Meet Julie DeGroat. Julie has been sewing since she was old enough to hold a needle, and graduated to the sewing machine at age nine. ("If your grandmother could see how fast you're running that machine she would spin in her grave!" was a frequently heard comment.) She started out with Barbie clothes, moved on to dolls, stepped into quilts, and is now an avid needleworker on all sorts of sewing projects. Her current addiction is creating a Dear Jane quilt. (Wanna see her progress? Click HERE.) She also carves, knits, works with polymer clay, and is re-reading all of the Harry Potter books to record every single instance JK Rowling mentions knitting.

She was the editor of Scrapbag for Quilters for ten years, as well as a major designer and writer for the magazine. Her other design work has appeared in several of the House of the White Birches hardcover sewing books. Julie is also a desultory writer, and you may have read some of her how-to articles in magazines such as Country Woman, ParentLife, Writer's Digest, and Quick and Easy Quilting. She was a family/humor columnist for the Watertown Daily Times, and wrote for them for thirteen years.

Julie has been pursuing an Associates Degree for almost 32 years, and plans to be the oldest graduate at the ceremony when she finally goes back. With a Lab Science, Statistics, World History, and 3 Gyms to go, she thinks this may be a while. She has been involved in taking numerous craft and quilting classes over the years, and looks forward to Quilt Camp with a fervor that could be mistaken for fanaticism. (But she stoutly maintains she is doing it to update her quilting and teaching abilities, and not to escape her children and eat uncontrollably.) 

Julie is the web master for Julie Old Crow, Hittygirls,and  Hitty Print Mini.  Her work can be seen on all of these sites. She works steadily on providing free quilt block patterns and free mini tutorials, as well as teaching online classes for Hitty and for quilting.

Everyone is born with one powerful talent, and she says her talent is telling people what to do, how to do it, and why they should do it her way. Her current obsession is creating a series of quilts inspired by the world's greatest television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Click here to see her progress. Wait--that's not her only obsession. There's always Battlestar Galactica, and who might be Harry's Wormtail to try and figure out. And knitting socks. Sock heels are currently kicking her butt. And Doctor Who. But that's it. We promise!  Unless you count the Walking Dead....

Not Julie's legs. However, she did knit the legwarmers!