Book Sellers (Registered Retail Shops) Authors
Jean Biddick
By first grade, Jean knew she wanted to be a teacher. She taught junior high school math for many years. Another love was jigsaw puzzles, and fitting together small bits of fabric seemed to be an extension of that love. Combining her love of teaching and piecing came naturally. Jean started her first quilt (still unfinished) in junior high school. A dozen years later, she became more serious about quiltmaking and was introduced to machine piecing. Jean’s piecing skills improved and she began teaching machine piecing. She enjoys giving students the technical skills they need to turn their vision into quilts.
Jean has been piecing traditional quilt patterns for more than 30 years and teaching machine piecing since 1984. Her quilts have received awards in national competitions and have been exhibited throughout the United States. She has been experimenting with traditional block designs and giving them a slightly different look for many years. Her teaching experience and math background help her clarify the things that can improve accurate piecing.
Books by Jean Biddick
Irena Bluhm
Irena Bluhm is an award-winning quilt artist, quilt and quilting pattern designer, and a longarm machine quilter, instructor, and sales representative for Gammill Quilting Machine Company. Born and raised in Poland during the reign of communism, she moved to Germany in 1981 and ten years later moved to the United States, living in California. Irena's first exposure to quilting came from the Log Cabin-style quilts her mother made with scraps. She tried some piecing of her own, but quilting didn’t become a passion until she saw a Gammill longarm quilting machine at a local quilt shop in 2004. Two days later, Irena was stitching pantographs for the shop owner. Irena’s first two wholecloth quilts came back from their first show with three ribbons. Her work has been exhibited in show across the United States and published in several quilting magazine. She’s won numerous awards nationwide. Irena has two daughters and three grandchildren. She and her husband, Richard, now live in Oklahoma where she has a large studio.
Books by Irena Bluhm
Debbie Bowles
Debbie Bowles came to quiltmaking via a lifetime of garment and craft sewing. As an elementary school teacher, Cub Scout den mom, and church volunteer with junior high students, Debbie approaches design, quiltmaking, and teaching as a means of having fun while creating something pleasing to the maker. Through her pattern company, Maple Island Quilts, she brings delightful designs made with achievable techniques to quilters of many skill levels. Her book "Cutting Curves from Straight Pieces," published by the American Quilter's Society in 2001, has opened up the world of curves for many quilters. Debbie travels nationally to present workshops that are fun and informative. They offer each quilter a space for personal interpretation of the designs. Her home is in Minnesota, where she lives with her husband, Rick, and two sons, Ryan and Kyle.
Website: http://www.mapleislandquilts.com
Patricia Bowman
Trish Bowman has been sewing and doing all kinds of crafts for over 40 years. The craft bug came from her Mom. In high school she became a serious seamstress, starting out by making her own clothes, progressing to reupholstering furniture, and eventually making clothes for her husband. Never one to sit and enjoy the status quo, she was always experimenting with new techniques and challenges, discovering quilting in the mid-1980’s. Her love affair with this new dimension of her hobby blossomed as she realized quilting offered a better outlet for her creativity than making clothes.
Her favorite quilts have always been the ones that held people’s memories. Her first T-shirt quilt, created in 1988, was for her husband and celebrated his days in college by using old T-shirts that otherwise would have gone to the rag bin. Subsequently, she has made many memory quilts for family, friends, and, more recently, clients.
Trish has a studio full of books and fabrics and a Gammill Statler Stitcher to finish all the quilts she makes. A member of the Florida Cabin Fever Quilt Guild, she has served as president and Cabin Fever Quilt Show chairperson. As owner of Jersey Girl Quilts, a custom quilt business, she designs and makes memory quilts for clients who don’t want to or can’t make their own. Based on her experiences with this business, a ruler/template system was developed that eases the cutting of shirts and improves cutting accuracy over the use of a basic square ruler.
Trish lives in central Florida with her husband of 34 years, Doug, and their puppy, Penny. She has two grown children, Christopher and Jennifer, a son-in-law, Michael, and is still waiting on grandkids. She is a registered nurse and successfully ran her own legal nurse consulting business prior to moving to Florida 10 years ago.
Photo by Ashton Unique Photography & More
Books by Patricia Bowman
Barbara Brackman
Barbara has been a board member of the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG) and the Kansas Quilt Project, and has served as consultant to numerous state quilt projects, assisting with pattern identification and quilt dating. As a freelance museum curator, she has organized exhibits of art from quilts and cowboy boots to art environments. When she finds time to make quilts, they often reflect her sense of humor. With Laurie Metzinger she organized the infamous project The Sun Set on Sunbonnet Sue.
Books by Barbara Brackman
Brenda Brayfield
Brenda Brayfield was born in Northern Ireland and immigrated with her parents to Vancouver, British Columbia, as a young child. She now lives in Surrey with her husband, Roger. She has three sons, Jim, Ryan, and Kevin. Brenda has been making and showing quilts since she took her first class in 1993 and teaches quilting in local workshops. Brenda's top foundation-piecing technique was developed as an answer to a dilemma she faced while preparing for an upcoming workshop. As her students requested more blocks in a variety of styles and sizes, Brenda's block pile grew and so did the accompanying pile of text. The result was Brenda's first book, "Log Cabin: Rediscovered by Machine," published by the American Quilter's Society.
Books by Brenda Brayfield
Patricia L. Brown
Patricia began quilting in 1978, very reluctantly! A friend kept after her to go with her to quilting lessons and Patricia finally gave in. From the first lesson, she found she couldn’t get enough! Patricia made samplers, Amish-style quilts, and traditional quilts then as time went on, she lost interest in the same old fabrics. She stopped quilting for a while after the birth of her second son.
When her last son left home, Patricia found herself in a quilt shop surrounded by batik fabric and fell in love with quilting all over again. Batiks opened up a new world to Patricia. She believes that by using basic techniques and beautiful fabrics, a traditional quilter can easily become an art quilter.
Website: http://www.quiltedmoon.com
Books by Patricia L. Brown
Bonnie K Browning
Bonnie enjoys teaching others to quilt. Teaching has taken her to guilds and conferences across the United States, and to Austrailia, Turkey, and Japan. But, one of Bonnie's favorite teaching dates is with grade school-age children at the Quilt Camp for Kids, held each July at the Museum of the American Quilter's Society. Bonnie's articles have appeared in "American Quilter" and "McCall's Quilting," and she has shared quilting techniques on Simply Quilts on HGTV. In addition to writing and teaching, Bonnie is involved in other facets of quilting. She is a certified quilt judge and judges at several conferences each year. Bonnie is a staff member of the American Quilter's Society where she serves as coordinator for the quilt shows produced by AQS. Bonnie lives in Paducah, Kentucky, with her husband, Wayne, and White Sox, the cat.
Website: http://bonniebrowning.tripod.com
Books by Bonnie K Browning
Michael G Buckingham
Michael Buckingham has lived and traveled around the United States and Europe working as a graphic designer, illustrator, and cartoonist. Combining his interests in design, history, and quilting, he has created the unique "Presidential Redwork: A Stitch in Time" that both quilters and their families can enjoy. Michael, a staff designer for AQS, resides in western Kentucky's lakes area with his wife and two sons.
Website: http://www.buckgrafix.com
Books by Michael G Buckingham
Barbara M. Burnham
In 1972, Barbara’s mother surprised her with the gift of a year-long Baltimore Album class with Mimi Dietrich. Barbara credits Mimi for inspiring her obsession with appliqué. When the Baltimore Appliqué Society was founded in 1993, Barbara became a charter member. Very active with BAS, she serves as a board member and frequent contributor to the BAS newsletter, and donates her time and talents for museum fundraisers to raise funds that help preserve their quilt collections.
Barbara teaches hand appliqué, hand quilting, and inking on fabric, and offers presentations and trunk shows at local quilt shows and guilds. She writes articles on appliqué techniques and antique quilts, and is active with online groups of quilt collectors, historians, and appliqué enthusiasts. Many of her quilts have been exhibited, and she has won awards for hand quilting and hand appliqué in national competitions, including 1st place for GRAND GEOMETRICS CREATED THE AMISH WAY at the American Quilter’s Society Show & Contest in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 2010. Also, Barbara and machine quilter Marty Vint of Dogwood Quilting of Baltimore, Maryland, won 2nd place for Bed Quilts: Longarm/Midarm Machine Quilted at the American Quilter’s Society Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky, with M.E.C. REMEMBERED, the quilt featured in this book.
Barbara and her husband, Ed, live in historic Ellicott City, Maryland, bordering Patapsco State Park.
Books by Barbara M. Burnham