Annie will be teaching three evening classes: 4074C Cosmetic Clutches on Thursday; 5074C Project Bags on Friday; and 6075C iCases on Saturday.
Personal: Annie Unrein was born in Hereford, Texas, the second of five girls. She has two grown children, a son and a daughter. Her son is a CPA/MBA who along with his wife, work with Annie at ByAnnie.com. They are expecting Annie’s first grandchild in the spring.
How did you get started in quilting? Both of my grandmothers were quilters and I loved the look and feel of the quilts that they made. Neither of them lived close enough to teach me how to quilt, so I taught myself by studying the quilts that they’d made me and by reading the limited articles about quilting that were available in the early 1970s.
Does anyone else in your family quilt? I share my interest in quilting with several cousins. My cousin Cindy (who lives in Ojai, California) and I reconnect at Road to California every year!
Where do you find your inspiration for your projects? I now primarily use quilted fabric to make purses and bags to organize my quilting supplies. Seeing a mess and figuring out how to clean it up and organize it serves as inspiration for many of my patterns!
What is the one sewing tool you can’t live without? My trusty stiletto/pressing tool helps me hold pieces in place as I sew, protects my fingers, and enables me to attach beautiful bindings. I feel that it is every bit as important as a rotary cutter!
What has been the best class you have taken? Learning how to use Electric Quilt software opened up a world of design and exploration to me. Working through the lessons in the various EQ books really helped me to understand the many facets of the program.
What do you like best about teaching? I love showing students how to break down a project into manageable steps so that they can make projects that look like they bought them rather than like they made them. . . and seeing the pride on students faces when they finish a professional-looking project.
What is the funniest or most embarrassing moment that you’ve had while you were teaching? I taught EQ classes at a state-wide guild event several years ago. There were so many students registered for the class that tables were packed from wall to wall. There was no easy way to get around them, so I had to crawl under the tables and around the cords to help people who had questions!
What is your best tip for quilters? My best tip that applies to quilting can also be applied to just about anything in life: If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t. Go for it with confidence!
What do you hope your students will get out of your classes? Students will leave my class with the confidence to install zippers in purses and bags and the skills to use ByAnnie’s Soft and Stable in their projects.
You can find Annie at: https://www.byannie.com
]]>Tags: ByAnnie.com, Cosmetic clutches, iCases, Purses and bags
