Linda Franz is an award winning Canadian quilter. You may recognize her from Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson, or from her appearances on qnntv.com Her first hand pieced bed quilt won a First Place ribbon at the AQS show in Paducah, among other awards.
Linda has taught in Canada and the US, including at the AQS show in Paducah Kentucky. She has enjoyed teaching hand piecing workshops for many guilds.
Linda has a BA in English Literature and graduated from the University of Toronto Law School with an LLB. She has published two Quilted Diamonds books and DVDs, and is currently introducing a series of Inklingo shape collections.
Linda's love of photography, quilting, Jane Austen's novels, and her involvement with online quilters led her to start her first web site in 1998. From the beginning, she showed her blocks from the front AND the back, and she is well known for her pressing techniques. Her famous directions for a scalloped binding have been available free online for over ten years.
Linda has been on the leading edge with her self-published CDs, DVDs, books-on-CD, downloadable books and books, but Inklingo (US Patent 7,814,832) is her proudest achievement. Her love of hand piecing inspired her to invent Inklingo—but its most profound effect will ultimately be on the way quilters machine piece and appliqué.
Linda enjoys the friendship and enthusiasm of quilters on the Yahoo group for Quilted Diamonds (DJRetreats) and the Yahoo group Inklingo.
July 1999 Best in Show, Vermont Quilt Festival
April 2000 First Place, AQS Show, Paducah Kentucky with her first bed quilt, hand pieced and hand quilted, with a scalloped binding.
March 2002 Self-published Quilted Diamonds: Jane Austen, Jane Stickle & Friends, book with CD, which has sold many thousands of copies around the world—a classic. Reviews
March 2002 First publisher to offer patterns in EQ format on CD as an option with a book. A few years later, Electric Quilt published CDs for Dear Jane TM and other quilt books.
June 2002 Taped episode #837 of Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson in Burbank California for HGTV.
August 2003 Wrote and produced one of the first full-length DVD quilting lessons—to include FREE with every copy of Quilted Diamonds 2. Behind the Scenes Photos
March 2004 Published Quilted Diamonds 2: more Austen-tatious diamonds to hand piece with the DVD and optional CD. Chosen one of the top 10 new products of 2005 by Quilter's Review. Reviews
2005 Nominated for Teacher of the Year Professional Quilter (Teacher of the Year for 2005 was Ami Simms!)
February 2005 Published Jane Austen's Writing Table Quilts—another first—a 60-minute DVD lesson included with the patterns!
May 2005 Linda's QD2 DVD lesson was one of the first videos on QNNTV, founded by Sue Ann Taylor. This was the first online quilting network and it caused a sensation, especially for quilters outside of North America who were not used to seeing quilting teachers on TV.
May 2006 Published Inklingo Shape Collection # 1, and a free Demo Video. Inklingo (patent pending) is a revolutionary way of printing lines on fabric, which eliminates measuring and makes new stitching methods possible. The book-on-CD format is an innovative approach, turning a book into a tool that prints on fabric.
August 2006 Published Inklingo Shape Collection # 2, another new book-on-CD to print 50 different triangle shapes on fabric. Stitching triangles will never be the same!
September 2007 Published Inklingo Shape Collection # 3, the first Inklingo collection to be included in a pattern book-plus-CD.
October 2007 Charter sponsor of the Quilter's Club of America, providing thousands of Inklingo demo CDs to new members.
September 2008 Published THE INKLINGO HANDBOOK, 128 pages of instructions for new Inklingo methods for appliqué, machine piecing, and hand piecing. The new loose-leaf format was chosen in response to requests from online quilters.
September 2008 Published four new downloadable Inklingo Shape Collections. Inklingo is using cutting edge technology, which will make it possible to add new shape collections at a fast pace, giving quilters more choice and immediate delivery. It is also a green solution, a responsible choice with low environmental impact.
September 2008 Introduced the first FREE downloadable Inklingo Shape Collection. Download it today and see what the excitement is all about!
December 2008 Published the Jane Austen Patchwork downloadable shape collection and pattern—the first comprehensive, accurate pattern for the Jane Austen Patchwork, with the assistance of the Jane Austen Memorial Trust.
January 2009 Introduced Inklingo Lite and published two downloadable shape collections for new sizes of hexagons and diamonds.
February 2009 Published the first Inklingo Drunkard's Path downloadable shape collection.
April 2009 Published the first Inklingo Double Wedding Ring downloadable shape collection.
April 2009 Published the Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery book (book-on-paper).
April 2009 Published the second version of The Inklingo Handbook (bound edition, book-on-paper).
June 2009 Published Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses (book-on-paper) and the companion downloadable Inklingo shape collection.
June 2009 Started the All About Inklingo blog.
July 2009 Published the first Tumbler downloadable shape collection.
August 2009 Published three new downloadable shape collections for Triangles, Hexagons, and Octagons (KISS)
October 2009 Published two new downloadable shape collections for Hexagons and Diamonds.
November 2009 Published four new downloadable shape collections for Triangles and Hexagons.
December 2009 Published two new downloadable shape collections for Orange Peel and Alabama Beauty.
January 2010 Published the Dresden Plate Design Book (free download) and three downloadable shape collections for Dresden Plate Applique, Dresden Plate Basic Pieced, and Dresden Plate Fancy Pieced (Farmer's Fancy and others).
January 2010 Published the Winding Ways Design Book (free download) and three downloadable shape collections for Winding Ways.
March 2010 Published the Storm At Sea Design Book (free download) and five downloadable shape collections for Storm At Sea.
May to August 2010 Published 7 different Clamshell and Clamshell Pickle Shape Collections in 5 sizes.
August 2010 Pulblished the Inklingo Hexagon Quilt Design Book (free download, value $20).
October 2010 Published 3 Appliqué downloads.
October 2010 US Patent 7,814,832 issued!
December 2010 Published the Feathered Star Design Book and 3 Feathered Star Shape Collections.
January 2011 Published the Rainbow Flower Shape Collection
February 2011 Published the first Circles Shape Collection to match Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Circles®, plus the Pie and Tarts Shape Collection from a pattern by Sue Daley of Busy Fingers Patchwork.
March 2011 Published the first Log Cabin Shape Collection, the Sunflower Quilt Design Book, and two Sunflower Shape Collections.
April 2011 Published the second Log Cabin Shape Collection, Bigger Circles, and the first School House Shape Collection.
May 2011 Published the third Log Cabin Shape Collection and a Yin Yang Shape Collection.
June 2011 Published the first Joseph's Coat Shape Collection.
July 2011 Published the Inklingo Smart Shopper's Idea Book, which will be updated every time new shape collections are issued.
August 2011 Published the Inklingo Drunkard's Path Design Book and 6 Drunkard's Path shape collections.
October 2011 Published two shape collections for setting 4.5 and 6 inch blocks on point.
November 2011 Published Squares 00B for Square in a Square blocks.
December 2011 Announced the "Love the lines. Quilt more!" Contest. Quilters enter by designing quilts with Inklingo shapes in Electric Quilt software.
Linda and her husband, Russell Bays, live in Burlington Ontario.
Linda's lovable sidekick Monkey is a hand piecing snob. |
