BONNIE HUNTER

Bonnie K Hunter is passionate about quilt quilting, focusing mainly on scrap quilts with the simple feeling of “making do”. She started her love affair with quilting in a home economics class her senior year of high school in 1980 and has never looked back. Before quilting became her full time career, Bonnie was the owner and designer of ""Needle in a Haystack!", creating more than 70 patterns for dolls and stuffed animals with a country primitive feel.

Many of her designs were licensed through the Butterick Pattern Company, translated into 7 languages and sold around the globe through fabric stores. But quilting has always been Bonnie’s first love. She has been machine quilting since 1989 and professionally long arm quilting for the public since 1995, retiring in 2009 when she no longer had the time due to her teaching, traveling and writing schedule. She has been featured in magazines both for her quilt patterns and articles she has written on scrap management and using that stash to its full potential.

Bonnie received the 2012 “Teacher of the Year” award through a global internet poll hosted via Sew Cal Gal, and was completely flabbergasted, not to mention honored and humbled at the same time.

Dedicated to continuing the traditions of quilting, Bonnie enjoys meeting with quilters, teaching workshops and lecturing to quilt guilds all over the world, challenging quilters to break the rules, think outside the box, and find what brings them joy.

When not traveling and teaching, she spends her time piecing scrap quilts, enjoying the peaceful reward of English paper piecing and hand quilting as much as machine work, and loving life in her wooded surroundings in beautiful rural Wallburg, North Carolina, a suburb of Winston-Salem. She and her husband, Dave are the proud parents of two grown sons, Jason, and Jeffrey. They round out their household with Sadie the dog and two cats –Emmy Lou, who loves life inside only, and Chloe who only loves life on the outside—keeping Bonnie company while she designs, quilts and plays happily with her fabric.

Bonnie also writes a regular column for Quiltmaker Magazine entitled "Addicted to Scraps" with the main intention to help you to put various aspects of your own Scrap Users System to good use!

Bonnie’s favorite motto? “The Best Things in Life are Quilted!!” of course!

Nancy Sanchez , Big Rapids, MI - Poland was a trip of a lifetime.

Christina Crum , Plainsboro, NJ - The hotels and buses were very good. The side trips and optional trip to Auschwitz was a must see. I loved the Salt mines and would definitely recommend it to anyone who goes.

Alena Kim , McHenry, IL - It was a wonderful experience.

Francis Kisner , Lebanon, PA - "Poland is a beautiful country with many friendly people. I had not understood the diversity of landscapes from flat farming regions to rolling hills to the beautiful mountains."

Diane L Green , Newark, OH - "A great trip. Heinke and Kasia were great guides."

Rhonda Denney , Canon City, CO - "A delightful way to see highlights of Poland!"

Stephanie Kollar , Hollis, NY - "I had a wonderful time on this tour. I liked the idea that our hands-on classes were associated with museums or tours /demonstrations by masters. We got to see and do what Poland was known for, and to try and make a piece of it to take home."

Yvonne Downs , Alta Loma, CA - "The cost of the tour was very affordable. It was an amazing tour, I didn’t realize what the Polish people and Jews actually went through except what was told to us through history books."

Stephanie Kollar , Hollis, NY - "I had a wonderful time on this tour. I liked the idea that our hands-on classes were associated with museums or tours /demonstrations by masters. We got to see and do what Poland was known for, and to try and make a piece of it to take home."