{"id":6989,"date":"2019-11-19T18:04:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T02:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.road2ca.com\/blog\/?p=6989"},"modified":"2019-11-21T01:29:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T09:29:07","slug":"road-to-ca-2020-teacher-debby-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/road2ca.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/19\/road-to-ca-2020-teacher-debby-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Road 2020 Teacher: Debby Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Debby Brown<\/a> will be teaching 4 Classes at Road to California 2020-25th Anniversary Show:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, 1002C \u2013 Template Tantrum using the new, Handi Quilter Capri <\/a>longarm machine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Debby<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, 2002C\n\u2013 Essential Echo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On\nWednesday, 3004C \u2013 More Or Less Quilting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Debby<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And on Thursday,\nshe is repeating Template Tantrum, 4005C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Debby Brown is\nthrilled to once again teach at a prestigious show like Road. \u201cI\u2019m over the\nmoon to be a part of Road\u2019s 25th Anniversary Show because it\u2019s going to be a\nhuge party and parties mean that there might be cake!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nreason why Debby might be thrilled to be at Road is to escape the home renovations\nhappening at her house located 70 miles north of New York City. In September, a\ngiant Beech tree crushed her home. Then, in October just before she left for\nHouston to attend Quilt Market, the ceiling tiles in her guest bathroom came\ncrashing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debby\u2019s Quilt\nJourney<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Debby Brown\nmade her first quilt when she was pregnant with her oldest child, which was 33\nyears ago.  She traced a cereal-box\ncardboard square onto dressmaking scraps using a ballpoint pen, cut them out\nwith sewing shears, and sewed them together using a 5\/8\u201d seam.  She layered that top with a percale sheet for\nbacking and the thickest polyester batting she could find.  Then she tied the corners using embroidery\nfloss and finally turned the backing toward the front of the quilt, because \u201cI\u2019m\nfancy like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years\nlater, Debby took a quilt class at her local quilt shop, the Quilt Basket in\nWappingers Falls, NY. They introduced her to the \u00bc\u201d seam and the \u201cmagical\u201d\nrotary cutter. At that point, she gave up all other crafts and has been hooked\non quilting ever since.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Debby\nremembers, \u201cAs I finished my new! Improved! quilt tops, I fell in love with the\ntexture and design that quilting added. \nI hand-quilted scores of quilts for myself and others, bought and taught\nmyself to use a longarm machine, and eventually mastered home machine quilting\nwhile truly enjoying every way that quilting added texture to quilts. I now\ndesign and piece quilts just so that I can quilt them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting Past\nHealth Struggles <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Debby deals\nfull-time with a rare disease called Relapsing Polychondritis, an autoimmune\ndisease that attacks and destroys cartilage in her body.  Cartilage is in eyes, ears, nose, joints,\nheart, blood vessels, trachea, esophagus, and most other places in the human\nbody.  Debby says she is \u201cso grateful\nthat there are infusions and medications to help slow the progression of this\ndisease.  Quilting gets me through the\nhardest days, and it\u2019s my joy to share this quilting with others to help them\nget through their hard days, whatever the cause may be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On her bad\ndays, she might get a wheelchair ride through an airport, but on her good days,\nshe enjoys chopping wood.  She says that it\nis great exercise, excellent for stress relief, and has been a great way to get\nrevenge on the tree that crushed her house. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quilt\nTeacher<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Debby has\ntwo favorite parts of quilting \u2013 one is sitting home, alone, stitching whilst\nlistening to audiobooks and the other is spending time with dozens of quilters\nin the classroom.  While she can\u2019t be in\ncrowds all the time, she can\u2019t stand to be alone all of the time either.  That\u2019s why she says that she has \u201cthe best\njob on earth because it allows me to alternate my favorite parts of quilting to\nstitch together my great life!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She started\nteaching machine quilting classes over 15 years ago at her local quilt\nshop.  Soon after, she began teaching for\nHandi Quilter and then at quilt shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wants her students at Road 2020 \u201cto gain a few skills and a lot of confidence.  I hope they leave class knowing that they can pick up a UFO, choose a simple machine quilting pattern, and finish their quilt!\u201d She is especially excited to have her students try out Handi Quilter\u2019s new Capri longarm machine. <\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n