Our Story
Covid changed everything!
Some changes were good!
Global Quilt Connection was founded by Sue Bleiweiss and Lyric Kinard as a response to the shutdown of the travel teaching industry.
We began with a few zoom webinars, introducing teachers who were ready to jump on the rickety virtual bandwagon, to quilt guilds around the world.
Since 2020 we have evolved into one of the premier resources for Quilt Guilds to find virtual programming. We now serve our fabulous teachers with community and professional development opportunities via the Academy for Virtual Teaching. We look forward to the future as virtual programming is offered in addition to in-person events, opening greater access to quilters and their favorite teachers, from every part of our dear planet.
In 2025 Lyric passed the torch to Bea Byrne, who shares her passion for quilting education and helping others.
Lyric Montgomery Kinard
FOUNDER
When Covid shut the world down, award winning traveling quilt teacher, Lyric Montgomery Kinard, quickly pivoted to online teaching. Even with experience in teaching online workshops, it was a mad scramble to figure out how to translate her in-person offerings to live zoom classes. Fortunately, Lyric loves a technical challenge!
Through her involvements with the Global Quilt Connection she realized there was a great need for further professional training, helping the quilt, craft, and art teachers she loves to grasp and master the technical aspects of online teaching. She finds great joy in supporting her colleagues as they grow their virtual teaching businesses.
Susan Couch
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Susan Couch is an avid quilter, newish knitter, and serves on the board of her local needle arts guild to run hybrid meetings. She is happy to bring those skills to the Global Quilt Connection since 2023. Her mission is to make sure guild representatives have the available resources to find and host the best virtual teachers for their guilds.
Susan began crafting and sewing at an early age, but was encouraged to pursue a career in engineering and business. She eventually left that profession and after hand making costumes for a French Quarter walking parade with her dog, she purchased a preloved sewing machine. Soon after that she was teaching people how to use their sewing machines at a local shop, where she discovered that art and quilting are her sewing passions. She exhibits her work locally and occasionally donates to SAQA benefit auctions.
Bea Byrne
OWNER & MANAGING DIRECTOR
Bea Byrne is an artist, entrepreneur, speaker and certified quilt judge. She is a former guild president and quilt show committee chair, and is the current workshop chair, for the San Francisco Quilters Guild. She has lived and taught in three countries and helped introduce her Guild and others to online meetings and workshops during the Pandemic.
Originally from the UK, she lived and worked in London for more than 20 years before moving to Tokyo, Japan, and then to San Francisco in 2015. After time at Art College in the UK, Bea’s career took her into physics, not-for-profits, and big-tech, while she continued to create and teach classes in sewing, embroidery, knitting and crochet. In 2023 she started working full-time for herself, focusing on education, events and coaching. She has used her extensive e-commerce experience to help artists and teachers increase their visibility online and to develop new and additional income streams related to their work. At the same time she continues to create and exhibit her quilts, teach workshops, and lecture, founding the QUILT2024, Quilt n Learn and Tour de Fabric events. You can read more about her at www.beabyrne.com.
