I have lots of favorites:
For inspiration:
Ricky Tims- his convergence quilts are wonderful and I really like his playful approach to quilting.
Joe the quilter guy- who's last name escapes me at the moment, I love his completely free approach to improvisational quilting.
Libby Lehman- her addition of thread painting to her quilts just added so much depth, texture, color play--again a playful approach that comes through in her quilts.
Alex Anderson- her tv show introduced so many different approaches to quilting, from traditional to art quilts to modern quilts, she showed the breadth of vision that today's quilters have.
The Quilters at Gees Bend- I saw the show when I took a trip to San Francisco in 2007 and that was what got me back into quilting after many years away.
Judy Madsen- her quilting always amazes me.
For teaching:
Laura Nownes- an excellent teacher, I really only know of her through the free Craftsy 2013 block of the month class, but I learned so many things from her in that class that improved my accuracy and I like the fact that even though the class was labelled as all skill levels the quilt was one with many different size blocks that needed to be put together with fill strips--which is something you don't often see in classes which appeal to beginners.
Pasty Thompson- an excellent teacher- her free motion quilting using multiple colors of thread to enhance the wow factor has been fun to watch and I've learned a lot from her.
Amy Johnson- another excellent teacher- quilting with rulers on a domestic sewing machine
Edyta Sitar- an excellent teacher, she designs beautiful more traditional style quilts
Heather Thomas- she takes so many different approaches to art quilting, from dying her own fabrics, to adding metal, using painted batting, etc. I like her playful, exploratory approach.
Ann Peterson and Cindy Needham- two more great teachers, especially good at showing how to manage large quilts when quilting on domestic machines.
I could go on, those are just a few of the quilters who have either inspired me, taught me or both over the years. There have been many more.
Rob
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