was a little girl. Fortunate to have a mother who was a Home Economics teacher, she learned to sew and do needlework at a very young age. She grew up sewing her own clothes, participating in 4-H club, and entering her creations in the local county fair.
A Sampler Quilt class in 1991 awakened Andrea’s love of quilting, and she has been stitching quilts ever since. She enjoys all forms of quilting, including hand and machine piecing, appliqué, and hand and machine quilting. She has entered her quilts in the Elizabethtown Fair almost every year for the past 25 years.
“Modern Traditionalist” best describes Andrea’s style. She loves all things vintage, which is reflected in her work. The exploding online quilting community has only fueled her passion for quilting, and as a result, she has “more quilts in her brain than she will be ever be able to stitch in this lifetime!” Andrea enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience and delights in introducing sewing and quilting to others.
Andrea lives in Elizabethtown, PA and also enjoys cooking, gardening and blogging
Ann Holte
Teaching: Lancaster Diamond Sampler, Quilt-As-You-Go BAT Technique, Lecture: Quilting for a Cause
Ann has been quilting since 1975, when she thought everything had to be pieced and quilted by hand to be a “real quilt.” Since then, she has learned that real quilts are sewn in as many ways as there are quilters. She is particularly interested in working with vintage quilts to translate and interpret those designs by using modern fabrics, methods, and techniques.
She started teaching in the 1980s and, along with her husband Dale, opened a quilt shop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1997. Now living in the Hershey area, she is involved with several quilt guilds and meets regularly with an antique quilt study group in Lancaster.
At her studio in Hummelstown (Hershey area), Pennsylvania, she works on books and patterns. She teaches quilting and design classes in what she considers to be the perfect classroom. The space is available for others to teach sewing, quilting, and other arts and crafts workshops. Monthly sewing sessions are held to make Quilts of Valor.
Ann has written two books: Making the Lancaster Diamond Sampler (Schiffer, 2013) and, along with authors Sue Reich and Renelda Peldunas-Harter, Quilts of Valor: A 50-State Salute (Schiffer, 2018).
Kaye Koler
Teaching: Miniature Foundation Piecing, Lecture: Cleaning Vintage Textiles, Lecture: TShirt Quilt Basics
Kaye began sewing at age eight with the encouragement of her sister, making doll clothes and purses on her grandmother’s old Singer sewing machine. From there it was on to garments, enrolling every sewing class she could in junior high and high school to improve her grade average. (the A’s in sewing made the C’s and D’s look a little better to her mom!) She always loved everything fabric-y and crafty especially if was small! That lead her to teddy bears in miniature and then naturally to quilts in miniature when there was little room left for big quilts! She discovered foundation/paper-piecing was the way to go for precision and machine quilting for speed. She enjoys sharing her knowledge, is dedicated to positive and patient instruction to help develop new skills in each student ! Kaye has won awards for her miniature quilt “Home At Last” in Ireland, Houston, Paducah, NQA in Columbus, OH and at Indiana Heritage Quilt festival.
RaNae Merrill
Teaching: Simply Amazing Baravelle Spirals, Lecture: Six Basic Shapes
I began quilting in 1989 (my first year of graduate school) by finishing a quilt my grandmother had been making for me when she died in 1976. (It turned out to be king-size and I hand quilted the whole thing!) Later I found a batch of nine-patch squares in a trunk that had belonged to her, and I started using those to make baby quilts for my nieces and nephews. When people began praising my designs and suggesting that I quilt professionally, I brushed off the idea as impractical. So it was a surprise to me when I stumbled into quilting professionally back in 2005. I took some fabric design ideas to a few fabric manufacturers for feedback. To my surprise, Blank Quilting bought one of the groups I showed them. As I left the meeting, the designer I had met with suggested that I go to Quilt Market in Houston. I ended up at Quilt Festival and that was my first quilt show. It blew my mind! I saw quilts in a totally new way. And I learned that it was possible to make a career of quilting.
I published my first book, Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts, in 2008, inspired by a doodle of a spiral I drew while on a temp job. That book was followed by two more books about spiral quilts: Magnificent Spiral Mandala Quilts and Sideways Spiral Quilts.
Free-Motion Mastery in a Month, my fourth book, is a shift from quilt design to free-motion quilting. It's based on my experience as a pianist and piano teacher. Who knew when I started taking piano lessons at age 4 (and eventually got a Master's Degree in Piano Performance) that it would lead to teaching free-motion quilting?! It has been really fun to see people get excited about this unique approach to learning FMQ!
The day I got my first box of books back in October 2008 I walked out the door to my first teaching engagement and I've been teaching ever since. I've taught throughout the USA, and also in South America (where I teach in Spanish).
Somewhere in all of that, I also worked for a few years as a photographer and a travel writer. I still love to travel, though lately it seems like more of a treat to stay home and explore New York City! When getting out into nature to hike, kayak, ski and watch meteor showers.
Patricia Simons
Teaching: Template Mania, Do It Yourself Designs...Really!
Patricia represents Quilter’s Rule. When Quilter's Rule created the Design Tools line, Patricia developed a knack for designing different quilting patterns. Her signature class “Unlock Your Creativity (The Key is Templates)” has opened a whole new world to people who are not naturally artists. Her techniques are applicable to all quilters regardless of whether you hand quilt, use a home machine, a short-arm, a mid-arm, or a long-arm machine. These techniques can even be used in a variety of different crafts. In addition to using templates to create designs, she also helps create new products. She looks forward to sharing her techniques to help you develop your own style and look.
David Sirota
Teaching: Scrapy Chevron Star, Card Trick 2.0, Sew Many Triangles, Crossed Canoes
It all started because I needed kitchen curtains and decided to make them myself. But that’s a whole other story.
I have been quilting since the late 90’s (that’s1990’s) after my friend Amy Fitzpatrick taught me the basics of quilting. And I thank “Simply Quilts” for all of the information and instruction that Alex Anderson and her guests provided. It felt like I was going to quilting school, and I tried not to miss a class.
There was one technique that I was immediately drawn to, and that was paper piecing. I thought it was so cool because of the intricate and accurate results you get. The only drawback was that it was really difficult to wrap my brain around, kinda like upside down and backwards. If you’ve ever tried it, you know what I mean. But once I got it, the results were quite exciting. Except, there were a couple of huge drawbacks…how to orient the next piece of fabric, and removing the paper. Regardless of the kind of paper I used, it still had to be removed at the end, which took as long or longer than the construction of the quilt!
So, I started thinking about how to make paper piecing simpler and faster. And I’m proud to say that in 2004, I figured it out. My "Sirota No More Tears Paper Piecing”© method is easier to understand and takes at least half the time than the way paper piecing has been done traditionally.
My goal was to take the anxiety out of paper piecing and replace it with the joy of the process. Paper piecing is now fun, easy and quick.
Don't believe me? Take a class and find out for yourself.
Jennifer Strauser
Teaching: Kawandi- Folded Improv, Improv with Framework, Partial Seams, Simple Improv
Jennifer Strauser is a quilting educator and designer who works with some of the top brands in the industry. She is part of the team at Gotham Quilts, making world class quilting classes available online. Her work has appeared in many industry publications, including Curated Quilts and McCall’s Quilting. Jen got started quilting when her first child was a toddler – she needed something in her life that she could control. Her gallery show at the Metuchen Library was a career highlight. Currently Jen is working on a series of hand-made projects emphasizing mindfulness. When Jen isn’t teaching, you can find her at home, dreaming up the next big project for Threadsome Patterns or writing about quilting for her blog, Dizzy Quilter, which will be 8 years old this year!
Tammy Wycherley
Teaching: Laura Heine Collage
Tammy is a certified instructor of the Laura Heine method of collage quilting. Based out of West Virginia, she has been sewing and quilting most of her life. One of her favorite projects is the Collage Technique. She loves the process of cutting fabric and putting it together to make unique designs that are fun to display. This scissor project offers two techniques and will look great in your sewing area.