Victoria Findlay Wolfe has been sewing and creating since she was four years old. Influenced by her grandmother’s quilts, her work has an improvisational nature with a respect for traditional patterns and techniques. Every time she makes a quilt, she attempts to approach it with fresh eyes and without preconceptions, thus keeping the conversation of possibility in design open. Victoria’s work masterfully balances the genres of studio, traditional and modern quilts with a flair for bringing the fine art of quilting to the modern age. She works in all facets of the quilting world: first as an artist, but also as author, teacher, fabric designer and business owner. She exhibits, teaches, and lectures all over the world.
Thomas Knauer began his career teaching design at Drake University before turning to quilting. He has designed fabrics for several leading manufacturers, and his work has been exhibited in quilt shows and museums across the country, including the International Quilt Museum, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and the Quilt Festival in Houston. His work focuses on issues of social justice and violence; his most recent body of work deals with the recent police shootings of unarmed black men and children. Thomas is the author of Why We Quilt, as well as two previous books, including The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook and Modern Quilt Perspectives. Find him online at www.thomasknauersews.com
Paula Leber has been a passionate quiltmaker for the past 15 years and is a member of the National Modern Quilt Guild. Her quiltmaking philosophy is to use color, color, and more color, which she believes aligns with the Modern Quilt Movement’s overall emphasis on intense use of hue and saturation. Paula made her Fractured Triangles quilt using a pattern by Katie Larson, which won a design contest held by the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild (KCMQG). The KCMQG subsequently published the pattern in 2013 and it became a source of income for the guild. Paula, an avid gardener, lives in Shawnee Mission, Kansas and a has a yard full of flowers as well as a water garden, all of which she loves to maintain and enjoy when she’s not making quilts.
Teaching in her Seattle studio and nationally, Katie Pedersen merges improvisational techniques with modern and traditional quilting designs to create unique quilts. She is the co-author of Quilting Modern: Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts and is a past president and founding member of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild. Katie believes that making something by hand takes each of us on a journey of discovering who we are as artists, and that this personal process starts simply by sewing two pieces of fabric together. She loves that quilts are utilitarian art that showcase the evolution of one’s creative confidence and developing aesthetic, be it modern, traditional or a mix mash. You can visit Katie online at sewkatiedid.com
Having written the first book on Modern Quilting, Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr are pioneers of the Modern Quilt Movement and co-founders of Modern Quilt Studio, in Oak Park, Illinois. Weeks made her first modern quilt in 1987 and began collaborating with Bill in 1995. Weeks and Bill are prolific fabric designers, authors of six books on Modern Quilting, and are the publishers of Modern Quilts Illustrated and a variety of other publications. Together with their daughter they wrote the best-selling children’s sewing book, A Kid’s Guide to Sewing. Their work has been featured in over 100 publications in the US, Japan, France, Sweden, Canada and Australia. Weeks and Bill have taught extensively throughout the US, Canada, Japan (in Japanese) and France (in French). Weeks and Bill strive to inspire quilters of all ages and quilting styles to make quilts they will use and love.
Originally from New York, Maritza Soto grew up in a family of makers. Her passion for making art led her to a BFA from Parsons School of Design. In 2008, Maritza started making quilts, fusing her love for making art, design, and crafting. Maritza’s quilts have been exhibited at the International Quilt Festival (2018), QuiltCon (2017, 2018, 2020), as part of traveling selections of QuiltCon quilts in France, Spain, and Australia, and in group shows at the Washington Street Gallery (Somerville, MA). Her quilts have appeared in Quilting with a Modern Slant, by Rachel May (2014), and Modern Quilts: Designs of the New Century, by Alissa Haight Carlton and Riane Menardi Morrison (2017). Currently, Maritza teaches quilting and sewing at Gather Here, in Cambridge, MA. She has taught there for 10 years. She is a member of the Modern Quilt Guild.
Kathy York is a fiber artist whose award-winning quilts are easily recognizable for their graphic styles and bright colors. Kathy makes quilts to give her life experiences a voice. “I like to get lost in thought as the many hours drift by while working on a quilt. It is during these moments that I get my best ideas about how to proceed with a piece and what it means to me. When the concept becomes intertwined with the design, I am happy.” Common themes that recur include group dynamics, universal emotions, and current events. Her imagery is associative, often making allusions to personal and shared cultural experiences. Kathy lives in Austin, TX. You can follow her process and current works on social media (Facebook and Instagram), and on her blog: www.aquamoonartquilts.blogspot.com
