PREVIOUS SPEAKERS

Arlene Arnold
​October 18, 2022: Arlene came to the world of quilting in 1975 during the Great Quilt Revival for our nation’s Bicentennial.  With her degree in art, Arlene entered the fabric world with enthusiasm. Using a 1”x2” picture of a Log Cabin quilt she saw in Better Homes and Gardens magazine, she drafted the pattern and being a novice and not knowing what she was doing, she made enough 12” blocks using 1” strips to cover two king size beds!  Since that time she has gone to win Best of Show and many blue ribbons for her work.

​Today, Arlene’s focus in quilting runs in the area of Pre-Civil War quilts to those from the Depression.  She has quite a collection of antique and vintage quilts that she uses to lecture on and share with other quilters.  Arlene also makes her own patterns using these quilts for inspiration.  And yes, she still uses graph paper and a pencil!Arlene belongs to two quilt guilds, several on line quilt study groups and three California area groups, SCCQG, NCQC and Quilt Guilds of the North Quarter.  When not playing in the quilting world Arlene can be found on her tractor farming 20 acres of walnuts and raising her beloved English Springer Spaniels on her ranch in Colusa, CA.

Arlene Arnold

Christine Barnes
​October 2024: Being “good with color” is more about practice than talent! This program begins with a look at the three color characteristics common to all quilts and garments: value, temperature, and intensity. These terms sound academic, yet they, as much as color itself, are the key to making great quilts. Learn how to use the color wheel to create fresh, unexpected color combinations. See how color concepts and “magic fabrics" can create the special effects of transparency, luminosity, and luster. 
Christine is a contemporary quilt designer/teacher/writer specializing in color theory for She delivers lectures and workshops for guilds, and designs “quilts and wearables for the modern sewist.” She says this about color: “Many quilters think there are no rules when it comes to color, but there are concepts and strategies, and they work—it’s more about practice than talent.” Christine has written three books on color and numerous articles for quilting magazines. 

Kim Brownell
September 2024:  Kim Brownell learned to sew as an adult but quickly learned she preferred putting together multiple colors and fabrics. She experimented with Wearable Art and traditional quilt patterns before finding her niche with smaller art quilts. She says anything is fair game as long as it’s under 36”. Her first piece of advice to a new quilter is to join a guild or a quilt circle, and she’s taken that to heart! Kim has been an active member of RCQG since 2000. She has taken on multiple roles over the years. She is also a member of several community circles including the Midtown Quilters, Arty-Qs, Pins & Needles Art Quilters, Backyard Quilters, and the former Little Quilt Makers group. Last year she also joined the Modern Quilt Guild to get yet another perspective on quilting and more opportunities to meet good friends.

Bea Byrne
January 2025: Bea Byrne is an artist and entrepreneur living in Oakland, California. Originally from the UK, she lived and worked in London for more than 20 years before moving to Tokyo, Japan, and then to San Francisco in 2015. She has taught and studied quilts in all three countries, adopting the virtual event format from as early as 2013. She became President of the SF Quilters Guild in 2016, serving for two years, and continues to volunteer with them and the East Bay Heritage Quilters. In 2024 she launched the virtual QUILT 2024 events, with more than 15k attendees watching workshops from teachers worldwide. www.beabyrne.com. 

Bea Byrne

Robin O’Neal
May 2024: Robin described the differences between traditional, modern, and improvisational quilting. She brought 23 quilts to use as examples and they all have stories. BIO: "I was a special education teacher for 35 years. I was always doing art “on the side”. I started making quilts in 1973 and they were all traditional using cardboard templates and a pen, not too accurate! I started playing with my own designs about 15 years ago and now I make only improvisational quilts. I have always hand quilted until about a year ago. I have a friend with a long arm machine and am trying to learn the skill of machine quilting. I no longer use rulers, templates, patterns or kits. Time is too short for stress and the quilt police are banned from my head!"

Robin O'Neal

Marie Nelson
April 16, 2023: Marie Nelson will tell (mostly true) stories about a few of her favorite quilts, what she did, why she did it, and some of the things she learned along the way, while making nearly 300 quilts over the past 40 years, including 24 years as a member of the River City Quilters Guild. Biography: I learned to sew as a young girl on my great-grandmother’s 1909 Singer treadle machine, and thanks to the skills learned at home and in home economics and 4-H, made clothes for myself and my children. I began quilting in the early 1980s before acrylic templates, rotary cutters, wide availability of quilting cottons, and the internet. I had attended a sewing conference at which one of the presenters described the Double Wedding Ring quilt as one of the most difficult to make. So that was one the first quilts I attempted, figuring if I could make it, then I could tackle any quilting design I wanted. That quilt, made more than 35 years ago and showing its age, is still on my bed, despite the nearly 300 beautiful quilts I have made since then. It was the interplay of colors, patterns, and textures that attracted me first to rug making, then machine knitting, and then, quilt making. Scratching my itch to create usually starts with one or more fabrics that have drawn my interest and then asking a series of “What if” questions as I respond to the fabric, design, or technique challenges the piece presents. Once I have the quilt top made, the next challenge is how to quilt it so as to enhance the design and add additional interest.

In 2014, my original design, “Peacock Mandala”, which had toured in a Hoffman Challenge exhibition, was awarded “Best of Show” at River City Quilt Guild’s show. It also hung at PIQF, received a Judge’s Choice at the 2015 Home Sewing and Machine Quilting Show (Salt Lake City) in 2015, and an “Award of Excellence” at the 2018 Springville (Utah) Museum of Fine Arts Quilt Show. After acquiring an Innova Longarm in late 2014, I began climbing the free motion learning curve which has been rewarded with several awards including the 2020 Pacific International Online Quilt Show “Best Longarm Workmanship” for the quilting I did on the 2019 River City Quilt Guild’s opportunity quilt.

I view my quilts as experiments or puzzles to be solved, playing with color, patterns, and design elements, and responding to the surprises, challenges, and discoveries I make along the way. I try to be sensitive to what the quilt needs at various stages in its making, rather than working to make it meet some predetermined idea. Many of my award-winning quilts have started as responses to fabric or design challenges. With every quilt I make, I learn something new that I take into the next quilts I make. Designing and making quilts is a passion, but for me, it is also a conversation, a journey, and an affirmation of an inherent need to create.​

Marie Nelson

Anelie Belden
June 18, 2023: Anelie discussed how Quilt Barn Art began and where to find trails right here in California.  While working in the fashion industry she began to explore the art of quilting which became her passion. She has taken the traditional Dresden quilt design and created new updated Dresden Designs which are featured in her book “Thoroughly Modern Dresden.” Her designs are modern and constructed using a breakthrough piecing technique to improve speed and accuracy.

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October 16, 2023
Christina Cameli
Christina shares the biggest "aha!" moments she's had in her years as a quilter, teacher, and pattern and fabric designer. She has endeared herself to fans all over the world through her quilting books and Craftsy classes. Christina’s gentle, supportive spirit is equally suited to teaching quilting and her career as a nurse-midwife. As a fabric designer for Maywood Studio and non-stop quilt designer, she is never bored. Christina finds her greatest joys with scrappy patchwork, free-motion quilting and wedge based piecing. Outside of the sewing room and the clinic, she spends her days with her blended family and rescue lab mix in Portland Oregon, trying to get in an afternoon paddleboarding when she can. ​

Ora Clay
January 16, 2024: My talk will be about the how and why of the organization of the Women of Color Quilters Network (WCQN). I will discuss a number of exhibits curated by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, WCQN founder, which touch on many themes such as United Nations Universal Human Rights, Black Pioneers in the West, and a Tribute to Colonel Charles Young. The talk will include a trunk show of my quilts including those published in WCQN publications. 

Ora Clay

Speaker:  Lynne Rose Giovannetti 
February 2024:  Lynne showcased her creations of historically correct garments, research and construction challenges of garments on a 1⁄2 scale format and tidbits of her career in Costume Design as the Costume Director from the Sacramento Opera.

Laurel Anderson
Rob Appell
Arlene Arnold
Linda Ballard
Christine Barnes
Mel Beach
​Analie Beldon
Patricia Belyea
Annamaria Brenti
Karen Boutte
Mary Boyer
Tracey Brookshier
Kim Brownell
Melinda Bula
Bea Byrne
​Caryl Bryer Fallert
Christina Cameli
Dora Cary
Ora Clay
Trudy Cleveland
Sally Collins
Sheila Collins
Lauretta Crites
Joe Cunningham
Ellen Anne Eddy
Rosemary Eichorn 
Heidi Emmett 
Karen Flamme
Carrie Fondi
Pat Fryer
Lynne Rose Giovannetti 
Sara Goer
Becky Goldsmith
Donna Greenwald
Cara Gulati
Jane Haworth
Harriet Hargrave
Julie Hirota
Cathy Hoover
Connie Horne
Rita Hutchens
Rami Kim
Marjan Kluepfel
Jan Krentz
​Vicki Johnson
Marjorie Johnson
Lynn Koolish
Esther Latino
Don Linn, Mr. Quilt
Beth Lonnquist
Debbie Maddy
Material Girlfriends
Nancy McDonald
Ruth McDowell
Merrill-Lee Designs
Lyn Mann
Peggy Martin
Katie Pasquini Masopust
Lisa McKissick
Sandra Mollon
Julia McLeod
Mike McNamara
Cindy Meyers
​Marie Nelson
​Kitty Oliver
​Robin O'Neal
Denise Oyama Miller
Susy Nash
Cindy Needham
Marie Nelson
Collen Pelfrey
Judy Coates Perez
Kitty Pippen
Slyvia Pippen
Pixeladies
Jennifer Rapacki
Jennie Rayment
Fern Royce
Linda Schmidt
Jill Schumacher
Sujata Shah​
Ann Shaw
Tammy Silvers
Louisa Smith
Diane Steele
Heidi Steger
Susan Sprague
April Sproule
Donna Thomas
Lisa Thorpe
Sandy Turner
Carol Ziogas
Meri Henriques Vahl
Laura Wasilowski
​Sarah Whiteford
Claire Witherspoon
Lynn Wilder
Martha Wolfe

Marjan Kluepfel
January 16, 2023: Marjan spoke about her quilting journey beginning in home country, the Netherlands. She presented her nontraditional approach to quilting, where her ideas and inspiration come from, how her work has evolved over the years, and why she does what she does. 

Workshop: Sculptured Flowers

Jenny Lyon
​May 16, 2023: Jenny is a fiber artist, author and teacher from northern California. Her work focuses on free motion quilting on whole cloth and her work has juried into a variety of shows and galleries. Jenny teaches and lectures on free motion quilting across the country. She loves to inspire her students to find joy and confidence in free motion quilting their own quilts!​ 

Pat Fryer "Villa Rosa"
September 20, 2022: Pat’s retirement from the quilting business has been impossible for her to achieve. Not long after closing up shop and moving to a beautiful hillside in Northern California, which she calls Villa Rosa, she came up with the idea for quilt patterns on a card. Now, besides publishing patterns, running an online shop and doing shows, she also has a retail store in an industrial area of Grass Valley. Her staff includes local talent, and family members and designers from across the country. Pat has been sewing since the age of ten and got her degree in Textiles from UCDavis. She has owned quilt shops for over 30 years. 
Villa Rosa patterns by their nature are simple and easy to finish. They are fun to make and the projects get done—great for giveaways and donation quilts. “Fun and done” is Pat’s motto.​

Patricia Belyea
September 21, 2021: Patricia Belyea took us on a virtual tour of the Tokyo Quilt Festival. Then we got swept away to a chusen-dyeing workshop with elaborate hand-dyeing process. Patricia finished with a trunk show of her quilts made with Japanese cottons and talks about how the fabrics inspired her quilt compositions. Bio: A creative quilt maker, speaker and teacher, Patricia co-owns Okan Arts wit her daughter Victoria. The small family business imports vintage Japanese textiles for adventuresome quilters. Patricia is the author of East-Meets-West Quilts, a book about making improv quilts with Japanese fabrics. 

Scarlett Rose
September 19, 2023: Scarlett designs scrap quilts, friendship quilts and foundation pieced quilts that are modern innovations on classic patchwork patterns and traditional symbols. Drawing on her cultural heritage, she combines asian influences with her Celtic work. Besides her contemporary appliqué and patchwork quilts, Scarlett has also designed unique her own fabric prints, wearable art, art quilts and modern quilts.

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Tammy Silvers
February 2023: Tammy shared projects and photos aimed to inspire and expand the use of Aurifil threads. She lives in Acworth, Georgia, and has been quilting since 1991. She has a background in art and literature. Tammy’s quilt designs are regularly published in quilt magazines and she designs project to showcase several fabric lines, including Northcott, Free Spirit, Maywood, Dear Stella and Timeless Treasures. She also designs fabric for Island Batik and has an Aurifil thread line that coordinates with her Island Batik line. https://www.tamarinis.com/

Linda Wagner
March 19, 2024 - Linda Wagner has been making quilts for over 35 years and teaching quilting for over 25 years. After starting with doll clothes, then her own clothes, she earned a dress maker’s certification, then began her quilting journey with a pattern by Eleanor Burns. Joining a guild gave her lots of ideas of things she needed to try and earned her the nickname Addquilter. She gravitates toward scrappy quilts and her approach to color is described as fearless!

Linda Wagner

January 2021
​Lyric Kinard Workshop
Check out these projects submitted by workshop participants.

Susy Nash

Sara Goer

Lauretta Crites

Katie Pasquini Masopust

Lisa McKissick

Carol Ziogas, Sashiko

Jennifer Rapacki

Laurel Anderson

Colleen Pelfrey

Linda Ballard

Christine Barnes

Sujata Shah