I see Sara Browne and her cousins as heroes. When Covid and the lockdown began she could have just looked after herself, but she reached out to others to lift them up! She continues to add value to people’s lives even after the lockdown has ended. She sees herself as an enabler by helping people learn the parts they don’t know how to do for themselves. You might find yourself looking at the sky in a different way after this interview with Sara. There is color all around us if we look for it. Thi...
Jun 23, 2025•1 hr 27 min
Kena Tangi Dorsey lives her life the way she wants to live her life. It’s taken her in different directions throughout the years, but each step has added knowledge that she is able to use now. While living in Harlem, New York, Kena had an abundance of access to African shops and boutiques along 125th Street, so she began infusing African wax prints, kente cloth and mud cloth textiles into her quilting projects - by making wall hangings, table runners and quilted bags with them. She also loves wo...
Jun 09, 2025•1 hr 24 min
What do you do when the company you work for closes and your family needs help? Open a quilt business, of course. Ronni Chavez was able to make it all come together through a rough time in her life. Now Ronni is designing entertaining quilt patterns, offering tutorials, and has even written her first book, The Crazy Quilter. Ronni made this Disappearing Orange Peel especially to have it used for the feature picture of this episode. Isn't the couching and quilting spectacular! Don't forget to loo...
May 19, 2025•57 min
I need to add a note to this episode before it begins. I had emailed Mel a few weeks ago for a follow up and didn’t get a reply, but I know she’s a busy lady and didn’t think much about it. Then today I received a note from Carolina that she had also reached out to Mel several times with no response. So Carolina did more digging and found Mel Shields obituary. Mel passed away on April 5th, 2025. Only five days after this interview was recorded. This was quite a shock to us. But I can’t imagine t...
May 05, 2025•39 min
I am so thankful to Mel Shields for introducing me to Erika Pinkley. I love Erika’s “can do” attitude. She seems to be consistent in seeing what she wants to accomplish, finds a way to do it, and then be told that was one of the hardest things to do. We didn’t chat about Erika’s logo during the interview, but as I was again looking through her website I read that she was inspired by her mom’s favorite quilt block design, the Monkey Wrench, when she started Little Glass Quilts . Here's a sample o...
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Sam Hunter is busy making patterns, YouTube tutorials, lectures for guilds, blogging, guiding retreats in Europe and last year she started the podcast Rev Craft Biz where she has conversations with business owners in the craft industry. Sam’s philosophy for Hunter’s Design Studio is to design things that you can enjoy. Her tagline is “Helping people have more fun while they make more things”. Sam wants you to have fun, joy, and comfort from your creative efforts, and she hopes the things she mak...
Apr 07, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Threads & Ewe is the fulfillment of Shelly Martella’s lifelong dream to own a combination yarn and fabric store. Her goal is to provide a wide variety of exceptionally made fabrics and yarns, from around the globe, that will support the creative needs of sewing enthusiasts and fiber artists. Shelly is thrilled to finally be working in a career that lets her indulge her passion for beautiful fabrics and fibers. Shelly created the Threads & Ewe website not just as a yarn and fabric shop......
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 14 min
The work on Kim Brownell’s quilts gravitate towards animals, nature scenes, and bright colors. Her techniques include and blend: fabric collage, free form art quilts, raw-edge applique, as well as many others. Kim has a passion for entering quilt challenges which spark her imagination and inspire her. She says her dream is to also inspire you to have fun and to help you learn what you can create. Here are a couple of Kim's quilts Connect with Kim: Website: The Wacky Doddle Quilter Facebook: Kim ...
Mar 10, 2025•40 min
This remarkable interview with Dana Jones is a little longer than the average episode of A Quilter’s Life, but you know how it is when you get chatting with quilters. Dana loves teaching quilting from beginning classes to advanced techniques, from teaching her own designs to teaching quilts designed by others. And she shared with us many of her wonderful insights. We talked about Dana's Peace Cranes Over Hiroshima Here are her Warp Speed and Don't Call Me Girl quilts Connect with Dana Website: D...
Mar 03, 2025•1 hr 36 min
Christa Watson is passionate about all things that have to do with domestic machine quilting. She is an award-winning quilter, pattern designer, author, and digital educator! After the interview I remembered I should have asked Christa about the sewing cabinet that she co-designed with Arrow. I’ve seen it demonstrated and it looks fabulous. Then a little later I received an email from her and she shared that her Colorful Chaos quilt that we talked about was juried into the quilt show in Paducah....
Feb 24, 2025•1 hr
Bea Byrne is a quilter, artist and entrepreneur living in Oakland, California. She has a love of anything to do with textiles but her real passion is quilting. After a career in tech and events Bea realized that organizing and hosting an online conference would be the perfect way to merge the two worlds. She has created the Quilt n Learn events which include teachers from all over the world. And if you’ve been listening to A Quilter’s Life for a while you may even recognize some of the teachers ...
Feb 17, 2025•1 hr 29 min
You'll probably noticed before you start listening, this episode with Theresa Benson is about twice as long as our average episode. Theresa has so much to offer! Her workshops are a fusion of art and technology, where quilters of all levels discover that color theory and AI can go hand in hand. Whether she’s unraveling the mysteries of tech for the quilting community or sharing her passion for fabrics and patterns, Theresa’s enthusiasm is infectious. It won’t take long for you to join in her ent...
Feb 10, 2025•1 hr 48 min
Sondrasa has found quilting to be the perfect pallet for her creativity. Playing with the mediums of fabric and thread to create her own unique brand of fabric art for international quilt shows and also creating her own quilt patterns which are designed to help even a confident beginner create beautiful quilts. Sondrasa sees every quilt as a work of art knowing that the maker has made it out of a labor of love. Here's Sondrasa's Desert Spring BOM Connect with Sondrasa Website: Art Quilts by Desi...
Feb 03, 2025•47 min
I knew when Mel Beach shared that at a young age she had memorized who the artist was of each sculpture in the museum near her, that she was going to be sharing some brilliant information with us and I wasn’t disappointed. We can easily see how her life experiences molded her into an inspiring quilt teacher. I loved the quote from her coach that “If you had fun, you won.” This is Mel's Emerald Gardens quilt. I still can't believe it's only 12" x 12". Connect with Mel - Website: Mel Beach Quilts ...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Tonya Dunning started her business to get the word out about fidget quilts. Since then she has expanded her line with other fidget items. She learned how to write quilt patterns and realized that she loves editing and writing. So she not only writes her own patterns but is able to edit patterns for other quilt designers. Examples of Tonya's fidget quilts. The last picture is the marble fidget. Connect with Tonya Website: Memory Barn Studio Facebook: Memory Barn Studio Instagram: memorybarnstudio...
Jan 06, 2025•51 min
I’m excited to share the favorite quilting tools of my guests on A Quilter’s Life podcast from 2024. I love how this list changes from year to year. You’d think that they were sharing the new and improved tools that we all love to get our hands on. But it seems we are all so thankful that we have some basic quilting tools that allow us to make our beautiful quilts. Computer Software - Design quilts Seam Guide - Seams So Easy by Lori Holt You don’t have to draw the lines for half square triangles...
Dec 30, 2024•8 min
Sharing a tip has always been a question for each of my guests on A Quilter’s Life podcast. But this is the third year I have put them into an episode sharing just the tips from the year.. This year I’m going to add who gave the tip so if you want to look them up you can. We received so many great tips this year. I wanted to have a top 10 list, but I ended up with 12. These first eight are tips that just one person gave this year. 12- Andi Stanfield Wash batiks before cutting. Those fabrics tend...
Dec 23, 2024•10 min
I don’t know how Ashli Montgomery keeps up with all the things she has going on! I’m guessing that the support from her family helps with so many of the projects she’s doing. This is my second interview with Ashli. I wanted to touch base with her as she has some new books available under her pen name, Virginia’dele Smith, that you might want for a Christmas gift. She also is leading a book club and quilt alongs among other responsibilities she has going on. Ashli’s nonprofit organization, Quilt ...
Dec 02, 2024•37 min
Guthrie and I share our thankfulness in this episode. We are especially grateful for the opportunity to have this podcast and to meet all of the wonderful quilters. Happy Thanksgiving!!
Nov 25, 2024•9 min
I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to these Thankful Notes from 2024. I am so thankful for each and every guest that has been willing to be interviewed. And I’m especially thankful for each of you that has taken time to listen to A Quilter’s Life podcast. Did you keep track of how many of the guests that you remembered from their episodes? If you did, please let me know. I think it was a fun game. I found this quote from William Arthur Ward, “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, ...
Nov 18, 2024•9 min
This is the second out of three weeks that we get to share these short and sweet Thankful notes of guests that were on A Quilter’s Life in 2024. “The best way to show my gratitude is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy” is a quote from Mother Teresa. I have seen this gratitude and thankfulness in the wonderful quilters that I get to share here on A Quilter’s Life podcast. Did you play along in the last episode to try to remember each guest? How many did you remember? On this episode...
Nov 11, 2024•7 min
As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States I decided to again share the Thankful Notes that I gathered from guests on A Quilter’s Life this past year. 2023 was the first year I tried this and it was fun to gather these notes from each guest to be able to share such positive praises. It was surprising when I looked at the list of guests that some of these were recorded almost a year ago, because it seems like we just chatted yesterday. I think last year many of us enjoyed play...
Nov 04, 2024•8 min
It’s never too late to learn to quilt! Juanita Roby is in her 80’s and learned to quilt not even 10 years ago. I was so happy to have the opportunity to visit with Juanita and share our enjoyment of quilting. This is the quilt that Juanita said she named Nightmare. Her favorite type of quilt - Dutch Girl / Boy A few of Juanita's Christmas quilts
Oct 28, 2024•28 min
I first interviewed Kathryn LeBlanc in 2021. It just doesn’t seem like three and a half years have passed since then. This is our fourth visit and I’m thrilled to get to share with you what Kathryn has been up to. She continues to write lighthearted, humorous cozy mysteries under the pen name Kathryn Mykel and has published so many fun books that include her passion for the craft of quilting. I purposely am sharing her interview now so that you will have time to check them out for gifts this yea...
Oct 21, 2024•29 min
I am so glad that Jenifer Gaston listened to the Quilting on the Side podcast episode where Andi and Tori interviewed me. Jeni and I didn’t know each other even though we only live about 15 minutes apart. After our interview for this episode on A Quilter’s Life, we continued to chat and found out that she had known my husband’s grandmother and even had been in my house years ago. How do you like that for coincidence! Jeni's favorite quilt. A Life of Plenty. Here's a quilt that Jeni's mom made. J...
Oct 07, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Emily Dodd’s roots run deep in the desert of West Texas and she believes there is nothing like a desert sunset to inspire creativity. She lives there with her husband and babies, and it is where her heart feels at home. When Emily is not sewing, she’s probably chasing babies, drinking coffee, or working at the hospital where she practices the art of medicine. Quilting though is where she always returns to relax, recharge, and reset. I want to mention that I was able to try Emily’s tip on not usi...
Sep 02, 2024•1 hr 8 min
We had to drive on back country roads in West Virginia to meet Reberta Hall. Ginny Guthrie Caplinger had told me about Reberta a while back and I’m so glad it worked out for me to meet her. Should I have been concerned when Ginny and her husband, Jim, climbed into the truck to take me and said to each other - Do you remember to get there? And then at a fork in the road they again were - Which way? Oh well, we have all day to get there. I just smiled and trusted them. And I’m so thankful that we ...
Aug 19, 2024•41 min
Jean Pickering Collins is one of my heroes. Every time I have the opportunity to chat with her she’s been on a new adventure. It astounds me that she accomplishes so much and she makes such beautiful quilts. I don’t know how she has gotten it all done. And then here locally whenever her name comes up people have such glowing remarks to share about her. If you didn’t listen to my first interview with Jean from July 12th of 2019, you’ll want to go back and listen to her story. It’s hard to believe...
Aug 05, 2024•33 min
If you not only love quilting, but also books and travel, you’re going to want to find out about this new community that Lynn Christiansen has put together. It’s always mind blowing to see how all the pieces come together in our lives to be used in such a wonderful way. Lynn is a passionate quilt pattern designer whose creativity is fueled by the rich tapestry of her travels. With a wanderlust spirit and an eye for cultural nuances, she translates her global adventures into unique quilt patterns...
Jul 29, 2024•50 min
Ellie Perez, better known as "Ellie the Quilter," started social media channels to teach creative minded people how to quilt and ended up building a supportive crafting community. The mission of Mojave Farms Quilting Company is to provide an inclusive community for all makers, and to make quilting and crafting more accessible to everyone, no matter how well they sew or what their budget is. Ellie strongly believes that everyone is creative and that sewing, quilting, and crafting of any kind shou...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 23 min
