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• Monthly Guild Meeting - Member Spotlight!

  • When
    November 10, 2026
  •  
    10:00 AM
  • Location
    Carlsbad Dove Library

  
  

  In November, we will again host a “Member Spotlight” event, where we can look forward to learning about some of our fellow guild members through their own words and works! 

   Prepare to be awed by Gretchen Clare’s longarm expertise through her presentation, “Digitizing a Custom Quilt.”

  Gretchen has been long arm quilting for over 20 years and dreamt of quilting quilts that rival the most talented free motion quilters. She will share how the world of custom quilting has morphed from individual designs, to designs for entire quilts that make the look of free motion a reality through customization!

  Patti Rusk, our fundraiser extraordinaire, will delight us with her take on ““Quilting Myth: ‘It’s Cheaper Than Therapy.’”

  “I joined the journey, from torn aprons, bound buttonholes, Halloween costumes and curtains, to quilts.The points are sometimes perfect. The curves are pretty smooth. The method may include madness, but friends make all the difference. Quilting IS therapy. Quilting friends ARE lifesavers.”

  Patti will show us a few traditional patterns, usually with her own tweak of fabric or pattern or interpretation. Art quilts, collage, applique and more.

  
  

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• Monthly Guild Meeting: Laureen Smith - Defying Quilting Gravity

  • When
    January 12, 2027
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Carlsbad Dove Library

  We welcome Laureen Smith, founder of Tourmaline & Thyme Quilts. 

  Defy Quilting Gravity

  A fun and unexpected way to bring your quilts to life.

  Are your quilts feeling a little… flat?

  Not in a bad way—just in a “there might be more here” kind of way.

  In this lecture, I’ll show you how to move beyond traditional flat quilting and start thinking in layers, texture, and dimension—without making things complicated or fussy.

  We’ll explore simple ways to:

  • Add depth and visual interest
  • Rethink how and when elements are added
  • Use techniques like appliqué, stitching, and layering in new ways

  You’ll see real examples of how small changes can completely transform a quilt—and open the door to designs you may not have thought possible.

  Because sometimes the biggest shift isn’t a new tool…it’s seeing your quilt differently.

  ABOUT LAUREEN

  Laureen Smith is a recovering corporate director, who is embracing her creative drive by picking up her needles again. Her mother and grandmother fostered her artistic talents with needlepoint, cross stitch, sewing, crocheting, and quilting from a very early age. She has combined her formal engineering education with her artistic passion to create new quilt patterns. She enjoys trying new techniques to express her ideas.

  Laureen started quilting in earnest when she graduated from college. Never one to start slow, she machine-pieced and hand-quilted a king-sized quilt for her sister’s wedding present. Since then, she has attended workshops from several quilting idols such as Paul Nadelstern and Carol Doak. Most importantly, she has learned from fellow quilters and artisans including Pat Pauly and Patty Cline of Chestnut Bay Quilting. Laureen uses EQ8 to design most of her quilts. She has earned her Longarm Certification from APQS.

  In addition to needlework, Laureen loves spending time with her family, playing with her two crazy dogs and demanding cat, gardening, hiking with friends, baking up a storm, reading historical fiction, and sipping a good wine. She is blessed to have a supportive husband, two amazing sons, a wonderful daughter, two adorable grandchildren. Laureen currently resides in Dover, DE.

  Currently, she has designed patterns for several different fabric manufacturers. They are either available on the website or free from the manufacturers. She enjoys the challenge of receiving the fabrics, making new designs for their approval, and then developing the patterns to accompany them. Laureen also enjoys making quilts for charity quilt alongs.

  Laureen has been published in QuiltWorld, McCalls Quilting, Fons and Porter Love of Quilting, and Quick + Easy Quilts magazines.

  She would like to thank her mother for encouraging her needlework and her sister for being her constant cheerleader.

  
  

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• Applismith - 3D Applique with Laureen Smith

  • When
    January 13, 2027
  •  
    9:30 AM - 3:30 PM
  • Location
    Quilt in a Day
  • Spaces left
    19

  Register

  Applismith™ 

   

  Forget-Me-Not Pouch

  Create a sweet cluster of blossoms on a functional zipper pouch with soft dimension and detail.

  A confident beginner project that combines small blossoms, stems, and construction.

  Transform your quilts with this three-dimensional fusible applique technique. During this workshop, you will learn to

  • Quilt the background,
  • Make the templates and appliques,
  • Attach the appliques, and
  • Embellish the mini quilt to make it really pop
  • Turn that beautiful block into a project you can finish and display with pride

  Includes step-by-step construction and finishing guidance.

  Kit fee is $30 - Payable separately from workshop fee
  

  What's included in the kit:

  

  What you need to bring:

  Lightpad or window, general sewing kit, open toe presser foot, freezer paper, iron, non-stick mat, erasable pen (water or heat removable), embroidery needle, thread (yellow, green, blue, and white), water soluble glue, quilting rulers (preferably 9 1/2" square), rotary cutter, applique scissors (or other small sharp scissors).

  Kit Description

  Everything you need to make your chosen bloom — except the thread. Each Applismith™ Flower Kit is curated specifically for that flower, so you can skip the sourcing and get straight to stitching.

  Each kit includes the pattern, fabric for backing, binding, appliqués, and background, batting, printed freezer paper templates, fusible web and fusible interfacing, and embellishments as specified by the pattern.

  Your pattern includes a QR code that gives you access to optional self-paced video lessons for just $5 more whenever you’re ready.

  You will need to supply your own marker, needle, non-stick mat, coordinating thread, sewing machine, scissors, cutting mat, rotary cutter, quilt ruler, and iron.

  
  

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• Monthly Guild Meeting: Ranae Merrill - Layers and Lines, Creating a Quilting Design

  • When
    February 09, 2027
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Carlsbad Dove Library

  

  RaNae Merrill (Photo by Dave Cross)

  Ever since I started teaching Free-Motion Mastery in a Month, the question my students ask most often is "Now that I can quilt, how do I decide what designs to put where on my quilt?"  Layers & Lines answers that question.

  We'll discuss Story, Personality, Contrast, Layers, Structure and the relationship between Piecing and Quilting. Looking at photos of a wide variety of quilts we'll examine how to apply these concepts to creating a quilting design. And since thread is the "paint" of quilting, we'll also discuss thread color, fiber and weight.

  After Layers & Lines, you will have the tools to create quilting designs that take your quilt tops from special to spectacular! You'll never look at a quilt the same again!

  

  About RaNae

  I began quilting in 1989 (my first year of graduate school) by finishing a quilt my grandmother had been making for me when she died in 1976. (It turned out to be king-size and I hand quilted the whole thing!) Later I found a batch of nine-patch squares in a trunk that had belonged to her, and I started using those to make baby quilts for my nieces and nephews. When people began praising my designs and suggesting that I quilt professionally, I brushed off the idea as impractical.

  So it was a surprise to me when I stumbled into quilting professionally back in 2005. I took some fabric design ideas to a few fabric manufacturers for feedback. To my surprise, Blank Quilting bought one of the groups I showed them. As I left the meeting, the designer I had met with suggested that I go to Quilt Market in Houston. I ended up at Quilt Festival and that was my first quilt show. It blew my mind! I saw quilts in a totally new way. And I learned that it was possible to make a career of quilting.

  I published my first book,Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts,in 2008, inspired by a doodle of a spiral I drew while on a temp job back in the mid-1980's. That book was followed by two more books about spiral quilts: Magnificent Spiral Mandala Quilts and Sideways Spiral Quilts. 

  

  Free-Motion Mastery in a Month, my fourth book, is a shift from quilt design to free-motion quilting. It's based on my experience as a pianist and piano teacher. Who knew when I started taking piano lessons at age 4 (and eventually got a Master's Degree in Piano Performance) that it would lead to teaching free-motion quilting?!  It has been really fun to see  people  get excited about this unique approach to learning FMQ! (That's a very young me sitting at the very large piano.)

  Three more books have followed since then: T-Shirt Quilts . . . One Block at a Time!, an easy way to make t-shirt quilts; Not Your Grandma's Nine-Patch Quilts, which contains all the patterns for those first quilts I made from my grandma's blocks; and The 1-Hour Quilt Top, which you'll love if you like fast quilts.

  The day I got my first box of books back in October 2008 I walked out the door to my first teaching engagement and I've been teaching ever since. I've taught throughout the USA, and also in South America (where I teach in Spanish).

  Somewhere in all of that, I also worked for a few years as a photographer and a travel writer. I still love to travel, though lately it seems like more of a treat to stay home and explore New York City!  Whenever I can, I love getting out into nature to hike, kayak, ski and watch meteor showers.

  
  

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• Monthly Guild Lecture: LeeAnn Hileman - Landscape Quilts Trunk Show

  • When
    March 09, 2027
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Carlsbad Dove Library

  

  About LeeAnn Hileman's Lecture

  LeeAnn will be sharing her unique art quilts during our guild meeting. According to her:

       "Today, I think if a project doesn't look impossible to do, why bother?  Each art quilt I undertake is undertaken because there is some aspect to it I am compelled to explore, if not master.  Generally I get part of the way there which I am almost satisfied with.  There are always new hills to climb and as long as I can, I will strive toward that mastery."

  "The realism I achieve in my work comes from a collage style of placing bits of fabric from templates drawn onto freezer paper, as well as improvisational cutting and pinning.  I combine raw edge and turned edge applique techniques, as well as trapunto and thread painting.  Although I do some painting of fabric, I turn first to fabric as my medium and the painting and printing by third parties is kept to a minimum.  I do use the inspiration photographs as just that, inspiration, but there is always some degree of interpretation in the piece as it grows into itself.  

  

   

  
  

  About LeeAnn

  Growing up on a small farm in Eastern Nebraska, my art supplies included dirt and mud, leaves from cottonwood trees and paper grocery bags.  A fresh sheet of white paper was a treasure inviting me to draw on it.  Farmers use what they have and out of that lifestyle comes my veneration of practical materials, ordinary landscapes and family.
  
      My grandmother Carrie Belle Kilmer was one of my inspirations.  Losing her eyesight to untreated cataracts, she still managed to make a scrap quilt for my doll, a quilt which unfortunately now exists only in my memory.  My mother sewed clothes for me and I learned basic sewing skills from 4-H teachers, while eschewing the simple patterns my mother chose for Vogue patterns which were way beyond my own skill level and hers.
  
      Although I continued to sew over many years, I didn't take up quilting again (after my maiden voyage into quilting in high school, becoming a UFO which my mother finally finished - of course, not to my satisfaction) until I was pregnant with my son.  The lone star wall quilt for his nursery got me started on my quest again and Thimbleberries books taught me basics of construction in quilting.  I enjoyed so much the feel of fabrics and the delight of colors and pattern in the quilting fabrics and I was hooked.  Fabric became my medium.
  
      I didn't begin making art quilts until 2015 when I took a class with David Taylor.  Since then, I have taken classes, taught classes and developed my own style which I call Narrative Realism.  I work almost exclusively from my own photographs.  If there isn't something hidden that needs to be interpreted in an image, I don't see the value of making an art quilt from it.  One exception is working from vintage photographs, such as the j1950's era photograph which is the inspiration for Navajo Boy With Truck.  For me, creativity is an ultimate value.
  
      My work has been shown in national and international shows, including Quilt National 21 and The Festival of Quilts in the United Kingdom in 2021.  In Road to California 2019 I won the award for Outstanding Artistry and two of my quilts have been inducted into the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame.
  
     

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