Handi Quilter Studio Educators
We care about your quilting experience. Our HQ Studio Educators are based in Salt Lake City. They offer retreats, training for HQ Retailers and phone support for quilters. Led by Education Coordinator Kim Sandberg, our educators also develop curriculum, film education videos (both for Facebook and YouTube presentations) and provide a quilter’s viewpoint for our engineers and product development team. We are devoted to educating quilters before AND AFTER the sale.
Meet our Studio Educators
Kimberly Sandberg
Kim learned how to sew at an early age, making her own clothes way before #memade was popular. During her senior year of high school, she found a picture of a log cabin quilt, got out some graph paper, and drafted her first quilt. It took her 5 years to finish that quilt, but a curiosity of the craft blossomed into a passion.
In 2003, Kim started quilting on her home machine. From there, she graduated to quilting on a longarm in 2007. She became a professional longarm quilter in 2016, using her HQ Forte® with Pro-Stitcher® for everything from simple edge to edge designs to custom quilts.
Kim helped on the development team for PS Designer and PS Catalog, and enjoys designing, editing and teaching all about this great software for quilters. Kim loves the process of choosing or creating designs to complement and highlight her piecing.
Over the years, Kim evolved from a very traditional quilter to a more modern quilter. She began teaching classes in 2007, and loves passing on her passion and knowledge about all aspects of quilting to her students. Kim is the mother of two teenagers and lives in Utah, where she loves to hike with her dog in the beautiful mountains in the summer, and stay inside and quilt the rest of the year.
Denise Dowdrick
Denise has been sewing everything from baby booties to wedding gowns for over 35 years. While she loves sewing in general, her real passion is quilting. Designing, piecing, and longarm quilting bring her as much joy as snuggling up with a finished quilt!
Her love of quilting led Denise and her husband to begin longarm quilting in 2011. They opened a retail quilt shop a few years later. Selling Handi Quilter longarms with Pro-Stitcher®, allowed them unlimited potential when helping customers finish their quilts.
As a former Handi Quilter retailer, Denise has enjoyed the privilege of teaching many quilting classes. She especially enjoys teaching Pro-Stitcher classes and adores playing with rulers!
Denise and her husband live in Southern Utah and are the parents of 5 children. All of their children know how to sew, and several of them also quilt! Denise’s quilting studio space includes an HQ Amara® and HQ Infinity® with Pro-Stitcher. She is excited to be a Handi Quilter educator so she can share her love of creating with fabric and thread. She firmly believes that if she can do it, you can too!