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Diane L Murtha

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Home: Iowa

Diane is a Zoom-ready Quilter, Fiber Artist, Teacher and Lecturer with enthusiasm to spare!

Quilting for over 30 years, she gravitated to art quilts 10 years ago. Her quilts and articles are in several books and magazines. Her quilts also travel nationally/internationally in multiple special exhibits, including Houston’s International Quilt Festival and Paducah’s National Quilt Museum.

Diane completely reinvigorated her love of quilting since she started doing Challenge quilt projects. The Challenge rules encourage her to try new things, learn new techniques, make mistakes, AND keep trying! Diane shares this enthusiasm and excitement in ALL of her Lectures & Workshops! It doesn’t matter if you are a traditional quilter, modern, or art quilter – we all can learn from challenging ourselves. Diane will inspire and encourage you to do just that through any of her lectures and workshops!

She has 3 Virtual Lectures and several workshops available.  Here are two:

Challenge I – Accept the Challenge Lecture – An informative and humorous perspective on my quilt challenge experiences, including a trunk and slide show. I’ll discuss what I’ve learned from the various challenges, other ways to challenge yourself and sources of inspiration. And most importantly how challenges can expand your quilting skills and inspire all your quilting!  It’s Super popular – with wide audience appeal. You will laugh and hopefully be inspired.

Modified Quilt As You Go Workshop –  A great technique for anyone intimidating by quilting a large quilt or for quilting in small spaces like retreats, condos, or for me, my RV.  This class yields perfectly quilted blocks embellished with a variety of applique options. Quilting thru each block and batting individually makes quilting easy for both new and experienced quilters alike – no bulk or awkward struggling with a large sandwiched quilt.  This technique can be used to create any size quilt that can be appliqued in endless options. So much fun! 

Please visit my website for more details: https://www.dianeLmurtha.com

Instagram: dianeLmurtha

Contact Diane via email at dlmurtha2018 @ gmail.com [remove spaces]

I’d be honored to speak or teach to your guild or small group of friends. I hope to hear from you.  Until then – Stay Safe and Happy Quilting Thanks 

Please let Diane know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

It is my pleasure to recognize the outstanding job Diane Murtha did in presenting two of her Zoom workshops for our Guild.

Diane’s workshop  “Quilt as You Go“ was our first venture into virtual interactive Zoom meetings. Due to Diane’s leadership and technical knowledge, it was an unexpectedly delightful and stress free experience.

Diane is an engaging, personable and talented instructor. Her desire to ensure all participants are successful was evident in her pre-class instructions, preparation and planning. The individual attention she gave each student made us feel she was there right with us. She also provided the resources to be sure that we had everything we needed during the class. Aside from learning new skills she made the intimidating world of virtual classes fun and by the end of the class we felt we were physically all in the same space.

Our guild has taken additional classes from Diane and look forward to more offerings from her.
Diane Murtha’s  was very easy to work with: responding quickly to emails and following up on questions/concerns. Diane has set a high bar for all the instructors who follow.

She opened up an important world for us.  As a small Guild in the middle of the Pacific Ocean we can now access high-quality instructors without having the expense of their traveling to Hawaii. As you can tell, we highly recommend Diane Murtha.
        Mahalo.                 Maui Quilt Guild       Dian Gruber past VP/Program Chair

Diane Murtha’s Zoom lecture on Challenge Quilts was a real delight. I will admit to laughing out loud at several points as she shared a number of her “failures.” Such an important and humbling lesson for all of us. I laughed and ooh’ed so much that my husband asked me the next morning, “Who were you talking to?” While it would have been nice to be in person to hear a loud and appreciative audience, the Zoom format worked extremely well. Diane knows what’s she’s doing with technology, with quilting, and with engaging an audience. I recommend her highly. ~Elizabeth Bell, Vice-President for Programming, Piecemakers Quilt Guild of Brandon

Julia Graves

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Home: Leesburg, Virginia

Julia Graves is a Zoom-experienced lecturer and teacher on a variety of quilting subjects, with a focus on color and design that are applicable to all your future quilts. 

Her Amazing Abstracts class teaches how to use color and value to create amazing movement and drama.  Her traditional piecing classes that focus on color and value include Tricks with Transparencies, Luscious Luster, Rainbow Drops and Shimmering Triangles.   Other fun classes include creating your own gemstone in Gemstone Bling and Color Exploration where we play with color to see the effects we can achieve.  She has lectures on Color, Design, Landscape Quilts, Personalizing and Memory Quilts, Community and Faith in Fiber and her very popular My Quilting Journey.

Let There Be Light

Julia’s two most popular bookings are:

  • Color Exploration Lecture – This lecture will discuss how to select beautiful color combinations for your quilts and provide tips on how to fix color combinations that just don’t seem to be working.  Includes a slide show and trunk show illustrating classic color combinations and fascinating color illusions.
  • Amazing Abstracts Class – Create an abstract quilt that has amazing movement and drama. Go from inspiration to a simple sketch, then have fun “coloring” your sketch with bits of fabric to create a mock-up of your design – see before you sew!  The design is gridded and blocks are foundation pieced using an easy sew and flip method with room for creativity and improvisation.  Lots of discussion of design principles and how to use color and value to create the drama and desired effects.  

Julia started her quilting business, Special Occasion Quilts LLC, in 2007 and teaches, lectures, designs patterns, makes commission quilts, longarms for others and sells & services APQS longarm machines.  She won Best Longarm Machine Workmanship Wall Quilt Category at the 2016 Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, is a Gem Affiliate teaching the gorgeous gem patterns by MJ Kinman – Textile Artist, has had quilts published in books by Gloria Loughman, Katie Pasquini-Masopust and MJ Kinman, was an Artist in Residence at Empty Spools in 2019, and will be teaching at Empty Spools in 2021 and 2022 and Hudson River Valley Art Institute in 2022.  

Julia has been sewing since she was ten and always loved fabric, needle arts and the entire creative process.  She did her apprenticeship as a quilter by making a quilt for each of her nieces and nephews (and thinks she should have counted them before making this promise – there were 32!).  She has since made more quilts than she can count, many for charity, and is partial to scrap quilts and working with color to achieve amazing results. 

Visit her gallery on her website at http://www.soquilts.com.  Contact Julia viat email –juliagraves82 @ gmail.com. Julia has videos of her on this page: http://soquilts.com/classes-and-lectures/

Be sure to tell Julia that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Rachel Derstine

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Home: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Rachel Derstine is an award winning fiber artist. Her works are featured in invitational and juried gallery shows and fine art/craft shows throughout the country. Her work has been purchased and installed in institutions such as Epic Corporation in Madison, WI, and the Milton Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA.

Rachel specializes in improvisational piecing, vibrant landscapes, couching (stitching yarn to quilt surface) and teaching of basic design elements. She has experience giving online presentations and classes.

Having grown up in Japan, this influence is evident in her style and use of kimonos, silks, ikats, hand dyed and batik fabrics. She includes traditional techniques of quilting as well as her own innovative materials and methods to achieve her desired designs.

Lecture Topic and Description

From Inspiration to Art Process

PowerPoint lecture presentation on the topic of where I find inspiration for my art: Other artists, photographs, influences from life experiences. I include process photos and discuss how to make effective quilts using art concepts such as limiting color palette, simplifying the background, using repetition of line, shapes, value and color throughout the work.

Workshop – Strata Quilt

We will do curved piecing of coordinated hand dyed and commercial fabrics for the background. Easy free motion and walking foot quilting designs will be introduced. Organza circles will be stitched to the surface with single or double needle applique. Yarns will be couched to the surface for movement and definition. Kit optional – $30.

Workshop – Artful Couching

Learn the art of couching with yarns to create texture, flow and extra pizzazz. This is a full day class. We will first create our quilt sandwich and learn some quilting designs created using the walking foot. We will then focus on mastering couching techniques. Students will bring a striped batik or gradient fabric and coordinating yarn to make this 18″ x 45″ table runner size quilt. This class will show you the many ways to use couching for definition and sparkle, by incorporating a variety of cording, yarn and metallic threads in your work.

Please visit Rachel on her website at https://rachelderstinedesigns.com or for individual online classes visit: https://artfulquiltingandsewing.com

Contact Rachel at rachelderstine @ gmail com and watch her on video on her YouTube Channel – Rachel Derstine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXbECzO6YvG9Nlhku9Q7i8Q

Please tell Rachel that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Sue Hurley

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Home: Princeton, NJ

1 ¼ hour class: Free Motion Quilting with Rulers $200

Your quilt top is finally pieced and your pattern ends with those three scary words ‘Quilt As Desired‘. Now what? Take a deep breath, drop those feed dogs and try free-motion quilting with rulers!
Up until a few years ago, quilting with rulers on your domestic machine was unheard of. Rulers were the tools of longarmers. That’s not true anymore! Now quilters are using rulers to create beautiful and precise designs, from straight lines to curves to feathers and so much more.

When ruler quilting started gaining popularity around 2017, Sue was teaching a free-motion quilting class at her local quilt shop. At that time, there wasn’t much information available about quilting with rulers on the domestic sewing machine. Thinking rulers would be a good class for the shop, she watched videos, bought a ruler foot and some rulers and started playing. That’s exactly how she describes quilting with rulers – it’s like playing because it’s so much fun!

Whether you’re a true beginner to ruler work or you’ve had some experience with rulers, you’ll learn something from this presentation. Many quilters believe that you must be an experienced free-motion quilter to use rulers. That’s not the case. Beginners seem to find working with rulers easier than doing straight free-motion work. It just takes a little practice.
Sue loves to share her quilting knowledge with others.

During the first half of her presentation, she’ll discuss the ruler foot, rulers and what to look for when purchasing rulers, and supplies needed for ruler quilting. She’ll share a lot of information and helpful tips that she’s picked up along the way.

In the second half of the presentation, Sue will demo a few rulers. She’ll show you how easy it is to stitch straight lines with the straight-edge ruler and how to stitch a perfectly round circle with a circle ruler. Time permitting, she’ll also demo a clamshell ruler.

Sue is an avid quilter who has been quilting for 36 years. She started out as a hand quilter, then moved on to machine quilting with a walking foot. Free-motion quilting quickly followed. After retiring from her computer programming job in 2008, she started teaching at her local quilt shop. Free-motion quilting and Ruler Quilting are two of her most popular classes. Sue is Zoom ready. You can reach her at shurley36 @ hotmail.com.

Be sure to tell Sue that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Gloria Stickney

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Home: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Owner: Sew Fabulous, Inc.

Sew Fabulous is the “Zoom” for you!!

A treat for your guild…We have door prizes and online discounts for those who participate in our zoom presentations! Just ask.

I offer 2 Zoom guild presentations which you can choose from:

1) I specialize in teaching the Square in a Square system designed by Jodi Barrows. The unique system to make precise triangle points with speed and accuracy with only squares and strips. Our presentations are interactive and fun. We have a trunk show of 20+ quilts as well as live demonstration of the Square in a Square technique and how we add our own twist of colors and designs.

2) Finishing quilts. Since COVID, everyone has been working on quilts and now we’re looking at how to finish them. We illustrate 4 types of machine binding including a “no seam” fussy cut binding technique. We call the presentation “Finishing Quilts: Door #1, Door #2, Door #3 and Door #4”

We have 20+ quilts for a trunk show as well as live demonstration. We would love to host your guild meeting and take a twirl around our Sew Fabulous quilting space! Find the next inspiration for your quilting project at Sew Fabulous, Inc.

Gloria started sewing at 6 years of age and has been professionally quilting since 2006. By day, she is the Grants and Contracts Manager for the Physics Department at Wake Forest University and Sew Fabulous is her play job! In 2006, she designed the Dreamin’ Deacon© quilt for Wake Forest University. This quilt literally launched Sew Fabulous and the business has been growing and expanding every year since then. She has licensed several handcrafted items for the Wake Forest University collegiate licensing.

Gloria has been teaching quilting classes for 12 years and provided many guild demonstrations using the Square in a Square system. Her students include beginning to advanced quilters. She discusses the use of creating intricate pieced blocks with speed and accuracy. Gloria specializes in teaching the Square in a Square technique, making custom theme-stitched t-shirt memory quilts, provides edge to edge longarm quilting services, and creating Wake Forest University licensed products.

One of her popular Zoom guild presentations is Finishing Quilts. Gloria will discuss 4 ways to bind quilts by machine. One of the techniques includes a fussy cut binding with no seams. Watch those mitered corners!

You may contact Gloria Stickney at gloria @ sewfabulousquilts.com and find out more about her on her website www.sewfabulousquilts.com

Please let Gloria know that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!

Darlene Price

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Home: Chesapeake, Virginia

Darlene Price has been around a needle, thread and sewing machine all her life. After retiring from life as a Commercial Real Estate Paralegal her goal was to figure out quilting. Art Quilts is where she landed. Come take a look at her work, her lectures and classes. 

Visit Darlene’s website at Quiltscapesbydarlene.com. 

Be sure to tell Darlene that you found her on The Quilters Calendar!