About Annie

Annie Smith started her first quilt while expecting her first child twenty-five years ago and adopted the craft as her life-long passion. She has taught quilting and related needlearts for over twenty years, and fulltime for nearly ten years. Annie honed her lecture and teaching skills at the corporate level when she taught customer service and other HR training courses in Silicon Valley.
Her technical expertise takes many forms, although fabric selection and fine machine appliqué are her specialties. In April, 2005 she added the moniker “Internet Radio Personality” to her resumé when she began the first ever quilting-related podcast, “Quilting Stash.” The show reaches thousands of listeners internationally. This award-winning quilting artist has won top honors at the State level and owns her own publishing and media company, SimpleArts.
Annie’s lecture style is light-hearted, full of laughter and warmth. Every audience member will relate to the things of which Annie speaks. She crosses boundaries of age and experience and shows people the love she has for this craft as few others can.

Lectures

Understanding the Value of Color.
AS FEATURED ON "THE QUILT SHOW" #209!

Annie takes the audience through a journey of color and how to give your quilts personality by applying personal color design choices to your quilts. The keys to fabric selection are thoroughly discussed as well as how to make the color design rules work for you.
This lecture is accompanied by the Exploring Fabric Choices workshop, below.

Help! My Fabric Stash is Growing and I Can’t Make It Stop!

Take a humorous look at the quilter’s nature to multiply. See some famous and not-so-famous quilter’s stashes. This is for the quilter who loves fabric and needs to find creative ways to manage and get control over their stash. Isn’t that just about every quilter you know?

Quilting Stash - My Life As A Podcasting Quilter

It’s inevitable. Technology is invading the quilting world. Annie uses that same technology to bring a fresh perspective on the quilting world with an Internet broadcast medium called podcasting. Some are calling it “on-demand radio programming.” It’s the newest, hippest, medium shaking-up the communication world. Listen to Annie’s rousing account of how her life has changed since she began podcasting and how it’s changing the way she and her listeners are quilting.

Stories Among the Stitches

Quilts are a form of living history that is to be shared. Annie will share her love of quilts through her quilts and the stories that are woven in to the fibers. She will focus on ways you can preserve your memories, personal, and family history through your quilts.

Workshops

Increase the value of your guild meetings by booking a workshop along with a lecture. By booking a workshop, your guild members will get to learn valuable techniques that aren’t covered in the lectures. Workshops provide your members one-on-one access to my skill and knowledge.

Choose any workshop listed below to accompany the lecture you choose. Note my suggestions below for workshop and lecture combinations.

Exploring Fabric Choices

This is the perfect sister workshop for the Understanding the Value of Color lecture. Traditionally, quilters often struggle making fabric choices when planning a quilt. Build your self-confidence in choosing fabric for your quilts in this fun and informative workshop. Annie helps you choose colors by design instead of by-gosh-and-by-golly. Keys to effective fabric selection are thoroughly discussed with hands-on exercises using fabric swatches, and helpful aids.

This workshop can be offered as a one or a two day event. The one day event focuses on exercises that help a quilter choose a pallette of fabrics for making a quilt. They will make a series of paste-up blocks and discover the many variations the pallette offers when making these blocks. The two day workshop adds a second day actually making a finished quilt top from the exercises performed on the first day. CLICK HERE to see the finished project that is created in the workshop.

Finding Creativity in Everyday Things

This is a nice companion one-day workshop for My Life As A Podcasting Quilter lecture. Traditionally, patchwork finds its roots in everyday items and experiences, such as making a log cabin block that resembles the house built on the prairie or the sawtooth star that resembles the teeth on a saw blade. What can we find in our modern world to lend new inspiration for our quilts? Take things a step further and discover how to create your own unique designs in a craft that some say is merely reproduced.
Utilize tools to compile your own resource book for new quilt designs. Participants will design and begin a new creation.

The Story In Your Quilts

StashBusters!

This workshop easily goes together with Help! My Fabric Stash Is Growing and I Can’t Make it Stop! This workshop explores the ways different quilts that can be made from project leftovers and fabrics from your stash - no new fabric will be allowed in this workshop. Using the leftover fabrics of one completed quilt to make a new project for the workshop, Annie will inspire participants to create additional small quilts from leftovers.

West Of Baltimore Medallion

Annie has designed a special medallion quilt just for this workshop based on her popular, West of Baltimore machine applique quilt. Learn Annie’s technique for fusible machine applique while making an heirloom quilt. A pattern is included in the workshop fee.

Fees and Information

Lecture Fee (1 hour): $350 through 2008
Workshop Fee (3 hour session): $300 through 2008
Workshop Fee (6 hour session): $475 through 2008
2 Day Workshop Fee (two 6 hour sessions): $650 through 2008

GENERAL INFORMATION

Workshop fees are based on 20 students, with an additional $20 for each student up to a maximum of 24 students. Workshops can either be 3 or 6 hours in length.
For 3 hour workshops, attendees are given complete instruction and have time to work on their projects. Attendees will most likely need to finish their projects at home and less one-on-one time with the instructor is available. For 6 hour workshops, attendees are given complete instruction with more attention given to the individual. They should have ample time to complete the project during the workshop with little or nothing to complete at home.

Travel, lodging and meal accommodations will be provided by the sponsoring guild or organization. Annie will provide a contract.

A supply list and completed sample project can be provided upon request.

Annie is also available as a quilt show judge. Contact her by phone or email for arrangements.

Contact

Annie Smith

14938 Camden Ave, Suite 29
San Jose, CA 95124
408-849-4882
annie@simplearts.com