Kenneth King

Kenneth D. King is a couture sewing expert and longtime instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in NYC. He also teaches independently and across the U.S., specializing in advanced construction, couture techniques, and custom fitting.

A true artist in the sewing world, Kenneth’s one-of-a-kind garments have been featured in museum collections around the globe, including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, LACMA, and San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum. He’s also a prolific author, with several beloved sewing books under his belt—his latest title will be available just in time for PatternCon, where he'll be hosting a special book signing!

Cornelius Quiring

Cornelius Quiring is a content creator and sewing teacher known for his unique story, his skill in making clothes for his asymmetrical body, and for teaching others how to sew and draft patterns. After a childhood farm accident left him with a physical disability, he learned to create his own clothes and now shares his expertise through tutorials and courses on his website and social media platforms. Cornelius is known for his educational but also humorous and storytelling approach to teaching.

Tricia Camacho

Tricia Camacho is the founder of Creative Costume Academy and the visionary behind PatternCon. With 20+ years of experience in live entertainment costume design—including Cirque du Soleil—she’s on a mission to make pattern making simple, fun, and accessible for creatives at all levels. Her superpower? Breaking down complex techniques so anyone can draft with confidence.

Jennifer Stern Hasemann

Jennifer Stern Hasemann is the owner and designer of J Stern Designs. She has a solid background in pattern design and drafting, as well as fit and garment constructions. Her line of fashion sewing patterns and fit workbooks feature easy to follow instructions.

Her specialty is garment fitting. She loves helping you create clothes that fit and are flattering. Pants and jeans are her passion. After trying every method under the sun, she fine-tuned her process to make pants fitting accessible to every body! She shares her tips, techniques and projects on her YouTube Channel and in Zoom classes. She also loves teaching at patternreview.com & Craftsy.com; and at in person workshops around the country.

Sumalee Eaton

Sumalee Eaton fell in love with costumes at first sight and has been stumbling through the world of costuming ever since. She currently works as a professional stitcher in the Florida live entertainment industry and creates content about her ongoing journey as a costume maker and recovering perfectionist, including cheeky little videos on Tiktok and a long-winded storytelling podcast, The Costumer's Journey. As someone who struggled for a long time to make the costumes of her dreams due to perfectionism, she is passionate about helping other Costume Nerds overcome obstacles and achieve their goals! Catch her almost anywhere as @sew.sumalee and never hesitate to say hi!

Julian Collins

Julian Collins is a Cincinnati-based sewist, BERNINA Ambassador, and Know Me pattern designer who creates bold, colorful menswear featuring African textiles. By day, he's a public health professional; by night, he brings joy through sewing. As founding member of Black Makers Matter and creator of the Sew "Manly" Facebook group, Julian advocates for inclusivity and diversity in the sewing community.

Jasmine Chandler

Jasmine Desirée is a fashion design professor, indie pattern designer, and total sewing superstar! With over a decade of experience, a master’s degree, and her own line, she brings serious skills and passion to every stitch. Get ready to be inspired!

Stephanie Canada

Stephanie Canada, full-time YouTuber, mom, thrift shopper, estate sale hunter, and collector of vintage items, likes to find vintage sewing patterns,  fabrics and trims and use them to make vintage clothing in her size. Her goal in life is to encourage you to use that vintage pattern or fabric, because life is short and fabric is meant to be used!

Lynn Brannelly

With nearly 30 years of experience designing and fitting costumes for film and television, Lynn Brannelly discovered the lack of inclusive options while tailoring for a Los Angeles production. Realizing that 26% of the population lives with a disability, she began developing design solutions to bridge that gap.

What started as online adaptive sewing tutorials has grown into a service offering virtual fittings nationwide and locally across Southern California, helping clients experience clothing that fits their needs and restores confidence. Through Sewn Adaptive, Lynn continues her mission to show that fashion can and should, work for everyone, combining her industry expertise with a deep commitment to accessibility, inclusion, and design innovation.

Aaronica B. Cole

Aaronica B. Cole is a plus-size sewist, pattern designer, and educator who brings passion and expertise to every class she teaches. Through her brand, Aaronica has built a reputation for making sewing approachable, inclusive, and fun—whether she’s helping students master projector cutting, understand fit adjustments, or creating wardrobes that truly reflect their style.

Denise Chukhina

With nearly 20 years of professional experience in costuming, Denise Chukhina brings a blend of couture craftsmanship and theatrical expertise to every project. She holds a B.A. in Costume Design and an MFA in Costume Production. Her career has spanned the Cologne Opera, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, American Players Theatre, HBO, and various entertainment parks. In recent years she has grown her own business creating custom cosplay commissions. While her foundation is in couture sewing methods, Denise has a deep passion for the engineering that goes into costume making, detail work and incorporating painting techniques to bring a costume to life.

Anna Depew

Mrs. Depew is dedicated to preserving hand-made history for the next generation.

The history of women is often told through the treasures they made with their own two hands. I was raised in an antique shop and my mother taught me to find the stories of women shining through each loving stitch of the clothes they left behind.

Mrs. Depew Vintage is built around preserving that history through the restoration and rehabilitation of original vintage patterns, as well as reproductions of vintage sewing and embroidery patterns, books, and magazines.
We have been preserving and selling patterns since 2008 and can be found at www.MrsDepew.com.

Ruby Gertz

Ruby Gertz is a freelance patternmaker and designer with over a decade of experience working in the fashion and costume design industries. She holds a BFA in fashion design from Pratt Institute and a Master of Education from Widener University, and currently teaches as an adjunct professor in the Fashion Design program at Jefferson University. Ruby has worked on projects that have appeared on SNL, at the New York City Toy Fair, on the red carpet of the Academy Awards, on the stages of The Met Opera, American Ballet Theater, various Off-Broadway productions, cruise lines, and at world-class theme parks around the world. She has also made costumes for indie theater companies, solo performers, music videos, and puppets. Ruby is passionate about size-inclusive design and intentionally seeks out projects and clients that aim to serve the plus-size market.

Tina VanDenburg

Tina VanDenBurg sews clothes for many reasons: to love and celebrate the body she has, to show up in the world dressed to reflect the vibrant person she is inside, and for the puzzle and creativity of designing her own patterns and hacking patterns she knows and loves (her favorite thing to teach).

Most of all, she loves teaching people to sew for the “holy Hannah, I just DID this” moment and the empowerment that comes from having new skills and, maybe, loving the body they have that much more. She has been a garment sewist, primarily with knit fabrics, for 18 years and a sewing teacher for over a decade. Tina hosts sewing retreats on Mackinac Island in Michigan, teaches virtual courses and workshops, and delights in having a podcast for makers who crave a vibrant life. 

Brooks Ann Camper

In her online Prep School for Custom Sewing, Brooks Ann Camper teaches individuals a unique way to sew their own custom-fit clothes.

As a former professional costumemaker and bridalwear couturier, Brooks Ann shares her own patternmaking and sewing methods designed specifically for the solo sewist- embracing the advantages of sewing for yourself and opting out of the “fashion industry”. No sizes. No standards. No charts. No Adjustments-naming-your-non-standard-body-parts. It’s YOU learning to make clothes for YOU- in a way that feels good to you.
Brooks Ann is a “slow sewing” enthusiast who loves delving into the nerdy “why” behind each step- and she loves sharing her unconventional perspective with kindred spirits. She can’t wait to meet new patternmaking nerds at Pattern Con!

Nikki Griffin

Nikki Griffin, lingerie sewing/design instructor & owner of BraBuilders.com, grew her brand from teaching advanced level sewing, supporting sewists and designers to up their sewing game to the most aspirational garments like jeans, coats, lingerie and tailoring. Nikki has worked in environments, like film/tv production, with designers that pushed the boundaries of aesthetics beyond the fabrics.

Jennifer Fairbanks

Jennifer Fairbanks is a designer, pattern maker, educator and mom. She own the the businesses Porcelynne, Sew Pinellas and Me Made Getaway. Her specialty is lingerie design and she has written multiple books in the fashion industry, mainly in the field of lingerie design. Jennifer also takes on freelance projects for select companies, including Madalynne Intimates and Cashmerette, though she keeps freelance work minimal to focus on developing her own sewing patterns for Porcelynne and Sew Pinellas.

Saremy Duffy

Saremy Duffy is a trained pattern drafter and designer who worked in the fashion and outer wear industries. She also had a line of accessories and a manufacturing factory for 11 years. Currently, she creates sewing, fitting, and drafting instructional videos and manages a community!

Lillia Whittington

Lillia Whittington is a sewing educator, creator, and researcher based in Denton, Texas. She teaches fashion design at Texas Woman’s University and is completing her PhD in Apparel, Merchandising, and Design at Iowa State University. Her research explores how indie pattern makers adopt and trust 3D virtual fitting technologies to enhance accuracy, efficiency, and inclusivity in pattern development.

She regularly presents and teaches workshops on digital patternmaking, apparel fit, and technology integration for the modern sewing community. Lillia’s teaching emphasizes creativity, accessibility, and technical confidence, helping students and makers alike translate digital tools into tangible design outcomes. When she’s not doing all of this, she’s playing with her two weenie dogs, enjoying her hometown, and experimenting with heirloom sewing techniques.

Shawnelle Cherry

Shawnelle Cherry is the founder of Future Fashion Designers in Mooresville, NC, a school she launched after the 2009 recession nudged her from Hollywood to the Southeast. Before that shift, she spent over 20 years as a costume designer, creating looks for 30+ films and joining the Costume Designers Guild in 2003.

She got her start designing custom evening gowns in L.A., dressing stars for the Oscars, Emmys, and Golden Globes, while crafting hundreds of wedding gowns to pay the bills.

Now, she’s built a joyful creative community of young designers, complete with fashion shows, mac-and-cheese cook-offs, and her signature “Project Sew Way” program. She also shares her sewing love on YouTube and is currently writing a book on her all-time favorite skirt design.

Passionate about helping others chase their fashion dreams, Shawnelle believes success is where opportunity meets preparation and she’s ready to cheer you on every stitch of the way.

Constance "Conni" Spotts

Dr. Conni is a retired U.S. Navy Commander and fashion historian. She spent 16 of her 21 years in the Navy as an Engineering Duty Officer, supervising ship maintenance and construction.

After retiring in 2018, she went back to college for a Ph.D. in her first love—apparel design. Her studies focused on the history of sewing education and construction. After graduation she was honored to complete the Vining/Hacker Fellowship in Women's Military History at the Smithsonian National Museum in American History, studying uniforms of female sailors (WAVES) in WWII designed by Mainbocher. Now, she is in western Kansas as the Head of Collections and Curation of the Prairie Museum of Art and History.

Carol Huls

Carol Huls, President & CEO of DittoForm, empowers clothing and costume makers with custom dress forms that reflect their unique bodies. She thrives on problem-solving, leveraging a diverse background—from working with museum collections to supporting Fortune 500 executives to guiding 8th graders through Washington, DC. Carol credits her success to curiosity, collaboration, and a strong professional network. She believes creativity, innovation, and adaptability are key to both business and life—and she never goes a day without a good laugh.