Instructors

Judith Baker Montano is a world-renowned Canadian fibre artist, author and teacher who is comfortable in many mediums. She grew up in the beautiful foothills of Alberta, Canada. A love of fabrics and embellishments reflect her heritage. Her great-grandmother was a master quilter and her mother taught her needle skills at an early age. Her designs soon turned to clothing and crazy quilting. Using rich fabrics,  vibrant color combinations, embroidery, beading and punch needle, original pieces took on a unique style. Judith’s Indian heritage appears in many of her art garments and embellishment projects.

Experimenting with materials and sewing machine, Judith created “The Montano Center Piece Method”, a copy write machine method of crazy quilting. This led to teaching classes and her first book on crazy quilting. Over the years she  has become the leading expert on Crazy quilting, silk ribbon and embellishments.

Judith’s career has taken her from painting, to quilting, to crazy quilting to embellished embroidery artwork and into land/seacapes and underwater projects. Although her work keeps evolving, crazy quilting always appears in new designs,
and she has turned it into a contemporary art form. She is renowned for her fibre landscapes, which incorporate all aspects of art and needlework techniques.

As the best selling author for C & T Publishing, Judith incorporates a unique combination of her photography, watercolors, pen and ink illustrations and friendly prose along with her needlework designs and love of color.
Visit Judith’s website at: http://www.judithbakermontano.com

Quilt Camp at Sea was fortunate enough to have Judith join us on our 2013 cruise to Mexico and Hawaii. She was such a hit with our cruisers that almost all of us decided to sail again in 2014! We are so pleased to have her and her delightful husband Ernest Shealy will join us on the Southern Caribbean/Panama Sunfarer Cruise. Don’t miss this opportunity, this cruise will sell out.

===============================================================================

Janet Bottroff was introduced to the world of quilting while attending college.  She was truly bitten by the proverbial quilt bug!  Just out of college, she found that she could work a regular job and still add one day working at a quilt store.  Her experience there, along with reading and trying every technique, has proven to her benefit.  She has won numerous awards in local, state and national venues.  Her specialty is landscape watercolor technique.  Many have commented that her quilts appear like Thomas Kinkade paintings.  She loves designing and creating patterns.  Her most recent accomplishments have been teaching on quilting cruises, and with her husband’s assistance, opening their own quilt store Bluebird Quilts & Gallery, in Grand Terrace, California.  Her love and passion is apparent as she seeks to inspire others to enjoy the wonderful fabric filled world of quilting!

======================================================================================================================

Wendy Mathson was part of a friendship group in 1992 at Hope Methodist Church in Rancho Bernardo  that began making prayer quilts. A few years later she organized what is now Prayers & Squares, The Prayer Quilt Ministry. This interfaith non-profit organization now has over 800 chapters world-wide. She began designing and teaching simple, strip-pieced patterns to be used for prayer quilts. My stash was finally being used at a great rate but even more fabric was being donated, mostly in the form of scraps. Figuring out what to do with mountains of scraps was my next challenge, and I continued to design patterns with this goal in mind.

I started doing guild lectures a few years ago, choosing the topic “Scrap Management”. I use my collection of antique quilts, plus some of my own creations to illustrate and teach some of what I has learned in the process of making loads of “scrappy” prayer quilts. I love coming up with ideas for improved piecing techniques, and I invented a system of cut-after-you-sew tools called Quilters’ TRIMplates®. My specialty is a fast, easy and accurate method for making the traditional “Storm at Sea” pattern without using templates or paper piecing. My book, “A New Light on Storm at Sea Quilts: One Block, An Ocean of Desgin Possibilities” was realeased by C&T Publishing in March, 2009.

Wendy has designed quilting books for ASN (American School of Needlework) Publishing in San Marcos and now works as a freelance book editor and illustrator for C&T Publishing. She also teaches for Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in Monterey, CA .  And, finally has a quilt on her bed – a 30th anniversary gift for my husband, finished last year.

====================================================================================================================

Carol C. Porter is the Education Director for Clover Needlecraft where she helps make the company’s many unique products accessible and engaging.   She is an accomplished author, designer, sewer, quilter, knitter, pattern maker, and crafter.

Carol is also a disciplined and thoughtful teacher whose encouragement and patience regularly inspires student creativity and success.  Carol is recognized for the strength of her “colorwash” designs and has produced quilt patterns under the Heatherworks label.

====================================================================================================================

Dodi Lee Poulsen designs and creates wonderful patterns to be enjoyed by quilters of all skill levels. Her patterns have been featured in Fons & Porter, McCall’s Quilts, McCall’s Quick Quilts, The Quilter, American Patchwork Quilting, Quilts and More, & International Quilt Scene. She has also been featured 3 times in Top 100 blocks from today’s top designers.

Dodi holds a BFA degree in interior and fabric design. She has been a quilt instructor for over twenty five years and she has also owned her own design company. She teaches and lectures throughout the country. Together with her sister, Heidi Fisher, Dodi launched their pattern company, Two Sisters at Squirrel Hollow in 2006. Dodi added their children’s division of patterns, Little Londyn pattern company, with daughter, Megan Miles.

Dodi is the author of 4 books including 2 new books from Landauer Publishing.

Today she and her husband happily live in their home state of Washington where she designs patterns in a wonderful new studio. She is the proud grandparent of 6 grandchildren.

Dodi began teaching on Quilt Camp at Sea cruises in 2009 and her mystery classes have become one of the most requested classes by quilters for future cruises! Visit Dodi’s website  www.sashgals.com for more information about Dodi and to see some of her many patterns and books!

====================================================================================================================

Heidi Lund is a wearable artist who has a passion for fabric, fiber and surface embellishments.  Her garments and art quilts have been exhibited in both national and international shows like the International Quilt Festival, Quilt Expo, Road to California, LaConner Quilt & Textile Quiltfest, Pacific International, MQX and Association of Pacific West Quilters.  Heidi is a five time Bernina Fashion Show designer and has had work published in Creative Quilting the Journal Quilt Project, Quilting Arts Magazines and Calendars, Quilting Arts DVD: Gathering of Leaves as well as several publications and a designer pack line with Sulky of America.

Heidi work with cottons, silks, and lots of thread.  She enjoys fabric dying, painting and airbrushing and applying yards of threads by free motion on her home sewing machine.  Her unique works are well “garnished” with unbelievable embellishments from fibers, to ribbons, beads, buttons, ultra suede and even shells.  Heidi teaches quilting, surface design, fabric collage, fabric dyeing, embellishment and beading.  She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her three chocolate spaniels

====================================================================================================================

Jackie Wolff, as a young mother and homemaker, decided she needed a creative social outlet.  After enrolling in a quilt class, she was soon dreaming about quilt blocks and fabric and at last found a group of women that spoke her language.  She started “hanging out” at a local quilt shop and then began working one day a week.  Three years later (in 1985) she was holding the keys to the shop!  Jackie owned The Quilting Bee in Spokane, Washington for 26 years, selling it in 2011 to have more time to spend with her grown sons, their wives, and her adorable and much loved grandchildren, although she continues to teach classes at the shop.  She loves to teach and encourages new quilters to start a project and finish it to find the pure joy of creating.  Jackie’s gift of spontaneous creativity, her flair for embellishing, and the fact that she never is sitting idle (you will always find her doing handwork) is definitely contagious!  Jackie became a member of the Quilt Camp at Sea quilting instructor staff on the 2005 Friendship at Sea cruise and has taught on almost every cruise since then!  She lives in Liberty Lake, Washington with her husband Jamie.

============================================================

We are pleased to welcome Beverly Dunivent, quilt historian, AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser, and quilting teacher. Beverly has given lectures and taught quilting classes on several previous Quilt Camp at Sea cruises and will be joining us on the 2014 Panama Canal Sunfarer cruise as a lecturer on Molas and their place in the lives of the people in and near the canal. Beverly will also be teaching a class using a Mola each quilter will have the opportunity to purchase during our visit to Colon, Panama.

The traditional Mola is assembled using the technique of reverse appliqué of several layers of cotton fabric to make a piece of fabric art. The pieces are totally hand made with no sewing by machine in the authentic style by the Kuna Indians. The basic technique is to draw the design on the top fabric, baste, cut and sew with tiny appliqué stitches. The fabrics and sizes have evolved over time with cotton fabric that is available from Columbia or at a local fabric store in Panama being used at this time. Mola’s come with raw edges waiting to be made into garments, purses, wall hangings, and quilts.

The Mola has become a major source of income for the women of San Blas Islands, an
archipelago of 365 islands between Panama and Columbia. Their work is a delight to the eye
with many calling the Mola “a sculpturing through cloth”. During our time in Colon, Panama, on our return from the canal, Beverly will lead us to the Molas that we can purchase from the locals.

After our return to the ship and on our way back to Florida, Beverly will be teaching a class on using our Molas to make wall hangings and/or framing them for display as a souvenir of your cruise. Beverly will have several examples and will give individual instruction on the various uses for the pieces. This will be a 3 hour class that will include time for deciding what to make and getting started on the project. You should easily be able to finish the project using your open sewing times! Quilters with all levels of quilting skills can easily make a piece of art for their home and/or gifts from these wonderful pieces. The price of the class and “pied piper” assistance to help find your perfect Mola for the class is $40.00 with you supplying the Mola, setting fabrics such as solid black, dark blue, red, and bright prints as well as your basic tools. Pre-payment of this $40.00 fee is required by December 1, 2013 due to limited class space being available (a maximum of 16 quilters).