Lizzy Allen

Lizzy Allen is an award winning professional longarm quilter from Central Victoria.  She is an enthusiastic teacher that loves to quilt and all things sewing, she also loves to teach and can’t wait to share a bit of creative passion with her students.   Lizzy is a National Educator for Grace Q’nique, Quilters Creative Touch – Quilt automation software and Nolting Quilting machines in Australia. She is also generous to share stories, tips and ideas that inspire her students to gain skills and confidence as quilters and business owners.

Janet Collins

Janet has had a passion for all things quilty since she started learning nearly 30 years ago. She grew up with a needle in her hand and was always making something. Janet was the first Westalee Design Accredited Teacher in the world, being personally mentored by Leonie West. In 2015 Janet published and launched her first book using Westalee Templates at the Houston Quilt Market and Festival specifically for beginners on quilting with Rulers and Templates. Two more books were then launched at Houston Quilt Market and Festival in 2017 to help and encourage Ruler quilters everywhere.

Lyn Crump

Has been piecing quilts for over 16 years, machine quilting for 12½ years, and longarm quilting for 9 years. Very early in her quilting journey she realised that she preferred to make subtle changes to commercial patterns to make them her own. Soon she was designing all her own quilts, no longer purchasing Quilting Magazines but rather drawing inspiration from the Internet and her ever increasing personal library, taking classes at every opportunity with local, National and International tutors.

Anita Ellis

My life hasn’t been the same since I had my first patchwork top professionally quilted ten years
ago. I remember the excitement as if it was yesterday, I just loved the quilting patterns. I soon had my own A1 quilting machine and Hillside Quilting was born. Moving forward a decade, I still love quilting designs in such a way that the secondary patterns appear like magic.
Now an accomplished teacher travelling around Australia to teach and mentor students in the art of free motion and quilting with rulers, I have a sense of great joy when passing on my skills to fellow quilters. Delivering a suite of classes at the last five Australian Machine Quilting Festivals (AMQF) has given me the opportunity to increase the skills of a whole new group of professional long arm quilters and domestic machine users. I am confident that my teaching has resulted in many more quilters truly ‘thinking outside the box’.
When teaching, I draw on all my previous experience of quilting hundreds of quilts through my business so that I am able to share fresh and innovative ideas with my students. As well as participating in the AMQFs, I provide classes through shops, guilds, and individual tutoring. I have been working with Bill and Leonie West from Westalee Design since 2008 and am an accredited teacher of the Westalee rulers and templates. I have significant experience in using their piecing and quilting templates in my own quilts, many customer quilts and now, thanks to the
Westalee Design ruler foot and templates, the technique is able to be applied by the many domestic machine users.
I believe my contribution to our industry of patchwork and quilting is to mentor beginner quilters and encourage more established quilters to stay fresh and push their limits.

Karen Farnsworth

As a long-time Statler Stitcher owner, Karen’s passion is helping other quilters love the process of longarm quilting. Karen is a Gammill Certified Instructor, and has worked for Gammill Quilting Inc. creating education materials, teaching Statler and CreativeStudio classes, and providing phone and on-site support to Statler owners. Karen has been sewing most of her life and bought her first quilting machine in 2006. She has been designing and selling digital quilting patterns through her website, WildflowerQuilting.com, since 2007. She now lives in rural Northeast Missouri where she and her husband ranch and raise their three kids. Karen also finds time to own a quilt shop, quilt for customers, and pursue many of her other interests.

Leanne Harvey

Hi there! I’m Leanne Harvey of Mount Vincent Quilts. I hang out with my Hubby and 3 boys in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia.
I am a professional machine quilter with about 15 years experience quilting for customers. I quilt on a Bernina Q24 Q-matic Longarm and a Gammill freehand longarm. I love bringing quilt tops to life by adding texture with my quilting.
I am the Australian Bernina Longarm Guru working with the Bernina family at quilt shows, training Bernina dealers on the Q-matic computerised system and teaching Bernina Q customers how to get the best from their machines.
At the end of 2017 I opened my studio to students. I teach sewing classes and quilting classes. Sharing my love of quilts !!!!

Kerrie Hay

Kerrie Hay is an experienced Educator for Bernina Australia with more than 30yrs of experience in the industry and has been teaching all aspects of sewing to students and dealers all over Australia and New Zealand. Kerrie has also had the privilege to teach on behalf of Bernina International in the USA, Japan and India and attends training at Bernina International in Switzerland.
Kerrie is currently the NPE (National Product Educator) for Bernina Australia, which involves a great deal of travelling interstate, teaching and inspiring dealers and customers alike how to get the most out of their Bernina machines. This involves all aspects of sewing from dressmaking, patchwork and quilting to machine embroidery and more. Never a day should pass that you don’t learn something new! Kerrie has written many articles for magazines over the years promoting all aspects of sewing, especially machine embroidery. This experience led her to write her first book “Latte Quilt”. The book is sold in many countries around the world and has helped encourage many women to utilize the myriad of features on their machines while having fun being creative.

Heather Hopkins

Heather lives in Adelaide with her Husband & 2 young children, she has been teaching her foot loose & fancy free style of quilting for 6 years. She have been fortunate enough to grow up in the sewing industry and has develop an extensive background in dressmaking, machine embroidery & overlocking until she finally discovered quilting and hasn’t looked back! As a first generation quilter she has developed her own modern “anything goes” style of quilting with a unique and quirky approach to teaching allowing her students to build confidence and achieve success with their free motion quilting without any pressure to perform. With a huge amount of product knowledge up her sleeve Heather has secured her position as the HQ educator for Adelaide Sewing Centre providing on going education, support & classes for Sweet Sixteen sit down machines as well as Longarm stand up machines – both hand guided & computerised (ProStitcher) systems. Visit: Heather Hopkins Quilts on Facebook.

Angela Huffman

Angela Huffman lives in Louisville, KY where she owns and operates her quilting studio, training center and APQS dealership. She learned to quilt when her triplets were born and enjoys stitching with them. She is a blue ribbon quilter and is a regular guest on the Fons & Porter, Love of Quilting television program. Her instructional videos can also be found on CraftOnlineUniversity.com, CraftDaily.com, APQS.com and a her DVDs.

Angela has been featured in a variety of magazines including Love of Quilting, Quilter’s Newsletter, Machine Quilting Unlimited, and On Track. A former nominee for US Machine Quilter Teacher of the Year, Angela is committed to teaching others as she travels both nationally and internationally to guilds, studios and quilt shows teaching techniques on both domestic and longarm quilting machines all while developing patterns and tools to make longarm quilting easier.

Prior to having triplets, she was an Emmy award-winning television producer and she can still be found behind the microphone as a voice-over artist for television and radio. Angela owns QuiltedJoy.com where she oversees a gaggle of happy renters who come in to finish their quilts on her many longarm quilting machines under her careful guidance. www.QuiltedJoy.com

Vicki Jenkin

I started quilting in 1996 and quickly developed a love for both needleturn appliqué and machine quilting. I quilted on a domestic machine for 14 years and then in 2010 bought an A1 Elite, giving up my day job and taking the plunge into professional machine quilting, and I now get to indulge my passion every day!
I believe in getting out of your comfort zone and having a go…you don’t know what you can achieve until you try.
I also love to share my knowledge of quilting, and teach both domestic and longarm quilting. I am excited to be presenting classes at AMQF again this year.
Visit me online at vickijenkin.com Facebook Vicki Jenkin Quilting IG vjquilts

Kat Jones

Kat lives in beautiful Tasmania, the island state at the bottom of Australia with her two cats Kali & Bahini. Although Kat made her first ever quilt in 2009, she did not start quilting seriously until 2014 when she entered her first State Quilt Show. Kat is best known for her success at Quiltcon 2017, with Bling the queen sized princess cut diamond quilt winning Best Of Show. However her favourite technique is what she describes as semi improvisational bias applique and is the focus of a lot of her teaching and patterns. A member of the Tasmanian Modern Quilt Guild kat served as secretary for two years in from 2015 to 2017. She now works full time as a quilter, making her own show quilts, quilting for clients, teaching and writing patterns.
Follow Kat on IG: @twocatsquilts

Hans Martini

Hans passion for sewing machine started at an early age as he was allowed to tinker with his mum’s sewing machine.  Hans completed his apprenticeship as a sewing machine technician at the Pfaff Factory in Karlsruhe Germany and where he worked till his departure to Australia. He was able to build an entire sewing machine from just the parts, which was one of his rolls at the factory.

Hans Martini came to Australia in 1992 as Service Manager for Pfaff Australia. Where his role was running the Service Department and training the technical staff for Australian Dealers.  As he fell in love with this beautiful country he tried new roles and moved from Service Manager to Sales Manager for NSW, has changed to Aisin Australia (Toyota Sewing Machines). In 2002 he started his own company which has gone from strength to strength. Hans started with repairs and service of sewing machines and he still does it in the Southern Highlands where he moved with his family 4 years ago. He also travels the country where he offers an in house service of longarm quilting machines. Hans is an experienced technician on all  long arm quilting machines models and makes.  Hans is also experienced in writing articles for service and maintenance on sewing machines and accessories.

Cindy Needham

Major national teaching engagements thru 2016 include Houston International Quilt Festival; Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar; Road to California; Sisters Quilt Show; multiple AQS shows; Machine Quilting Expo; Australian Machine Quilting Festival; Rose City Quilters in New Zealand; Dubai; Abu Dhabi, Doha and various engagements in Canada.
I have two very popular classes on Craftsy~Design It/Quilt It and Wholecloth Quilts and have filmed two episodes for The Quilt Show.

Kathleen Riggins

I started free motion quilting when I was 14, and long arming at 24. I got my first long arm a year later. In April 2015 I began a sponsorship with APQS Canada & Sparrow Studioz during which I have an APQS Lucey to use in my living room! I do all my quilting hand guided, as I do not have a computer on my longarm. I love sewing, quilting, machine embroidery, and pretty much anything to do with a sewing machine. I will do almost anything to avoid doing anything by hand. When I’m not in front of my sewing machine, I can usually be found snowboarding, reading, or dreaming of what to sew next.

Cathy Sofarnos

Cathy Sofarnos is a sales and training consultant for Bernina Australia. Her role is wide and varied and includes product training, education and support for the Bernina dealers in Victoria, S.A and Tasmania. This year on the Bernina stand, alongside Kerrie Hay, Cathy  will be teaching a class on the Bernina Q20. This will be a fantastic opportunity to get a hands on experience with this wonderful machine, and to gain an in-depth knowledge of the product.

Helen Stubbings

Helen hails from Hobart, at the very bottom of Tasmania, which is an Island state at the very bottom of Australia. Growing up on a farm near a very small country town, Helen learned to entertain herself from a young age. Learning to use her hands to achieve her ideas was a necessity. Hence, with a dressmaker and embroiderer for a Grandmother, a mother as a pianist and florist, and a father who could make anything from wood or metal, it was nearly pre-determined that she was going to be creative!

Social media handles:   @christaquilts     www.christaquilts.com     Quilt with Christa on Facebook