I am focusing primarily on virtual lectures and workshops through Zoom. At this time, I will only occasionally accept in-person opportunities.
Below find a list of lecture and teaching topics and their contents. Toggle open to reveal more.
Contact me at amybfriend (at) gmail (dot) com.
Lectures
Workshops

Another option is to learn the same skills using the Blossoming Bouquet wall hanging project.
Choose the project that your guild likes best!
Available as of March 2020.
Choose from Kite Tails (left), Wings (center), Crazy Eights (right), or Magic Spark, all of which serve 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 top. (6 hours)
Students will use my Gulls quilt pattern to learn to foundation paper piece with efficiency. I will teach my low waste approach to paper piecing and discuss its other benefits as well, as it related to keeping the fabric on grain. Students who are new to foundation paper piecing will pick this technique up quickly! Students who are well versed in FPP might find this approach counterintuitive it will add a new skill to your FPP toolbox once mastered. We will discuss modern quilt design, particularly improv paper piecing and deconstruction. (6 hours)



Do you have boxes of blocks from workshops that have never made it into quilts? Have you thought about making a kitchen sink quilt but felt intimidated by the layout and the math? In this class learn how to arrange blocks of different sizes and to organize and pull all the colors together. Students will bring their blocks to class along with simple tools like graph paper and pencils and leave with a quilt top layout plus all the background fabric labeled with cutting dimensions. This is a no-sew class, but having this plan in place will make assembling the quilt top a breeze once you get home to your sewing machine. (3 hours or 6 hours with sewing)
Testimonials
Jenny-Detroit Area MQG
Sue, Crazy Quilters Quilt Guild
Kerry, Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild
May 21, 2020
We usually fly in speakers and teachers from around the country but with Coronavirus outbreak- that was not possible. The teachers/lecturers who our guild booked did not have on-line capabilities. So the scramble was on to find who was doing on-line classes and also who was doing it well. We did not want to be an experiment. We have 100 guild members and we need to deliver quality programming.
I had all of Amy’s books, so I went to her website and saw that she was offering lectures and classes on-line. I also heard Amy on a podcast- her voice is clear and she speaks well. This was looking good. I selected Amy’s lecture/trunk show “Improv Paper Piecing” for our guild.
As much as we wanted to go digital, none in our guild had used Zoom. Amy assured us that her presentation would work in the Zoom platform and she guided me on how to use it. Everything went perfect. Her slide show is well photographed with highlighted photos, she staged her “Zoom Studio” with great lighting, sound and background. We had Q&A via chat and live and for our first “virtual” lecture everything was perfect. We would highly recommend Amy for your guild for online or in person lecture or class. Amy’s lecture was well prepared from content to presentation. Our members were delighted and are now asking if she can come to the guild to teach in person. We all hope that is possible.”
–AJ Grossman, Treasurer
The title of Amy’s talk was “Intentional Piecing: Using Fussy Cutting in Quilt Designs.” She taught us how to be very intentional about our selection of fabric so that our fabric communicated the texture we were hoping to achieve. She also taught us how to look at fabric for fussy cutting in new and enlightening ways. Several of our guild members commented to me about how much they learned during Amy’s presentation. One even said, “I’ll never look at fabric the same way again!” In addition to her presentation being loaded with interesting and informative content, Amy was able to give us a trunk show via her powerpoint slides. Her slides were well organized and perfectly illustrated the concepts she was trying to teach us. In fact, I venture to say that her use of slides was so skillful that I preferred seeing her quilts this way as opposed to having her hold them up at the guild meeting. It can always be tricky to see well in a large room and from afar. Amy was able to zoom in on the details relevant to the issue she was talking about, and she was able to show multiple examples of the concept through her quilts. Her talk was incredibly engaging, and the hour flew by so fast! All of us were relatively new to delivering and receiving presentations like this through Zoom. Fortunately, we were all adaptable, and it worked out just perfect. Amy is incredibly organized and is the epitome of professionalism. I highly recommend her as a teacher, whether live or via Zoom or other virtual platform. You will not be disappointed. I look forward to future workshops with her, as well, and I would sign up for one in a heartbeat if I had the opportunity.”
Stephanie–Great Lakes MQG
Susan
Columbia River Gorge Quilt Guild member
–Cath Hallsworth, President of Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild
–Linda Satkowski, Member of Coastal Quilters
–Lyn Grenier, Merrimack Valley Quilters
“This class beat all expectations I had. I would take another class from Amy.”
-students from Intentionally Pieced Large Scale Paper Piecing class at Vermont Quilt Festival