Meet The Experts

We're proud to have assembled this wonderful team of quilting experts to help you with all your quilting challenges.

Wendy Hill
I come from a mixed and curious background of art training, traditional quilts, and many years of teaching special needs students in the public school system. Most of my classes are taught around techniques with individualized final projects for each student. You could say I specialize in assisting each student to become better at what they want to do.

I began to draw at age three with my father and to sew with my mother at age six. I taught myself to quilt in 1971, using traditional designs and methods, and my own color schemes. I attribute my early interest in fabrics, textures, and designs to the influence of a quilting grandmother who died long before I was born.

In 1986 I began to make quilts designed to be seen on the wall. Working primarily with my own designs and original compositions, I capitalize on my eclectic nature to use any technique to achieve the desired result.

My quilts are very different from one another and run the gamut of utilizing time-honored methods to non-traditional treatments. Fabrics are my palette, a solid knowledge of craft is my foundation, and techniques are my tools.

In 1989 I began exhibiting my quilts and being published in books and magazines. My first book was "On the Surface: Thread Embellishment and Fabric Manipulation" (1997). My new book is "Two-For-One Foundation Piecing: Reversible Quilts and More" (Fall 2001), both with C&T Publishing.

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Patricia Magaret and Donna Slusser
Patricia and Donna are quilt teachers, authors, and designers who are known for their expertise in design and color. They love to tweak traditional patterns to give them a unique twist.

This team has been teaching together for over fourteen years. Patricia and Donna use different styles and techniques to create their beautiful quilts. Neither has any formal art training, although both study and appreciate art and its history.

Patricia has a degree in medical technology and tends to be the more methodical of the two. She loves graph paper and high-tech design on the computer. She is often referred to as the Template Queen.

Donna brings an elementary education and liberal arts background to this duo. She prefers quick-cutting methods and rarely uses graph paper. She is a visualizer who flies by the seat of her pants much of the time!

Underlying the creative differences of this team is a commitment to good workmanship, no matter what technique is used.

Patricia and Donna share their distinct methods and processes with students and audiences, who love their approach and say that it inspires them to have the confidence to spread their own wings.

These quiltmakers live in eastern Washington State where they enjoy music and gardening, as well as their families and pets.

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Penny McMorris
Penny handles general technical support questions for the Electric Quilt Company. Penny has had earlier "quilt lives" as a TV producer of "The Great American Quilt" series on PBS, and as author of two books ("Crazy Quilts" and "The Art Quilt," co-authored with Michael Kile).

If she doesn't know the answer, she'll get help from the Electric Quilt staff, including her husband Dean Neumann, who created all the Electric Quilt programs, and the rest of the development staff.

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Susan Delaney Mech, M.D.
Susan's love of sewing began as she sat on the floor beside her grandmother's treadle-operated sewing machine. As Susan hand sewed doll clothes while her grandmother used the machine, she found herself wrapped in the same peace and contentment that surrounded her grandmother.

Sewing became one of the constants in Susan's long years of training. Handwork, especially, became her haven from the pressures of school. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1977.

Susan took up quiltmaking in 1985. She has won many ribbons and special awards for her quilts. In 1988, Susan brought together the love she has for medicine, quiltmaking, and writing and began her long-running column, "Rx for Quilters," for Quilt World Magazine. She has also published a book by the same title.

Learn more about Dr. Susan Delaney Mech's Rx For Quilters at Amazon.com

Susan has published articles on quiltmaking, sewing, and other topics. Her poems have won many awards.

Susan is a nationally-known authority on women's health issues. She has been quoted by the Ladies' Home Journal, Discover magazine, the Associated Press, and many newspapers. She has published articles in medical journals and has presented many papers and workshops at national meetings. Susan is a member of the American Medical Writers Association.

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Yvonne Porcella
Yvonne, an artist specializing in wearables and art quilts, began in 1962 by making unique garments, wall hangings and quilts. Currently her work is featured in major exhibitions, art galleries and museums.

Her work is a vibrant expression of an artist who knows how to handle color with an apparently endless palette. She hand paints fabrics to achieve a soft pastel watercolor effect and uses a variety of these fabrics to create her art.

In addition to these subtle pieces, Porcella produces work that is bold and vibrant, using pure color in contrasting and synchronous relationships to convey a cumulative dynamic effect.

Her work has toured in national and international shows of contemporary American quilt makers and is actively collected by individuals and corporations.

The subject of Porcella's books reflect the development of her artistic interests. "Five Ethnic Patterns" was printed in 1977, followed in 1978 by a second book featuring ethnic patterns, "Plus Five." "Pieced Clothing" (1980) and "Pieced Clothing Variations" (1981) continue the evolution of her patterns and focus on wearable art.

"A Colorful Book" (1986) is an art book that uses her work to illustrate the design and color for which she is known. "Colors Changing Hue" (1994) teaches easy methods for fabric painting and includes patterns for projects. "Six Color World" (1997) continues the theme of fabric painting with a strong emphasis on color.

"Yvonne Porcella: Art & Inspirations," published in 1998, documents her work and offers insight into her art. "Magical Four-Patch and Nine-Patch," to be published in the fall of 2001, is a pattern book of eight projects.

Porcella is Founder and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Studio Art Quilt Associates. She has taught and lectured throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan.

In 1998 her quilt "Answering The Riddle" was included in the 9th Invitational Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland. She is the 30th inductee into the Quilters Hall of Fame, Marion, Indiana and the 5th recipient of the Silver Star Award at Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas.

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Amy Sandrin and Ann Frischkorn
Amy and Ann are the Patchwork Twins!

Amy, who has previously published book-length fiction, short stories and non-fiction articles for various nation-wide magazines including Traditional Quilter and Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, has now published Flower Pounding - Quilt Projects For All Ages.

Quilting for almost as many years as she's been writing, Amy finds the parallels between the two arts fascinating. She has taken classes from quilting legends such as Harriet Hargrave, and believes no matter how advanced a quilter is, there is always more to learn. In conjunction with her co-author and twin sister Ann, Amy is gearing up for a lecture series and teaching Flower Pounding classes.

Amy is almost the youngest of eight children. She let Ann have that spot by a mere eight minutes. She lives in the Colorado high plains with her husband, son, two cats and Bernie, her cherished Bernina sewing machine.

Ann Frischkorn

Ann took her first quilting class in 1992 and has been passionate about quilting ever since. She joined her first quilt guild in 1996 and was elected president of the guild in 1997. Under her leadership the membership doubled in one year.

Ann enjoys both teaching and taking quilting classes and has entered many competitions, for which she has won numerous awards. Some of the classes she's taken are from famous women in the industry, including an appliqué class with Nancy Pearson and a machine quilting class with AQS award winner, Diane Gaudynski.

In conjunction with her co-author and twin sister Amy, Ann is gearing up to teach and lecture on the Flower Pounding technique.

She was honored when she was asked to represent the art of quilting at Artists in Action day at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Glen Ellyn in 1999.

Ann is the youngest of eight children. She lives in the Western Suburbs of Chicago with her husband, three children and two cats. When she is not quilting she likes to play board games with her family, read, and work in her garden.

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Ami Simms
Ami was first introduced to quiltmaking in 1975, while conducting research among the Old Order Amish of northern Indiana for her undergraduate thesis in anthropology. She made her first quilting stitches under the guidance of the Amish woman with whom she stayed.

Since that time Ami has made over 100 quilts of varying sizes, in both traditional and contemporary designs, both hand and machine quilted. Her quilts have been featured in several national magazines and other publications, and have been exhibited in juried competitions in California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

Since 1982 Ami has been leading workshops and giving lectures on quilting throughout the United States. She has also taught quilting in Australia, Canada, England, Italy, the Netherlands, and New Zealand and has led quilting tours to Italy, The Netherlands, and Hong Kong.

Ami is the author of eight books on quilting including her newest, Picture Play Quilts. Her other books are:

• How To Improve Your Quilting Stitch
• Invisible Applique
• Every Trick In The Book
• Classic Quilts: Patchwork Designs From Ancient Rome
• How NOT To Make A Prize-Winning Quilt
• Creating Scrapbook Quilts
• Fun Photo-Quilts & Crafts

Ami is also the creator of The WORST Quilt in the World Contest®.

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