Deb Donovan

Deb continues to fall head first into quilting, in all its many variations.

As a child in Michigan, she slept under a basic patchwork quilt but loved the double wedding ring her mother forbade her to touch.  After college, she shared an apartment with a graduate of the 4H sewing program and bought her first sewing machine.  Soon after she was married her husband took a two week business trip, and she took her first trip to a quilt store.  The first of many!  After moving to Southern California she continued to quilt on her home machine, becoming a master of stippling (because she couldn’t master anything else).  A few years later she began working at a local sewing machine shop and saw a world full of new possibilities!  She’s been dabbling in Ruler Work since 2014 and in machine embroidery since 2015, but never stopped piecing and quilting.

She bought her first acrylic extension table after seeing one at a sewing expo in the early 2000s.  Before that, she had been trying to create a flat sewing surface from textbooks and vinyl tablecloths.  Now Deb won’t sew without one!

Deb began formally teaching quilting in 2013, taking as much inspiration from her students as they took from her!  She believes that learning new skills and techniques should be fun.   “I love that moment when I have led them down the path to something new, and then I see their eyes light up when they see what they have accomplished and can finish it without me.”  She enjoys creating new projects and classes, pulling inspiration from all over the crafting world.

Thanks to formal training as an engineer and program manager, Deb knows how to break things down to the basic steps to make projects approachable for everyone.  Her classes use hands on demonstration, video, and written instructions for balanced learning.

Deb loves Westalee Ruler Work and EmbroideLee Embroidery Designs because they allow her to finish her quilts with creativity and accuracy.  She also loves being able to design her quilting with templates, paper, and a pencil rather than templates, fabric, and thread, since it’s much easier to erase pencil marks than rip out stitches.

She is available to teach nationwide and virtually.

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