Here are our upcoming 2025 Workshops and Lectures.
Registration is open to both members and non-members.
There’s no better way to feel a sense of connection with the guild than by attending a workshop. Join us!
Please review the registration and refund policy prior to registering for a class.
Questions? Contact workshopregistrar@gaaqg.com
Online registration requires one of the following payment types:
When paying by check, the online store assigns a pending status.
Mail your check, including your name and phone number, to:
GAAQG Treasurer
P.O. Box 131272
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48113-1272
Note: When paying by check for either an online or paper registration, your registration is pending until the check is both received and cleared. You will be notified when payment is completed and your registration is confirmed.
Mail-in registration requires a personal check and a completed paper registration form. Please mail both to the GAAQG Treasurer.
Mail your check, including your name and phone number, to:
GAAQG Treasurer
P.O. Box 131272
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48113-1272
Note: When paying by check for either an online or paper registration, your registration is pending until the check is both received and cleared. You will be notified when payment is completed and your registration is confirmed.
Before placing your order, please review the GAAQG Workshop Registration & Cancellation Policy.
When a workshop sells out, it will be removed from the online store’s list of available products. In this event, you can be added to a waiting list by emailing workshopregistrar@gaaqg.com.
Note: If your membership has lapsed please contact membership@gaaqg.com. Do not join as a new member.
Mel Beach is an award-winning fiber/mixed-media artist who loves to create through play each and every day. Mel loves stretching her creativity through her completion of 100+ quilt challenges at the local and international levels, in addition to completing seven 100-Day Projects since 2020, each inspired by daily dice rolling.
Mel offers a variety of fun & inspiring online lectures, workshops, and content to inspire fellow artists to create with confidence and joy. She is passionate about teaching with a focus on machine quilting, modern improvisational design, and surface design.
Mel has lectured and taught for numerous quilt guilds around the world and at several large quilting venues including Pacific International Quilt Festival, Craft Napa, Empty Spools Seminars, Road to California, Studio Art Quilt Associates Annual Conference, and several online quilt festivals/shows.
Her fiber art has been juried into prestigious traveling shows and art venues, while earning top awards and honors along the way. Mel and her artwork have been featured on The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, Quilting Arts TV hosted by Susan Brubaker Knapp, and published in numerous quilting books and magazines.
Mel received a Virtual Teaching Certification through The Academy for Virtual Teaching (AVT) which evaluated her proficiency and professionalism as a Virtual Teacher.
Join me for a playful approach that will stretch your creativity and help you achieve your quilting goals! Discover how rolling the dice can help you have fun while you make more art, tidy up your studio space, experiment with your newly organized supplies, tackle UFOs, stretch your quilting skills, and uncover a wealth of design inspiration. You’ll leave with lots of ideas to create your own unique game plan to incorporate creative play into each day, all year long.
Skill Level: All levels
Learn to hand carve your own block prints for use on paper and/or fabric. Learn more about the supplies, tools, and block printing process as you go through the steps to design, carve, and print your own original block printed patterns. Be forewarned that block printing is super fun and addicting!
Add a playful twist of inspiration to your quilt designs through the use of dice! I’ll introduce how I use dice to challenge myself and explore new design combinations in terms of color schemes, elements of art, design principles, block orientation, and quilting motifs. Then it will be your turn to roll the dice and play with these concepts through several hands-on exercises!
Skill Level: All levels
Transform solid fabrics into your own original prints layered with colors, patterns, and textures! Discover all the mark-making potential of everyday household items as you create stamped circles, dots, lines, and grids. Not only are these fabrics super fun and meditative to make, but they look fabulous layered and stitched into your art quilts!
Skill Level: Intermediate
Unlock the fun and intrigue of Lorrie Cranor’s Interleave quilts. All the secrets of creating the illusion of curves and transparency using only straight line stitching will be revealed. Best of all, Interleave quilts are assembled using a quilt-as-you-go technique, so your unique Interleave quilt will be pieced and quilted at the same time!
Supply List – Intriguing Interleaves
Note: The Pellon 820 Quilters Grid Fusible Interfacing can be purchased at The Quilting Season
Nancy started sewing at a very young age. She has been teaching the art of quilt making for over 30 years. Nancy’s YouTube Channel “On-Point-TV” has over 70,000 subscribers. Nancy’s books and patterns can be found on her website.
Her entertaining teaching style is great for both simple and advanced techniques. Topics include efficient and accurate rotary cutting, traditional and modern piecing techniques, machine and hand quilting, applique and more.
Nancy recently has incorporated her own monoprinted fabric into her quilts.
Like many of us, Nancy has been quilting for many years. She was inspired by her mother who was an artist. Nancy learned how art and life can come together.
Skill Level: All levels
Learn the great basics that Nancy has been teaching for years: power cutting, on point settings, borders and 50 other techniques and tips. This class is great for all levels! Nancy’s techniques are to teach the artist efficient and accurate results.
Skill Level: All levels
Kit fee: $65 – see class supply list for details
Add designs and paint on fabric. Your prints can be used in your next quilt.
The kit includes a gel pressed printing plate, paints, stencils and two yards of fabric. Additional stencils, stamps, and paint will be available to use.
Skill Level: All levels
Applique is not a bad word – you just need the right techniques to be successful. Choose from six desgins to learn Nancy’s edge turning techniques for sharp points and great curves. Make scalloped mitered borders – all with machine stitching.
Tammy has been quilting since 1991. Tammy designs and self-publishes her quilt patterns under the label Tamarinis. Her designs are regularly published in a variety of quilt magazines. She also works with major fabric manufacturers designing projects to showcase and promote their fabric lines, including Northcott, Free Spirit, Maywood, Dear Stella and Timeless Treasures.
Tammy enjoys working with almost any fabric. Her favorites are batiks, bold prints, and almost any fabric with words on it. Having a background in art and literature she finds ways to use “words” in her work, be it in the fabric itself or by adding them to the piece. She designs fabrics for Island Batik. A perfect fit – since she “LOVES batiks!”
Tammy’s patterns can be purchased through her website – tamarinis.com and Etsy.
Ever wonder – what would this quilt look like if I made it in another color way? If I used plaids and stripes instead of florals?Well, Tammy can’t tell you what EVERY quilt would look like, but we can explore some practical examples together! In a fun format, we will compare quilts made in florals versus batiks, reproduction fabrics versus crisp modern prints, brights versus pastels. Gather inspiration and insight into the choices for your next project!
Skill Level: All levels
Try Tammy’s newest technique – guided improv – and learn to creaate lovely, long, sharppoints with NO paper piecing, templates or special rulers! Yes, it can be done! Get the LOOK of improv piecing in a “guided” format that allows you to recreate the blocks over and over!
Skill Level: All levels
Techniques: Fusible applique, Embellishments, Decorative stitching
Tammy has a new e-book coming out – The Art of Appliqué Artifacts. The book embraces the concept of appliqué for multiple project applications. Embellish your favorite project – tea towels, ornaments, pin cushions, a quilt block, or even a piece of clothing!
The ideas can be used individually, or combined to create unique designs. Students can choose their own motif to learn these techniques.
Note: These two workshops replace Bombshell Baby. Each workshop is registered separately.
Lilo Bowman has worked as a floral designer, translator, tour guide, wedding planner, and is now editor-in-chief of TheQuiltShow.com. Her work has been varied, often challenging, but always creative. Since early childhood, she has been instilled with the desire for and love of doing something with your hands, learned by observing the varied and beautiful items crafted by both of her grandmothers. Raised in a German culture, Lilo was always keenly aware of and fascinated with objects (whether utilitarian or decorative) that were attractively displayed while still being orderly.
Food, travel (both as a military wife and tourist), and curiosity about other cultures have also played a large role in shaping Lilo’s sense of taste and design and her understanding of how others prioritize the items they choose to have in their homes. Being surrounded by strong, independent, and civic-minded female role models has instilled a sense of “you can do this” and “consider others” along the way.
When not working, Lilo travels, gardens, works on DIY projects with a ragtag bunch of rescue pets nearby, and spends time with her extended, loud, noisy, always food- and travel-talking family.
Are you overwhelmed by all the stuff that seems to be taking over but don’t know how to bring back order? If your current situation isn’t functioning — it might be time to hit the refresh button. Learnhow to build a creative place that works for you, your space, your budget and where you are right now.
Note: There is no workshop in July.
Erin Grogan, the pattern designer and founder of Love Sew Modern, was introduced to sewing by her grandmother, a professional seamstress. When Erin was a child she would fill a notebook with fashion designs with the dream of one day becoming a clothing designer. Her grandmother would come to visit for many weeks in the summer. Erin and her grandmother would go to Hancock Fabrics to get material and together they would sew her school wardrobe for the next year. These precious moments sparked her love for design.
In 2017 Erin took her first trip to a modern quilt shop. Surrounded by all the bright and bold fabrics and modern quilts she knew in that moment she wanted to become a quilter. In January of 2020 Erin left her corporate job to focus on growing her dream, Love Sew Modern. Now four years later Erin has over 14 published patterns, published her first book (Retro Curved Pieced Quilts), and is an international quilting educator who embraces spreading the love of quilting.
Patterns and videos can be found on her website, LoveSewModern.
Erin resides in Northern Virginia with her husband, two children, and her puppy Tula (yes, named after the amazing fabric designer Tula Pink!)
People have been finding ways to turn art into fashion for generations. In this lecture we will discuss the evolution of wearable art. There will be a strong focus on how society has recycled quilts for fashion through the decades. During this lecture we will explore different methods of applying our artistic style to our own wardrobe as well.
Skill Level: All levels
Class Preparation: Each student will be required to purchase their own copy of the Chaos Coordinator pattern. A discount code will be provided when booking the class for the PDF version of the pattern.
Join Erin on this curvy adventure to make the Chaos Coordinator Quilt.
We will cover the cutting, piecing and squaring up of each of the 5 blocks in the pattern. By the end of the workshop you will make at least one of each block, or enough blocks to complete a pillow/wall hanging or baby sized top. You can then apply these skill to continue making more blocks to grow your quilt to one of the throw sizes if desired. This workshop uses my Chaos Coordinator Pattern.
Skill Level: All levels
Class Preparation:
This workshop pairs beautifully with the Wearable Art Lecture. During this workshop we will be taking an item of Ready Wear Clothing and up-cycling it with quilting art and embellishments. In this workshop we will cover:
In this workshop we will cover:
Applying a finished quilt block to your clothing item.
Adding embroidery/big stitch quilting to your clothing item.
Adding elements of visible mending to your clothing.
Skill Level: All levels
Class Preparation:
During this workshop we will cover 3 different methods for sewing curves so that each student can discover the method that works best for them. We will also be sewing a block that has a curve within the curve!
By the end of this class students should complete (1) flower block and (1) parrot block. Students will gain the skills and confidence to complete the full quilt.
Amy Friend is a former museum curator turned designer. She designs modern quilts and specializes in paper pieced designs. She authored the books Intentional Piecing (2016) and Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Design (2017), and Petal + Stem (2020). Since 2019, Amy has run a paper pieced Block of the Month program each year. She is an award winning quilter and her quilts have been exhibited at a number of quilt shows as well as museums. Amy is a national quilt teacher and lecturer. Amy lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children. If she isn’t sewing or spending time with the family, you might find her in the garden.
Amy’s patterns can be found through her website – duringquiettime.com and Etsy.
This approximately one hour long trunk show will include a discussion of Amy Friend’s personal sewing history and evolution and how it fits into the modern quilting movement. By showing samples of her own work, she will introduce quilters to the characteristics of modern quilting as defined by the Modern Quilt Guild so that they get a better understanding of what modern quilting is all about!
Skill Level: All levels
We will be using the Wings pattern as a great introduction to modern, large scale paper piecing.
Paper piecing with larger pieces of fabric is in many ways more difficult than paper piecing with small pieces that are more easily handled. Learn some new tricks to make large scale paper piecing work while also learning to place your fabric intentionally to enhance the pattern design.
Explore various layouts for a unique quilt.
You can purchase the PDF pattern for $12 at Quiet Time Quilting.
Skill Level: All levels
This workshop is based on one of the three design approaches that Amy Friend shares in her second book, Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Design.
This class is technique and design based, all about approaching your paper pieced block designs improvisationally. You will design and sew your own block and work on a quilt layout using alternate grid work, negative space and other elements of modern design.
