QA Teachers A - m
Get to know our amazing Quilter's Affair teachers!
Anna started quilting in 1993 and has been passionate about the art form ever since. She has published patterns, been featured in magazines, teaches, and writes about quilting for TheQuiltShow.com. Anna is especially proud of the YouTube Channel that she and her husband publish called “Quilt Roadies,” –traveling the country, visiting quilt shops, and connecting quilters one project at a time!
Colleen Blackwood has been quilting for over 45 years and teaching classes for nearly 40 years. Her quilts are designed based on traditional techniques with an individual flair added to help create quilts
that reflect the quilter who makes them. Machine quilting on domestic sewing machines is a specialty that she loves sharing.
Mathew Boudreaux, known in the crafting community as Mx Domestic, is a talented quilter and creative innovator based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. With a passion for textiles and design, they have garnered a dedicated following through their vibrant quilts and unique crafting workshops. Their work often blends traditional quilting techniques with contemporary aesthetics, showcasing bold colors and intricate patterns.
Christina Cameli has endeared herself to fans all over the world through her quilting books and online classes. Christina’s gentle, supportive spirit is well suited to both teaching quilting and her career as a nurse-midwife.
Her explorations include scrappy patchwork, free-motion quilting and wedge-based piecing.
Christina hosts ongoing quilting instruction through Free-Motion Circle and is also a fabric designer for Maywood Studio.
I started quilting while in high school home economics classes. I made my first quilt my senior year (1978), and I still have it: an incredibly ugly purple calico monstrosity!
Over the past 20 or so years, I’ve become very confident in my ability to create and design quilts. I enjoy instilling confidence in a quilter who is struggling to get to the next level of quilting. Teaching them that there is always an easier, faster, and more efficient way to sew a quilt together. “Mistake” is my middle name, and I have made some whoppers over the years. I share my blunders with my students, so they will see that it’s OK to make a mistake—just learn from it and move on.
Sarah Fielke is an award winning quilt designer from Sydney, Australia. In her 24 years in the quilting industry, her 14 best-selling quilt books have sold over 200,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into 5 languages. Sarah's quilts have roots in both modern and traditional quilting, making her a firm favorite with quilters new and old. She describes her quilts as "contemporary traditional".
Kumi is a fiber artist with a passion for blending tradition and technology. After moving from Kauai to the creative hub of Bend, Oregon, she has continued her journey as a maker—quilting, fabric
dyeing, knitting, and weaving.
She embraces technology as a tool in her artistic process, using AI and other software to spark design ideas, write artist statements, and explore new ways to bring fiber art to life.
She is a proud member of the Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild and SAQA.
Sally always wanted to be a quilt shop owner; it’s been her dream since she took her first quilt class in 1993. She went on to work in her local quilt shop and began teaching classes. Once she connected with co-owner Jacque, she realized how fulfilling running a business could be.
She began teaching at Sisters’ Quilter’s Affair in 1998 and has taught here every year since. Sally is happy to be living her dream, sharing knowledge and inspiring quilters.
Scott Hansen is the self-proclaimed Mad Color Scientist behind the wheel at Blue Nickel Studios. Scott designed his first quilt at 14. His constant fascination with trees shows up in his designs often.
That first quilt he designed as a teenager traveled with him, and after collecting a few vintage quilts, Scott picked up the quilting bug again and has been playing with fiber and color ever since. He has had many quilt patterns published in a numerous quilt magazines since 2008. He has been running his blog www.bluenickelstudios.com since 2006 and been self-publishing patterns since 2012. His "Painted Forest" quilt pattern has become a classic pattern now, but he has plenty more modern "Urban Folk" quilt patterns via his website and Etsy. He has designed two lines of modern batiks for Banyan Batiks as well.
David Owen Hastings is a modern quilter, speaker, and teacher. He creates richly layered contemporary artwork and modern minimal quilt designs. For over 25 years, David has exhibited his modern quilts and stitched paper artwork in galleries and juried shows.
David’s graphic design background and creative approach to modern quilting have led to a busy schedule of workshops and lectures on quilting, fine art and textile techniques. Sharing knowledge, encouraging creativity, and teaching new skills are personal passions. He also loves to travel, especially in Asia, and enjoys sharing his experiences and inspiration through travel photos and stories.
Art has always been a big part of June’s life. Majoring in Art Education, she focused on oil painting, but enjoyedsketching, water colors, charcoal drawings and more. In 1969, she began quilting, and in 1980 she was teaching quiltingand began to design as well. By 2000, she had designed many patterns for various companies and branched out with herown company, Log Cabin Quiltworks. She hasalso written two books. Her work features landscape and natureappliqué, and she has recently added painting and inking on fabric.
Leslie is an artist who makes contemporary quilts. Surface design using dye and paint are integral components of her work. Photography frequently informs her designs, literally or by way of inspiration.
She has been a guest on numerous television and streaming shows featuring quilt-making and mixed media. Leslie’s work has been the recipient of numerous awards and has been featured in numerous publications. Her work has been shown internationally, and is part of corporate and private collections. She designs fabrics for Wishwell, a division of Robert Kaufman fabric company.
Outside of the studio Leslie loves to travel, cook, garden, and paint. She is a novice beekeeper and a happy member of a rather eccentric family of artists and nerds.
Lynn Koolish is a fiber artist, teacher, and author. She is most known for her bright colors of hand-dyed fabric and mixed-media fiber art. Based in Berkeley, CA, Lynn teaches online, and in person throughout California and nationally.
In her current work, Lynn uses her hand-painted and hand-dyed fabrics to create
improvisationally designed and pieced art quilts. In her work and her teaching, she always maintains a strong focus on applying basic design principles while maintaining the spontaneity of the improv process.
Lynn was an editor at C&T Publishing for almost 20 years, working on books ranging from traditional piecing, appliqué, and embroidery to art quilting, inkjet printing on fabric, and more.
Brandy Maslowski is a quiltmaker, educator, and NACQJ certified judge who teaches quilters to step into artfulness. She is the author of children's book Kristy's Quilt and Consulting Editor of Quilting Arts and QuiltCon magazines. Her art quilts explore themes of healing and growth, reflecting her belief that quilting = self-care. Hitting multiple milestones along the way, Brandy is the founder and host of the award-winning Quilter on Fire Podcast where she shares authentic maker stories that elevate quilters' creative confidence and foster meaningful connections within the community. You can find Brandy everywhere online as the Quilter on Fire.
Allie McCathren is an artist with a background in marine biology. She lives in Houston, TX with her three sons. Her love of science and nature tends to find its way into her work, whether she intends it or not. Allie works primarily with fabric and thread, but is also a painter, working with acrylics and watercolors. She uses fabric as if it were paint, working with color arrangement and texture to create her art quilts. Allie is a modern quilter who uses a lot of improv techniques in her work. She teaches online classes on various techniques, including her Seaglass Quilting method.
Susana McDonnell is the owner of LinoCave, a Boston area-based home studio focused on geometric pattern design and block printing on fabric and paper. She holds a BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and is a lifelong artist who has studied and taught many mediums including, but not limited to glassblowing, neon, wood, drawing and watercolor.
Despite the fact that block printing is one of the few mediums she has not formally studied, the allure of it inspires her to teach and explore it further every day. She is the co-host of @printersolstice, a prompt-based printmaking campaign on Instagram that inspires printmakers around the world to create during the winter solstice and is also a Speedball Demo Artist.
Michele Muska has been hand stitching from a very young age and has appeared on various television shows to share the crafts she loves. She has worked as a professional in the craft industry for over 20 years and is currently the Director of Content and Community for Oliso irons.
Michele is a quilt book author and has been a columnist for several creative and business magazines. Her work has also been featured in many craft, quilting and knitting publications as well as a pie book!
Besides being a hand stitcher, she is also a quilter, teacher and avid gardener. Leslie and Michele have a weekly live chat on IG where they share their and others creative journeys.
