Who is Wendy Butler Berns?
As a published, award winning quilt artist and teacher who found her passion for quilting in 1993, Wendy Butler Berns presents at guilds, retreats, conferences, and on-line nationally and internationally. Her work and articles appear in many quilt publications, including her own book, "Photo Album Quilts" which features her picture image machine appliqué process. Wendy appears on The Quilt show, Quilting Arts TV, Sewing with Nancy Zieman as well as three online courses on Craftsy.com. She is the 19th recipient of the Jewel Pearce Patterson Teacher’s Scholarship recognizing quilting teachers awarded by Quilts Inc., Houston, Texas. and curated an exhibition of her work and her students titled "Out on a Limb" which traveled throughout the country.
Enthusiastic and empowering, describe Wendy as a teacher. She is recognized for her unabashed free-motion machine quilting, embellishing and picture image machine appliqué style, use of color and contemporary original designs. Her creative passion and energetic teaching style encourages and inspires students and keeps them coming back for more.
Wendy's special gifts lie in being able to offer a safe environment for each student to be successful- whatever their level is. She is particularly effective with the student who is new to exploring "out of the box" quilting construction and design. In every case, she gently pushes each student to realize they are creative, that there is an artist within and that when they jump off the cliff into spontaneous, creative play, the journey down will not be as scary as they might have imagined.
Since representational work is what Wendy really loves, many of her workshops revolve around her picture image machine appliqué technique she uses to create many of her quilts. The process is a simple one: create a simple line drawing from tracing the original photograph or picture, enlarge it to the full size of the planned quilt, then with freezer paper, glue stick and invisible machine appliqué, the fabric is assembled to complete the design.
Wendy's book, Photo Album Quilts published by Lark Books, unfortunately is now out of print. A few copies can still be found on Amazon or Barnes and Nobel. The book features her machine picture image appliqué process, 27 images of her quilts and many tips and tricks.
