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Teacher Bios


Mary F. Watt

Mary is a self-taught Felter.  Her love of wool started with rescuing border collies and next raising a few sheep!  The question became what to do with all the wool?  During a visit to a sheep and wool show she saw a needle felted animal and her journey began.  Over a decade later her love of felting continues.  Teaching is her joy, she loves to share her knowledge of wool and felting with all her students. 
 

Sabrina Lavieri

Sabrina received a MA from the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford.  She was an arts educator and school administrator for over twenty years.  Through a wide variety of quilting techniques, she enjoys playing with fabrics as a means to investigate and interplay of color, line, form, texture, and pattern.  She enjoys sharing her knowledge and encouraging others to gain confidence by acquiring new techniques and skills.

Joanne Farrell

Joanne has been making quilts for 25 years.  She first got interested in sewing in Home Ed class in high school.  She has made some clothes and Halloween costumes for her son, but her passion is quilting.

Debby Addy

Debby learned to sew as a child. Her mom taught her at a small table in the corner of their basement. After falling in love with the creativity that sewing allows she went on to take every class she could to learn more. In high school she took summer school classes to learn from the nuns at her catholic high school. As an adult, Debby owned a small sewing shop in Plainville where she taught all ages and hosted children's sewing birthday parties. She also taught sewing for the town park and rec for many years. Debby lives in Winsted with her husband and enjoys spending time on the water every day. 
 

Sandi Murray

Sandi is self taught and only began quilting in 2016.  In this short time, she has made dozens of quilts and is particularly fond of applique, which has led to the creation of many unique baby quilts.  She is always looking for smaller projects that come together quickly to fill in gaps between making larger projects.  Making rope bowls quickly became an obsession and make the perfect gift for anyone.  The baskets are quick and fun to make and the design possibilities and size of the baskets are endless.

 

Sue Deshensky

Sue Deshensky of Lady Blue Quilt Studio is a Judy Niemeyer Quiltworx Certified Instructor, who teaches at quilt shops, quilt guilds and retreats.  Sue is also a pattern designer who has had several of her designs published in magazines. 

 

Diane Rigby

Diane Rigby learned to sew in her Junior High Home Ec classes many years ago. From that point on, sewing has been her favorite pastime, whether she is making quilts, curtains, pillows, clothing, costumes, etc. To share her skills and passion of sewing (as well as cooking and baking!), she became a Family and Consumer Science teacher and taught middle- and high-school for sixteen years in CT public schools, retiring in June 2020. Diane loves to teach, as well as take sewing classes, as she is always eager to learn more.

 

Lois Dimock

Lois has been sewing and quilting since 1985. She started out being self-taught and then took many classes and fell in love with all that quilting had to offer. At first Lois would machine piece and hand quilt, mostly King size quilts. She ran a home daycare for 37 years and then went to work part-time for Quilting By The Yard for 17 years at the same time until their closing in June 2020.  Lois worked with customers and taught classes. 

 

Sue Pritt

Sue is a country girl through and through. She loves mountain lakes, seaside docks, bird (and critter) watching, walking down quaint village streets, visiting barns and farm animals and even the occasional daytrip to a big city. They all supply the inspiration for her unique quilt designs, through which her company, “Sweet Season Quilts” was born, offering these special places to others through her patterns and kits.  As an award winning quilter with over 20 years experience,  Sue has tried every technique that has come along, but her two personal favorites are fusible web machine appliqué and her type of quilting as you go. She loves telling her class quilters to be ready to learn a bunch, laugh a lot and get ready to be amazed at what they can accomplish in one day!  When she’s not teaching, traveling or designing, she’s puttering around the house with her kitties, trying new recipes, mowing the lawn (or shoveling snow), helping hubby with one of his many “projects”, or just singing along with her favorite radio station.  Sue and her hubby are originally from southern Pennsylvania, where they married, moved to northern Vermont, started a family, and later relocated to upstate New York in the little village of Schaghticoke. You can reach Sue through her website; www.sweetseasonquilts.com.

Martha Quizhpi

Martha Quizhpi, an artisan at heart and fan of color lives in Danbury, Connecticut.  While growing up in Cuenca, Ecuador she obtained a diploma in dressmaking soon after high school.  In 2020, she became a "Sew Kind of Wonderful" Certified Teacher.  An accomplished sewer who has also made around a hundred quilts over the years. She made  her first quilt in 1986, hand quilted! She has been making patchwork quilts ever since.  Over the years she took numerous workshops on a variety of quilting techniques to improve her  skills. She started using and creating extra blocks on her pieced quilt backs to complement her quilts.  Her pieced quilt backs create a focal point that draws the viewer’s attention. Her appreciation  for craftsmanship is reflected in her work.  Her love especially for colorful scrappy looking quilts grew as a quilter in addition to her  enthusiasm to assist and motivate others to try new techniques and she will work with anyone that wants to learn and create.
 

Cat Allard

Cat Allard has been sewing since she was six years old, when her Aunt Dobbin put a needle in her hand and taught her the magic of sewing.  She began quilting in 1993 after graduating with a Fine Arts degree in Painting and Photography from Long Island University (C. W. Post). She began teaching classes in fabric painting, photo quilting and general quilting in 1996. Her hand-painted fabric appears in award winning fiber art quilts and as well as in her own quilts and those of other fabric-artists.  By 2000 Cat Allard added Quilt repair and restoration to her talents and working with antique quilts became a passion, restoring several historic quilts from the 1860's, as well as repairing current quilts so that they can be used again by their owners.  She has lectured on the process to local quilt guilds and evaluated many quilts suggesting the best methods for restoration and repair.  She teaches a variety of classes, including quilt making of all kinds, bags, gifts (placemats and other home items), Sashiko, Crazy quilting and Quilting with Rulers. 

 

Sally Rush

Sally began quilting in 2009 and has never looked back.  One Block Wonders are her special love, though she also employs traditional piecing, paper piecing, collage techniques and more.  Her love of bold color and whimsical prints is well known among her friends.

 

Teresa Bills

After she began traditional quilting about thirty years ago, it wasn’t long until she started imagining these beautiful Berkshire Hills in fabric. The colors and patterns of the landscapes were calling her to start making art quilts in which she could express her love of nature with fabric. She found her passion for pieced art quilts while attending a workshop with Ruth McDowell in 2008. She was hooked! Teresa work from photographs, drafting a drawing in a sew-able fashion. She would then make a template copy and from there the fun with fabric begins. After the top is completed, she quilts her piece using a free motion technique that is much like drawing with thread. She trains horses for a living and they are naturally one of her favorite subjects. You can see more of Teresa's work on her website – www.teresabillsdesigns.com