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.

This presentation is presented by Amy but prepared by Aurifil to unlock the mysteries of Aurifil thread, educate, inspire, and enable you to achieve brilliant results. Amy is a certified Aurifilosopher and everyday user of Aurifl thread. She will present a program covering thread basics, tips and tricks, and some of her work using Aurifil thread. Each attendee will receive Aurifil swag. This presentation is comprehensive and runs about 90 minutes.

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.
Available as of March 2020.

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 one of the three design approaches that I share in my 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.

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 for ages but aren’t quite sure what to do with them? Either Circuitry (left) or Selvage Whirlwind (right) are fun, modern quilts that make use of a wide range of colored selvages from your collection. Learn how best to collect selvages, what makes a selvage design work, and create several selvage blocks sharing selvages with your classmates so you have a wide range of colors. (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)

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

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

-student from Improv Paper Piecing class at VT Quilt Festival

-student from Beginner Paper Piecing class at VT Quilt Festival

for teaching and interacting with students. Fun class!”
“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