Janome Educators

Janome Educators are our “on the road” product experts who attend sewing events all over the United States. At local and national quilt conventions they aid instructors and students in classrooms along with assisting your local dealers in their booth.

Education Specialists also appear in many of our educational videos, create samples and patterns using our products, moderate and appear in our social media events, train authorized Janome dealers, and more! We’re very proud to have such a knowledgeable and hardworking team of Janome Educators; make sure to say hello if you see any of us at an event or watch us online.

Amy Meek

Amy has traveled the United States and Mexico demonstrating and educating both the public and authorized dealers on Janome sewing machines, sergers, software, and apps. She always brings an enthusiasm for sharing just the right sewing technique to get the job done.

She teaches basic sewing, garment construction, and pattern making at every level from children and adult, from very new beginners to honing advanced techniques in a university setting. Amy developed a program as a paraprofessional therapist teaching sewing and quilting as a skill set for adults with chronic mental illness and traumatic brain injury.

Her passion for sharing her love of sewing, extensive knowledge of machines and accessories to consumers and dealers is the reason Amy loves her job. Look for her in Janome red on the road and say hello!

Anne Hein

Anne’s passion for sewing started with the required Home Economics class. Sewing, creating unique clothes, and crafting was her thing – even using her grandmothers trundle machine. Her first embroidery machine, the Memory Craft 9000, grew that passion with quilting, embroidery and digitizing. If it could fit in the hoop, let’s embroider it! Joining the Janome team was a dream come true, Anne is a Janome girl through and through – you know she didn’t stop with that MC9000!

You'll find Anne on the Artistic Digitizer facebook page, sharing her extensive knowledge of embroidery digitizing and editing; and helping everyone with troubleshooting their projects.

Sharing her creativity through her travels with Janome and teaching are some of her favorite things. Anne lives in Wilmington, DE with her husband and children. Outside of work, Anne enjoys spending time with her family, being the co-rider on their Goldwing and creating more projects.

Christina Dolinar

Christina has been sewing since grade school when she begged her mother to teach her to sew. Instead of sharing a sewing machine with her mom, her first major purchase was a sewing machine with money she earned at an after-school job in 8^th grade.

While her sewing career began with making garments, Christina has added home dec and heirloom sewing, embroidery and, of course, quilting to her skills. With the popularity of quilting these days, she can show you how easy it is to free-motion quilt, create patterns like feathers, and succeed at ruler work. She also teaches long-arm quilting.

She has taught throughout the United States at quilt shows, sewing shops, and can often be found assisting in Janome classrooms. When you have the opportunity to be in a classroom with Christina, whether she is teaching or assisting, you will learn a lot and - as many of her students will tell you - lots of fun will be had! She has a very relaxed style, attentive to each and every student. Christina always has that new tip or technique that will help make your sewing or embroidery project a success.

Geri Finio

Geri Finio is a lifelong embroidery and sewing enthusiast with a love for the many mediums of stitchery and a critical eye for detail. Sewing is something she’s done since about five. Her father was an electrical physicist for Singer-Kearfott which meant sewing machines were readily available in her childhood home. Guess you can say she was a mechanical “tester” as well as a sewist!

After a successful career in corporate computer technology, she shifted gears to follow her passion. Her strong technology background compliments her artisan talents, as she combines digitized and hand-guided machine embroidery to create innovative designs. For 20 years, Geri owned and operated Studio 187 Custom Embroidery where she successfully collaborated with high profile artists, interior designers, and private clientele on tailoring designs to meet individual need.

In addition, she embroidered all embroidery examples in the book “Asian-Inspired Machine Embroidery” authored by an internationally celebrated embroidery artist; served on the Editorial Board of Stitches Magazine and was often featured, and served as a judge for the National Golden Needle Awards. Her focus is on elevating the status of embroidery to a level it once enjoyed - a symbol of beauty and refinement.

After shopping and testing every machine imaginable, she chose the Janome Memory Craft 15000 as her first replacement for her large commercial embroidery machines because it offered quality, reliable engineering, and superior stitching for both sewing and embroidery. Geri enjoys meeting like-minded individuals during her travels with Janome to various sewing events where she offers instruction and advice on sewing, embroidery, and machine selection.

Presently, Geri lives in Annapolis MD, and spends summers at their NJ shore home where the entire family can reconnect and unwind together. She spends her time sewing anything from garments to quilts, embroidering by hand and by machine, reading, cooking/baking, sailing, kayaking, exercising, and enjoying life’s moments with friends and family.

Jerry Granata

Jerry has had a love of art and sewing since he was a child and it has taken him in many directions. He served 21 years in the Armed Forces of the United States as a U.S. Navy musician serving in such places as Naples, Italy; Seattle, Washington; Washington D.C; and Chicago, Illinois. This musical journey has given him the opportunity to perform as a pit musician in many theatres on Broadway in New York. He has also performed for several U.S. Presidents and many Heads of State at the White House, as well as many celebrities such as Bob Hope, Carol Channing, Brook Shields, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, Styx, and many others.

Jerry's interest in the fine arts led him to studies in drawing, design, and oil painting. He has explored and enjoyed all sewing techniques including garment construction, costumes, embellishing, heirloom sewing, hand and machine embroidery, quilt piecing, appliqué, and free-motion quilting. He has also appeared on internet television show The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, and twice on the television show Fons & Porters Love of Quilting.

Jerry brings a passion for quilting, sewing, and teaching, with a dash of humor, to all levels from beginner to advanced. His diverse background can be found woven in his local, regional, national, and international award winning quilts.

Kate Quinn

Kate’s fascination with quilting began in 1991 when she received a hand-quilted Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt as a wedding present, followed by a gifted scrappy quilt to further solidify her love of fabrics and colors. Soon after Kate made her first quilt celebrate the birth of her first child and has been a devoted quilter ever since. As an Army veteran, a military spouse, and a mother of 5 children, quilting became the thread that stitched her into the new community every time the family moved. As a stay-at-home mom, she taught and organized charity quilting for decades through community and church organizations. She loves all styles and types of quilts from art to modern, from traditional pieced to appliqué.

In the mid-2000's she began teaching at local quilt shops. Kate loves to interact with other creative people and help them to develop the skills they need to make both beautiful and comfortable quilted items. This training and experience helped her realize her own dream of becoming a longarm quilter.

In 2016, she opened FabriKated Quilts Longarm Service in Rio Rancho, NM. After longarming for the public for several year, Kate’s love of quilting and longarming lead to a natural transition to teaching others how to get the best from their longarm machines. Kate joined Janome America as a longarm specialist in January 2022.

Her longarm specialties include ruler work skills, working with Pro-Stitcher^®, and combining digital and free-motion designs. Her students also learn to achieve their best possible results by playing with all different thread types and weights, squaring up and taming wavy quilts, and breaking large quilts down into manageable bites.

Let her help you longarm your way into the future by embracing traditions of the past and blending them with modern techniques to create heirlooms for tomorrow.

Katy Mitchell

Katy started sewing by taking her mother's scraps and making doll clothes. Her love of the sewing process is evident in her classes and workshops, especially when she steps outside of the box when problem-solving. She has traveled all over the United States for Janome, supporting quilting and sewing events.

As an experienced instructor and past salesperson for a large Janome dealer, Katy tries to attempt to 'break it down' - making complicated techniques into simple instructions is her specialty - while keeping the fun in sewing with her bubbly personality. Her calm demeanor helps get through those tricky parts of a project.

Kelley McKenzie

As a Janome Education Longarm Specialist, Kelley enjoys teaching others about quilting and sewing. She is very passionate about helping others learn more about her fulfilling hobby.

Kelley's accomplishments include owning a Janome dealership and quilt shop for six years. She also enjoys being a long arm quilter and teaching all of the newest techniques at local quilt show events and conferences. Her excitement for Janome sewing machines is contagious!

She is an active monitor of our Facebook groups for all things longarm and Pro-Stitcher^®related. Kelley also helps both dealers and customers troubleshoot longarm usage, from initial set-up and installation to getting the best design or stitch for your project.

Michele Beaugrand

Michele started sewing when she was a young child, making doll clothes with a hand crank toy machine. Michele later worked at a large department store in the alterations department, using the time to learn everything she could about sewing and alterations from her senior co-workers. While attending college in New York, she started her own home decorating business where she went to the client’s home, designed all fabric treatments and then went back to her shop and made the curtains, shades, bedspreads, canopies, pillows, wall hangings, etc.

Michele moved back to the Seattle area to raise a family with a special-needs kid. She went to work for a friend in Olympia, Washington in a sewing machine store and worked there for 15 years as lead salesperson selling six different brands of machines and teaching project classes.

Michele now does freelance training and teaching around the nation and hopes to continue to do this for many years to come!

Miriam Coffey

As a young child, Miriam had a love for textiles and anything she could create with them. She attended Maryland College of Art and studied textile arts. During this time she taught herself to sew and has never looked back!

Miriam has been involved in the fabric world in many different avenues: fashion design, managing a modern quilt store, co-owning a long arm quilting business, serving as a textile sales representative and most excitingly as a Janome Educator. Miriam has been published in several articles and appeared on the show Fresh Quilting. Her work has been featured in the Modern Quilt Guild’s “Modern Quilts, Best of the New Century” book. Out of her local and international awards – which includes QuiltCon awards, and a Best in Show award from the Asheville Quilt Show - she is most proud of her 1^st place blue ribbon from AQS Paducah.

A favorite part of her job is empowering people to do things they thought were out of their sewing skillset. This includes improvisational piecing in quilting to help quilters break out of a straight-line view and look at things from a different perspective.

Miriam also specializes in educating Janome owners on learning more modern embroidery techniques. When she began learning to embroider, she challenged herself to learn to use this new sewing “tool” to fit into her aesthetic and not the other way around. By using her MC15000 to texturize fabric to then cut for piecing, she adds another dimension of texture to her work which is now an integral part of her current quilting style.

Phyllis Summerville

Phyllis’ interest in sewing began at an early age, a needle has been in her hand or machine for 65 years! She’s a true creative industry professional and has been sharing her extensive knowledge of all things sewing for most of that time. Phyllis loves to teach students and it shows that this was one of her first careers in the sewing machine industry.

She also sewed for a living, mainly in the custom wedding dress and beauty pageant fields – Phyllis can definitely help you with that slippery specialty costume fabric or specific embellishment presser foot!

Her journey in the sewing world evolved into starting her own sewing business where she was also a sewing machine dealer. From there Phyllis has worked for many years at quilt shows and other sewing conferences, always happy to share her knowledge and learn something new.

Sam Fung

Sam, an Educational Coordinator, has been sewing for the past 45 years. Prior to joining Janome 15 years ago, he owned a custom sewing business where he made everything from couture wedding gowns to home decor and even taught students of all ages how to sew. He enjoys sharing his knowledge of sewing through teaching. Sam is definitely Janome’s resident notions expert - he probably has enough notions to open his own shop!

His love of embroidery began when he couldn’t find lace for his custom wedding gowns so he learned how to create his own. Although garment making is Sam’s first sewing passion, he’s also adept at ruler work quilting. Sam also has lots of tips and tricks to make the quilting process quicker.

Sam is well rounded in his sewing skills and has a vast knowledge of domestic sewing machines and sergers.

Shelley Tinn

Shelley has been in the sewing machine business her entire life. Even while achieving her finance degree as an undergrad, her heart has always been in sewing machines. She is the 3^rd generation of her family to manage their sewing store business, and did so for 20 years.

She is excited to join the Janome family as an educator. Shelley is enthusiastic and interested in all types of sewing; currently embroidery and bagmaking are specific interests. Learning the myriad of techniques used in art quilting is her next area of textile design, if you have a favorite technique to share please do so when you see her at a dealer or quilt show. She lives in Oregon so look for her on the road in the Western US.

Susan Clark-Enderson

Susan is not your average instructor. Her extensive experience includes managing a number of dealerships and instructing consumers and dealers in the home industry since 1985.

She is a professional digitizer, quilter, crafter and seamstress specializing in anything by machine. Susan has also authored many articles for different sewing industry magazines and newsletters as well as having published her own designs and patterns.

Her secret passion is anything artistic. Being certified by many industry professionals in their different styles and sewing techniques - she brings a unique approach to her sewing, crafting and teaching. From sergers to software, designing for the home to 18" dolls, wedding gowns to artistic quilting, Susan is able to inspire and motivate from the very beginner to the advanced professional in the industry.

Tracy Ehrhardt

As the Educational Supervisor at Janome, Tracy works with our authorized Janome dealers, educators, and events department to provide everything needed for successful events, along with assisting Marketing with social media, editing both patterns and workbooks for the team, and troubleshooting questions for our customers.

She started sewing about a dozen years ago, sewing home décor and clothing but her true “call to the machine” was to create in the style of modern quilts. Tracy has been on the management board of her local Modern Quilt Guild chapter, and a cause important to her is the community/charity quilting arm of the guild. She has also instructed students in the art of visible mending.

A self-described texture lover, she is always looking for ways to add a layer to a piece and has recently been working with adding machine embroidery, currently using the Memory Craft 9850 and the CM17.