Teaching & Lectures

This approximately one hour lecture will share the inspiration behind my latest book, Petal + Stem. I will explain how the book offers endless mix and match possibilities and ways to make the quilts your own! Additionally, while discussing the quilts, I will explain terms like “alternate gridwork,” “negative space,” and other modern quilting terminology. You will leave inspired to sew your own fabric gardens with my modern, stylized, paper pieced floral designs.

This approximately one hour long trunk show will include a discussion of my personal sewing history and evolution and how it fits into the modern quilting movement. By showing samples of my own work, I 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!

This approximately one hour presentation documents the journey that I took from student to curator to designer and author.

This approximately one hour long trunk show will focus on the quilts found in my book, Intentional Piecing, but may include additional quilts as well. I will use these quilts to illustrate types of fussy cutting and to discuss fabric selection in general. How can you pick the best fabric for a pattern? How can a pattern really showcase a fabric design?

This approximately one hour long trunk show is based on a new design approach that I present in my second book, Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Design. I illustrate through my quilts, how I approach paper piece design improvisationally to create unique, modern quilts.

An hour long trunk show will help define alternate gridwork and negative space, two principles of modern quilting. I will share quilts that show how I have played with these two ideas in different ways over the last few years—from just a touch to bold. I hope this gives you some ideas when it comes to planning your quilt layouts.

Students can either choose to make the Scrap Cat Quilt pattern as designed with the wonky log cabins and use up strips and scraps from their stash. Or, they can make the cheater cats using cheater prints–this is great for those with less FPP experience. Those wanting to stretch their skills even more, can use my improv paper piecing technique to break up the space in the cat head and body in a new improvisational way as I did in the sample on the top left. Everyone will have the benefit of improving their FPP skills and there are opportunities for design challenges for those who want them! The Scrap Cat Pattern will be required for the workshop.

6 hours

Using the Potting Mix layout from my most recent book, Petal + Stem, we will explore a more modern look for our floral quilts, using only two fabrics to create silhouettes. The petal and stem designs are modern, asymmetrical, and angular. Adding the minimal two color fabric really creates a more modern design. Participants will be able to design their own quilt tops, mixing and matching blocks within the established layouts. Foundation paper pieced blocks will be categorized as to complexity so that beginners can find doable blocks and more advanced participants and be challenged.

We will sew the Daisy Chain quilt from my brand new book, Petal and Stem. In this class, you will learn how to create two on-point paper-pieced blocks, a stylized flower and stem. You’ll learn both paper piecing skills and how to sew a curve to a paper pieced arc, which you can do with other blocks as well like the New York Beauty. Continue to sew your blocks at home and pop them into the on-point Daisy Chain layout, a modern layout with alternate gridwork and negative space.
Another option is to learn the same skills using the Blossoming Bouquet wall hanging project.
Choose the project that your guild likes best!

Learn how to create two paper-pieced blocks, a stylized modern flower and leaf, from my new book Petal and Stem. Build your paper piecing skills and learn how to sew a curve to a paper-pieced arc. Learn how to deconstruct a paper-pieced block to add variety to your repeated block quilt tops and how to lay out your finished blocks in an alt grid.

I love designing paper pieced curves. In this workshop, I will lead you through a series of exercises where you will design 6 paper pieced blocks, each with a different type of curve. Because you will be drawing your own blocks, everyone’s finished piece will be unique! We will also learn about modern quilt layouts that include negative space and alternate grid work. Using our paper pieced curves, negative space and alternate gridwork, we’ll each create an 18″ mini quilt or pillow cover.

This workshop is based on the design concepts presented in my book, Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Designs.  I will explain my design process and coach students through the creation of their own improv paper pieced template.  I will teach students to section and number their templates and give a foundation paper piecing demo.  Once students create blocks, I will walk them through a few different ways to visualize the block in a repeating pattern and in various modern layouts.  Students then plan a modern quilt design based on their block.  This class is process oriented and experimental.  

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 think paper piecing is intimidating? Are you not sure you can handle it? You can! Of course you can! And your design and pattern options will expand exponentially. My Tell Me A Story quilt (left) is a fun and addictive paper piecing project suitable for the beginner. Also, I have adapted my Melon Ice pattern to a table topper/runner size using smaller blocks (right) that are easy to handle and quick to piece. Using your choice of pattern, I will teach the basics of paper piecing as well as offer some tips to those with more experience about how they could further enhance their designs with fabric placement. Different layout options will be discussed as well. (3 hours is possible, 6 hours preferred)

Using this fun paintbrush block as an example, students will learn how to draw a simple pictorial paper pieced block in EQ8. I will cover how to import a photograph to trace, to draw your pattern divisions, color your finished block image, export images of your block, how to group your pieces and number them, and save your pattern pieces in a PDF file. This is a hands-on, computer-based class. Students must come prepared with the EQ software installed on their laptop.

Have you been saving those precious selvages but aren’t quite sure what to do with them? Amy Friend offers a series of classes designed to help you put those strips to work in fun, modern quilt designs.

• Bibliography Quilt – Learn how to transform selvages into a striking modern quilt design using Amy’s Bibliography Quilt Pattern. You may recognize this quilt from QuiltCon 2025, where it was displayed in the Modern Traditional category. In class, you’ll discover how to cut and collect selvages effectively, use them on a paper foundation (including tips for fussy cutting), and apply foundation paper piecing techniques to create bold, large-scale blocks. The pattern includes three sizes, so you can make a quilt as large as your selvage collection allows! (3 or 6 hours)

• Circuitry Quilt – This selvage design is the simplest to achieve of the three offerings where blocks of color are formed with selvages to create a design with pinwheel like movement. (3 or 6 hours)

• Selvage Whirlwind Quilt – Sort your selvages by color and learn to create this cleverly assembled block that will ultimately create a color flow across your quilt top. (3 or 6 hours)

Across all selvage classes, you’ll learn how to:

• Collect and prepare selvages for best results

• Identify what makes a selvage design work

• Create several blocks while sharing selvages with classmates to build a wide-ranging palette

We will use my 12″ Graphic Tee block to explore fussy cutting in combination with foundation paper piecing. This pattern was designed to use all your fun prints and show them off to their best advantage from the tiny 1/4″ print on the t-shirt tag to the large 4″ fussy cut chest design. You can source these fussy cuts from blender prints all the way through large scale prints.  We will also learn how to adjust the foundation lines, when necessary, to fit your ideal fussy cut.

 I will also teach my method of foundation paper piecing to complete the blocks.

The pattern is required for the class and includes 4 different variations of the block.

This class is ideal for those with a general knowledge of foundation paper piecing but I will teach to those who are also learning how to foundation paper piece.

by your wonderful presentation. Awesome job. I loved how you explained your design process. It demonstrated such a comprehensive approach to the modern quilt esthetic. Each quilt was a feast for the eyes, and your explanation of why you chose color, shape, grid approach and quilting really helped us appreciate the elements of modern quilts.

-Sue, Soo-Nipi Quilters NH

how much I loved your talk last night. We have gotten nothing but positive feedback from our members as well.
Jenny-Detroit Area MQG

into improv enthusiasts. Your easy manner, teaching skills and thorough knowledge of Improv modern quilting was a much appreciated evening and workshop, by all who attended. Your quilts blew us all away. We have some very accomplished quilters in our group and they were in awe.

Maple Leaf Quilters VT

The enthusiasm I saw on their faces during the Q&A session was the most excited I have seen them in a long time.
Sue, Crazy Quilters Quilt Guild

It was a total treat to hear Amy’s story during her virtual lecture “My Creative Journey” with our guild! She presented in May at one of our first virtual meetings during the pandemic. We were impressed with her efforts and ability to adapt so quickly to our new reality. Her lecture was one of the highlights of the year!

Kerry, Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild

May 21, 2020

“The South Florida Modern Quilt Guild (SFMQG) has been meeting monthly for 8 years. We run very organized monthly meetings that have a guest speaker, education, block of the month, quilt along, raffle, and well ,we pack in a lot into our meetings and workshops. We plan out 6 months in advance to get the best of the best for our guild.

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

“Amy Friend presented to our guild, the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild, on, June 27, 2020. She was originally scheduled to travel to our guild for this presentation and a workshop, but due to COVID-19, travel was no longer possible. We spoke to Amy about whether she would be willing to do the presentation portion of her scheduled time with us via Zoom. Amy was very gracious and agreed to retool her talk and present it through a new medium. We were impressed with and grateful for her willingness to do so and her skill in execution.

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

On August 15, 2020 our guild invited Amy Friend to be our guest speaker through our Zoom guild meeting. I enjoyed her lecture through Zoom as she discussed her thought process behind each quilt in her book, Improv Paper Piecing: A Modern Approach to Quilt Design. I liked the idea of taking a traditional block and moving the lines to make it a little off center and unexpected. By duplicating and combining many of these changed blocks she was able to create a unique quilt . She made use of color and negative space to make quilts that drew the eye and created a sense of movement. I learned a lot from her lecture and would enjoy hearing her speak again.
Susan
Columbia River Gorge Quilt Guild member

…Everyone at the retreat was raving about your quilts, your choice of fabrics, your quilting and the way you described your artistic interpretation and connection with each of your pieces!”

–Cath Hallsworth, President of Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild

She inspired me to try to design a paper pieced block.”

–Linda Satkowski, Member of Coastal Quilters

in the workshop, including some great tips, totally enjoyed seeing all of your quilts, and that you were a wonderful, attentive instructor…one of the best in the last couple of years to come to our guild! Your efforts to get around to see everyone was sincerely appreciated.”

–Lyn Grenier, Merrimack Valley Quilters