Bianca Springer

Meet Your Instructors

Bianca Springer

Bianca Springer is a dynamic fiber artist, garment maker, and educator whose work centers joyful color, cultural representation, and practical design. As the founder of Thanks! I Made Them, Sew Can You, Bianca creates patterns, kits, and innovative sewing notions—including her popular pattern weights—that simplify and celebrate the sewing process. Her teaching style is pragmatic, emotionally resonant, and rooted in empowering students to make garments that reflect their identity and creativity.
Bianca is the author of Represent! Embroidery, a groundbreaking book featuring 100+ inclusive designs that honor diverse skin tones, body shapes, and hair textures. Her work has appeared in Sew News, Creative Machine Embroidery, Notions, Love Embroidery, and Simply Sewing. She has been featured on numerous podcasts including Stitch Please and Craft Industry Alliance. She’s a sought-after instructor at retreats and craft schools across the U.S. and U.K., including QuiltCon, Festival of Quilts, Sacred Makers Soul Retreat, A Gathering of Stitches and Madeline Island School of the Arts.
When she’s guiding students through garment construction, Bianca brings joy, clarity, and celebration to every classroom. She’s also a passionate advocate for fair compensation and professional boundaries in creative work, modeling what it means to be both emotionally open and professionally empowered.

Stephanie Z Ruyle

Stephanie Z. Ruyle

Stephanie Z. Ruyle is an award-winning modern quilter and educator known for her bold improvisational piecing, crisp geometry, and sculptural sense of rhythm and color. A retired physician turned full-time textile artist, Stephanie brings a rigorous design eye and a generous, encouraging teaching style to every workshop. Her classes emphasize creative confidence, helping students trust their instincts while learning repeatable techniques for balanced, expressive compositions.
Stephanie’s work has been juried into multiple National and International shows receiving ribbons in various categories. She’s a frequent exhibitor at QuiltCon and the International Quilt Festival, and a contributor to Bee Sewcial, a collaborative improv quilting group whose projects have earned national recognition. Stephanie has quilts in the permanent collections at both the National and International Quilt Museums.
In the classroom, Stephanie guides students through controlled experiments in value, scale, and composition, offering strategies for translating spontaneous design into finished textiles suitable for garments, quilts, and wall art. She’s active in the Denver modern quilting community and is known for her ability to demystify improvisation while encouraging bold choices. Her workshops are a masterclass in trusting your eye, embracing the unexpected, and building a personal design language through fabric.