Instructors Quilt Show Reno 2026

Rob Appell / Rob Appell Designs

Hi, my name is Rob Appell. I’m a California native, and it shows—surfing, hiking, and playing the guitar are at the top of my list when I’m not behind a sewing machine. I have an awesome, supportive family. My wife and two kids are the center of my world.

I love teaching people to sew, and I’m jazzed to share my passion with you! If you’re wondering how I got started quilting, it all began when I was working in my mother’s quilt shop. I caught the quilt pox, and there was no cure! I taught myself to quilt, and my personal style emerged. Quilted seascapes became my trademark. After a few years, I started designing fabric for Free Spirit. Not much later, I was designing quilts for Michael Miller’s new fabric releases, too. After that, I spent four years as the host of Missouri Star’s Man Sewing channel. Now I’m on to new adventures with Stitchin’ Heaven in Quitman, TX. I am creating content on their YouTube Channel - Check it out! Sew Well with Rob Appell.

It’s been amazing to reach out to all of you and share my love of sewing and quilting. Thank you for being a part of this wild, creative journey! www.rob@robappelldesigns.com

Sandra Bruce – Sandra Bruce

My love of quilts began when I was neighbors with the quilt artist Therese May in the early 1980’s when she and I began a quilt group. My background is in illustration and lettering, which was my freelance career for over 25 years. This influenced my quilt work greatly and set me up for the work I went on to do. In 2010, I acquired a longarm quilting machine and began freemotion quilting, using my drawing and writing skills into my stitching.

My teaching repertoire includes Material Matrix, Color Dance, Stitching Words, and Scrap Vortex, all of which can be seen on my website. You may find me at www.sandrabruce.com.

Ashley Coffey / Pieces of Love Quilt Shop

Ashley Coffey is the owner of Pieces of Love Quilt Shop and Pieces of Love Retreats in Oroville, California. A longarm quilter, teacher, and certified Stripology instructor, she’s been helping quilters for nearly a decade.

Ashley loves guiding beginners, cheering them on through tricky techniques, and connecting makers with the fabrics and tools that bring their projects to life. Through her shop, classes, quilting services, and new retreat center, she’s built a creative hub where community and creativity stitch together beautifully. www.piecesoflovequiltshop.com

Sandi daRoza - Rogers Lane Studio

A lifelong artist, Sandi learned to enjoy sewing at a very young age with her beloved mother, whose creative hands were never still. Her art is about JOY and a by-product of her life, reflecting playfulness, color, and imagination.

Roger’s Lane Studio is where all the magic takes place-where fabric is transformed into whimsical, soulful pieces and where Sandi shares her passion through teaching, storytelling, and inspiring others to create with their own hands. www.rogerslanestudios.com

Linda Hahn - Frog Hollow Designs

Linda J Hahn is a nationally recognized quilt teacher, author, and designer known for her dynamic teaching style and award-winning quilt designs. She is the creative force behind Frog Hollow Designs.

She has authored 14 books, several of which are award winners, has had over 50 magazine designs and articles, has designed seven batik fabric collections for Banyan Batiks by Northcott, and is an EQ Artist. Her classes are both entertaining and educational. When she is not on the road teaching quilting, she can be found at her local YMCA teaching Zumba fitness classes.

She currently resides in Easley, South Carolina, very close to her daughter, Sarah, who is also an award-winning quilter. www.froghollowdesigns.com

Jane Haworth – Jane Haworth

Inspired by the collage technique of Susan Carlson, Jane is a self-taught quilter using photos and nature to inspire her quilts. Her work has been shown at quilt shows around the U.S. She teaches nationally and internationally.

Jane has appeared on Quilting Arts TV and The Quilt Show, May 2025, and her book ‘Capture your own Life with Collage Quilting’ was published in Fall 2023. https://janehaworth.com

Joyce Hughes – Joyce Hughes Originals

Joyce Hughes (from Asbury, NJ) is an award-winning self-taught quilter, fiber artist, and author. Her first quilt was a T-shirt quilt, which she enjoyed making, but felt limited in the ability to express her artistic capabilities. Within several months, she began to design pictorial landscape quilts using raw-edge appliqué, thread painting, and a variety of embellishments. Never knowing the “rules”, she broke a lot of them, but with exciting results!

Amazingly, her first art quilt, “Mother’s Day”, was entered into a national show and won a blue ribbon. This has led to numerous awards, recognitions, and opportunities in the quilting world. Several proud accomplishments for Joyce are: “McCall’s Quilt Designer – Professional Category” for McCall’s Quilting Magazine; also an endorser and sample maker for Northcott and Timeless Treasures fabrics, and Ambassador for Mettler Threads and Brother Sewing.

Joyce is an author of 2 books. Joyce’s first book, Creating Art Quilts with Panels, is focused on working with Fabric Panels to create dimension and texture with threads and embellishments, creating a style of your own! Joyce’s second book, Thread Paint A Garden Quilt, focuses on raw-edge appliqué and thread painting to add shading, highlighting, and definition.

Joyce loves to teach and share her tips. One of her greatest accomplishments is when a student creates their own artwork following Joyce’s technique of Dimensional Thread Painting! https://janehaworth.com

Marjan Kluepfel – Marjan's Fabric Art

Marjan Kluepfel was born in the Netherlands. She has lived in Florida, Hawaii, Australia, and South Carolina. After working in academia for many years, she is now a full-time studio artist in Davis, CA.

Marjan has been creating art quilts and dyeing fabric since 1990. Her work has been juried into many shows, and she teaches her fabric art both nationally and internationally. Marjan's work is for sale at several commercial galleries and artists' cooperatives in Northern California. You can view her work on her website: http://www.marjankluepfel.com

Linda McGehee – Ghee’s

Designer, Linda McGehee has a diverse sewing background with 55 years of experience from garments to handbags, piecing to heirloom, surface manipulation to combining a variety of methods into a sampler of various techniques. Linda has traveled the globe demonstrating and lecturing from her books and is much sought after at trade and machine conventions, consumer shows, guilds, shops & television.

Linda is the owner of Ghee’s mail-order sewing and notions company. The most popular patterns are those designed by Linda for handbags with ready-to-wear handbag hardware. She has published several books on sewing: Texture with Textiles (winner in the sewing division of PCM’s 1992 Product of Excellence Awards); More...Texture With Textiles (finalist for the same award in 1993); a Companion Project Book; Spiraling Schemes and Chromatics (winner in the sewing book division of the 1997 Primedia Awards of Excellence); and Zip Couture. Creating Texture With Textiles; Simply Sensational Bags - How to Stitch and Embellish Handbags, Totes, and Satchels; and the Perfect Bag - 101 Stylish Looks from Simple Patterns are books authored by Linda and published by KP Publications.

Linda’s vest patterns are base patterns styled for further manipulation using any sewing, quilting, embroidery, and decorative techniques. Her tools are designed to make stitching easier, faster, and more accurate. www.Ghees.com

Keegan McGhie – Going Batty Quilt Shop

Keegan McGhie is a dedicated sewing educator and co-owner of Going Batty Quilt Shop, one of the nation’s top Bernina dealerships. With a special love for sergers, he has taught hundreds of classes to thousands of enthusiastic students, making complex techniques approachable and fun. His passion lies in helping sewists unlock the creative potential of their machines, giving them the skills and confidence to bring their projects to life.

Through expert instruction and an engaging teaching style, Keegan continues to inspire a growing community of makers who share his enthusiasm for serger sewing and beyond. Keegan, his staff, and a dedicated team of Bernina educators are excited to show you all of the amazing and fun things your serger can do. No one should be afraid of their serger! www.goingbatty.com

Cindy Myers  -  A Couple of Old Broads

Cindy has been quilting since the early 80s and has been a quilt instructor for over 25 years. Cindy has many other interests, including beading, jewelry making, and knitting.

Cindy lives and plays in Southern California. She has recently retired from owning and operating an Adult Residential Facility in her home in Ontario, where she cared for developmentally disabled men. Cindy is the owner of “A Couple of Old Broads”, a quilt show vendor business. She also does custom machine quilting and makes custom quilts on commission. visit www.acoupleofoldbroads.com

Gina Perkes – The Copper Needle

Gina Perkes is an internationally award-winning quilter. In 2015, she received the Best Longarm Machine Workmanship award at the AQS Paducah show. Her quilt Nostalgia is now part of the American Quilter’s Society collection displayed at the National Quilt Museum in Kentucky. Gina has been quilting for nearly two decades and has developed many tools for machine quilters, including ruler templates and stencils for longarm and domestic machine quilting.

She has appeared on several quilting shows and is the author of: Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting, Appliquilting, Guide to Grids, and Tips for Longarm Quilting. She operates her shop, The Copper Needle, BERNINA sewing machine, and longarm dealership in Payson, Arizona. Gina loves working with other quilters, sharing her techniques and helping them find inspiration and gain confidence.

She teaches both domestic and longarm techniques and believes that quilting is therapeutic and strives to create a stress-free, fun learning environment for her students. https://thecopperneedle.com

Lana Russel – Handi Quilter National Educator

Lana learned to sew at age eleven at her local sewing store. While garment sewing was her foundation, once she discovered quilting in 2001 while taking a year’s sabbatical from her career as a sixth-grade teacher, she found her zeal. Her creativity using textiles continued, and she began teaching quilting classes at local quilt shops. Before she knew it, she had a hefty stack of quilt tops awaiting the finishing touch of quilting. She didn’t want someone else to complete her projects, so she set about learning all types of quilt-as-you-go and free-motion quilting methods using a domestic machine.

She retired from teaching in public schools in 2014 and soon after discovered exactly what she had been looking for: the HQ Simply Sixteen® on the HQ Little Foot® frame. It was a smaller, more affordable, movable longarm machine with a small footprint. She fell in love with its ease of operation and learned to free-motion quilt and do ruler work, and pantographs while making a dent in her UFO stack. It didn’t take too long before her curiosity about Pro-Stitcher led her to upgrade to the HQ Forte® with Pro-Stitcher, Pro-Stitcher Designer, and Catalog, and she has enjoyed learning to use them to their fullest potential.

Lana’s lifelong love of learning and teaching is now expressed by educating and training other quilters. She truly has a passion for sharing her knowledge so that others can share in the joy of quilting. lana@lanaquilts.com

Toni Smith - Quiltoni

Toni Smith is a quilting powerhouse whose creativity knows no bounds. Known for her dazzling Bargello masterpieces and pixel-perfect quilting designs, Toni blends tradition with a bold, modern twist.

A true master of sergers and sewing machines alike, she transforms fabric into works of art that inspire quilters everywhere. Whether she’s teaching, designing, or stitching up something spectacular, Toni brings energy, expertise, and just the right touch of quilting magic to every project. https://quiltoni.com

Connie Spurlock – Sew Wonderful Dreams

Although she didn't even learn to sew until she was over 30 years old, Connie used her background in marketing and education to develop Sew Wonderful Dreams, a pattern design company, in 1989.

The company originally focused on craft patterns, while today the emphasis is on quilting and education. About her company, she says, "We believe the best marketing tool we have is to educate. Everyone can learn, but the way we learn is variable. Our patterns and classes are designed to help you learn in a way that will be most beneficial to you.

Connie is a lifelong resident of Coeur d'Alene and has taught hundreds of sewing workshops across the country in the past 30 years. www.sewwonderfuldreams.com

Jen Wagner - Snapdragon Quilting

Hi! I’m Jen Wagner, a quilt pattern designer and instructor from Las Vegas, NV, with a background as a women’s health nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife. After decades of helping women make informed health decisions, I now have the joy of helping quilters create quilts they love. My patterns blend modern and traditional techniques while embracing bold design and vibrant color.

Teaching quilters the techniques I use in my patterns - curved piecing, reverse appliqué, and foundation paper piecing - has been incredibly rewarding. I love seeing the moment when everything clicks and they fall in love with the process.

At Snapdragon Quilting, I not only design quilt patterns but also curate gorgeous quilt kits and stock all my favorite notions to make the quilting process smoother and more enjoyable. I’m honored to be a Benartex Ambassador and have loved working with their team and beautiful fabrics—it’s been such an exciting adventure! www.snapdragonquilting.com

Beth Watts - Fabric-Chicks

Beth has been sewing and quilting since she was a young girl. Beth went to work for elinor peace bailey Cloth Dolls when she was 15 and has been involved in the quilting industry for the past 30 years.

Beth's greatest passion is Dimensional Fabric Art Quilting. Beth doesn't believe in rules- she believes we make quilts because we love to create and be inspired. None of us "needs" another quilt!

Beth is a Certified Sulky Instructor who specializes in Thread Painting. www.fabric-chicks.com

Leigh Zipf – Handi Quilter National Educator

I have always been a crafty DIY type of person who enjoys making things with my hands. My sewing journey began 26 years ago on industrial machines. I was the owner of a marine canvas shop where I created upholstery from canvas and vinyl for a variety of settings. This is where I fell in love with sewing and wanted to make things for my home, so I purchased a domestic machine. I made clothing and accessories before finding my love of piecing and creating quilts.

Quilting on a domestic machine for most of that time, I finally moved to a stationary HQ Sweet Sixteen® long arm and then moved up to a HQ Forte® long arm with Pro Stitcher® Premium. I worked for a local sewing gallery for the past 4 years, where I instructed new owners how to use their new machines and/or software. I also planned and taught many creative classes that focused on all of the ways to use their sewing machines, embroidery machines, and embroidery software programs.

I love teaching all types of classes and helping others to realize they, too, can “Make That”. zipfleigh@gmail.com