Block Party with Quiltmaker Instructors

We've combed the country looking for an "A" team of experts, brought together exclusively at Block Party with Quiltmaker. Learn from this stellar line-up of Quiltmaker editors and designers, industry innovators, and creative leaders.

Take some time to get to know the source of the inspiration at Block Party with Quiltmaker, our "dream team" of amazingly talented instructors, each with a keen eye for cutting edge techniques, expressive projects, and the rare ability to inspire as they teach.

Gudrun Erla

Gudrun Erla, the designer and owner of GE Designs was born and raised in Iceland. She started quilting at the age of 23 and became totally addicted to it right away. After owning and running quilt shops in her home country and designing patterns along side it, a career move brought the family to Minnesota in 2003. Since then Gudrun has been designing full time, publishing patterns and books from her home office in Chanhassen, MN; where the family has been living since the move to the US.

Gudrun loves everything quick and simple, so her quilts might look more complicated than they really are. She loves to find ways to do things quicker and use easier methods. Her "quilt as you go" patterns have been very popular, with easy to follow instructions and quick assembly and finishing. All her patterns are geared toward today's quilt makers, easy and fast with a modern touch. Gudrun has also been designing fabrics for Red Rooster Fabrics since 2006.

Beth Ferrier

Beth describes her style as rebellious traditional. A quilter since 1975, Beth is forever in search of easy and simply elegant solutions to quilting challenges. Everything she designs is geared towards teaching skill-expanding tips and techniques. Beth lives in Saginaw, MI with her darling husband, Kent, in an old farmhouse, built before 1860. You've seen her on Simply Quilts, Kaye's Quilting Friends and The Quilt Show with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson. She's written several books, most recently More! Hand Appliqué by Machine and Sneaky Piecing with C&T Publishing. Her website is www.applewoodfarmquilts.com.

Diane Harris

QM's Interactive Editor Diane Harris joined the staff in 2005 as Associate Editor. She wrote QM pattern instructions and product reviews for five years, and then turned to blogging and online writing for Quiltmaker. She also writes QM's how-to articles called Skillbuilders and presents how-to video workshops for quilters.

Diane lectures for Quiltmaker and teaches a variety of classes locally. Her design style is funky and eclectic and she has a passion for scrap quilts using unlikely fabric combinations. Her classes are primarily about fun and letting go of the rules, and they always include bonus information so that every student leaves having learned something useful. 

Diane has been sewing for more than 40 years and quilting for 27. She lives on a working farm in rural Nebraska and is also passionate about gardening, collecting and grandbabies.

Julie Herman

Julie Herman is better known in the quilting community as Jaybird.  So where did the name come from?  Childhood nickname of course!  

Julie is a self-taught quilter and a designer with a Bachelor of Science in Visual Studies & Design from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. Completing her Masters in Education, also at Drexel, prepared her to teach quilting classes. She loves the "I get it!" moment her students experience when they learn a new technique.

Julie is an active blogger, published in numerous quilting magazines and also has her own quilt pattern line, Jaybird Quilts, available at local quilt shops and online. Her motto is "one girl on a mission to make life better with fabric!"

Her first book, Skip the Borders, was released by Martingale this summer. Keep up with Julie's latest quilting adventures on her website, jaybirdquilts.com, where you can follow her blog, learn about her quilting inspirations and find out where you can purchase her quilt patterns.

Bonnie Hunter

Bonnie K Hunter is passionate about quilting, focusing mainly on scrap quilts with the simple feeling of "making do."  She started her love affair with quilting in a home economics class her senior year of high school in 1980 and has never looked back.  Before quilting became her full time career, Bonnie was the owner and designer of Needle in a Haystack!! creating more than 70 patterns for dolls and stuffed animals with a country primitive feel.

She has been machine quilting since 1989 and professionally long arm quilting for the public since 1995, retiring in 2009 when she long longer had the time due to her teaching, traveling and writing schedule. She has been featured in magazines both for her quilt patterns and articles she has written on scrap management and using that stash to its full potential.

Dedicated to continuing the traditions of quilting, Bonnie enjoys meeting with quilters, teaching workshops and lecturing to quilt guilds all over the world, challenging quilters to break the rules, think outside the box, and find what brings them joy.

When not traveling and teaching, she spends her time piecing scrap quilts, enjoying the peaceful reward of English paper piecing and hand quilting as much as machine work, and loving life in her wooded surroundings in beautiful rural Wallburg, North Carolina, a suburb of Winston-Salem.  She and her husband, Dave are the proud parents of two grown sons, Jason and Jeffrey.  They round out their household with Sadie the dog and two cats -Emmy Lou, who loves life inside only, an Chloe who only loves life on the outside-keeping Bonnie company while she designs, quilts and plays happily with her fabric.

Bonnie also writes a regular column for Quiltmaker Magazine entitled "Addicted to Scraps" with the main intention to help you to put various aspects of your own Scrap Users System to good use!

Jo Morton

My love of antique quilts has led me into a life as an author, teacher, lecturer and designer for Andover Fabrics. I continue my study of our ancestral quiltmaking and create my interpretations of 19th Century quilts by imitating colors and styles from period pieces. My recreations complement furnishings in country, traditional or contemporary settings. My husband says - " Jo took her first quilting class and hasn't been home since." You may agree with Russ!

I was introduced to quilting in 1979 and haven't put the needle down since! In 1982, I began teaching quiltmaking and by 1985 was creating small quilts with the charm of the antique, or "new quilts that look olde."

I began selling small quilts in 1988, and traveled east to exhibit at juried Folk Art Shows in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New England. Once a year I'd exhibit at the Designer Craftsman Show (a juried, invitational show) near Philadelphia, a retail venue for the serious collector of American craftsmanship.

When I began publishing patterns, I gradually stopped traveling to the Folk Art shows and concentrated on making my designs available to other quiltmakers. I now publish my quilt designs through "Jo Morton Quilts" and through October 2011 I have published 21 books.

In 2002, my first collection of fabric with Andover Fabrics was released. Ask for "Jo's" popular lines of fabric at quilt shops. I also began traveling extensively, giving programs and workshops.

My passion is to help other quilters learn techniques I have developed, and to nourish their creativity for making their own versions of reproduction style quilts.

I've had quilts published in American Patchwork & Quilting, Quilters' Newsletter Magazine, Quiltmaker, McCall's Quilting, Quiltmania, Fabrications, Australian Homespun, and Early American Life..

I have appeared on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson, Love of Quilting with Fons & Porter and The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims.

I live in Nebraska City with husband Russ and three kitties: Socks, Tigger and Chloe.     

Debbie Caffrey

Debbie Caffrey is a self-published author of thirteen books, dozens of patterns, and more than 200 mystery quilt patterns. Her fourteenth book, Surprise Yourself!, is co-authored with Charlotte Angotti. The new book will be released in May 2012.

Debbie began teaching energy-filled workshops in 1983 while living in Alaska. She has been teaching nationally and internationally since 1994. In 2000 she moved back to New Mexico.

Debbie brings efficient, precise, and contemporary techniques to making quilts. Her patterns reflect an updated look inspired by traditional pieced designs. While based upon tradition, her inspiration comes from many sources. Art, architecture, culture, nature, and cuisine are just a few of the things in New Mexico that inspire designs and fabric selections for her quilt. Another thing that inspires her quilts is her love for puzzles of all kinds: crossword, jigsaw, Sudoku, logic puzzles, "Whodunnit" mysteries, etc...

Peg Spradlin

Peg has been quilting out of her home in rural Cozad, Nebraska on her domestic Bernina sewing machine for over 20 years. Sheʼs a home sewer and pattern tester for Quiltmaker, Quilterʼs Newsletter, Connecting Threads and Marcus Fabrics. She specializes in precision piecing but her true love is quilting the top with lots of trapunto and dense background stitching. Peg teaches these techniques in classes all over the country.

Peg has had quilts and articles published in Quiltmaker, Quilt It, Quilterʼs Newsletter, and Machine Quilting Unlimited, and is a regular contributor to Quiltmakerʼs 100 Blocks and Quilts from Quiltmakerʼs 100 Blocks. Peg haswon top awards for her quilts on the state level.