About Us
Covid changed everything! Some changes were good!
Global Quilt Connection was founded in response to the shutdown of the travel teaching industry in 2020. 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 then we have evolved into the premier resources for Quilt Guilds to find virtual programming. 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.
BEA BYRNE, 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.
SUSAN COUCH, MARKETING DIRECTOR
Susan Couch loves helping creative communities turn good ideas into things that actually work. With a background in world travel, engineering and business, she brings strong strategic and operational thinking to The Global Quilt Connection. Her mission is to make sure guild leaders and volunteers have the available resources to find and host the best virtual teachers for their guilds.
Susan is a longtime creative maker herself, with a love for quilting, art quilting, and knitting. She understands firsthand the challenges guilds and instructors face, from juggling limited resources to navigating new technology and changing expectations. At GQC, she focuses on strategy, operations, and program development, helping build practical systems and programs that support instructors, guild leaders, and creative communities as they grow and evolve.
