Shirley Stutz lives on a farm in beautiful rural southeastern Ohio with her husband, Loran. Her first quilt, begun in 1985, took three years to make. Using the methods of yesteryear, she found the process so slow and tedious that she declared that since she now had a new quilt for the bed this would be her last quilt. When rotary cutters were introduced, her love for making quilts quickly grew. As guilds and shops saw her work, requests began to surface for her to teach quilting classes.
She began teaching patchwork in 1990 and now is a full-time traveling teacher, including two trips to Germany. Her goal is to inspire students with innovative faster methods, without sacrificing accuracy. Her five machine-quilting classes remain her most popular year after year. She says happiness is seeing the light go on as a student embraces and understands a new concept (and visits from any of her nine grandchildren).
Shirley is much in demand for her humorous lectures, which always include a mini-lesson on topic and a trunk overflowing with quilt examples.
She enjoys entering one or two national shows each year, with several quilts now ribbon winners. The Amish quilting community in Berlin, Ohio, honored Shirley in 2002 when she was asked to display 117 quilts in a solo exhibition, which attracted several thousand visitors.
Several of her quilts have been published in quilting books and magazines, including Borders and Other Finishing Touches by Bonnie Browning; Award Winning Quilts and Their Makers, AQS; cover and featured Artist, Quilt Ohio, American Quilter, and NQA Quilting Quarterly. Her pattern, Feathered Fantasy, was one of the Collector Series by Craftco, Inc.
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Easy & Elegant Lone Star Quilts
