Barbara Weiland Talbert is a nationally known author and award-winning free-lance writer/editor in the home sewing and quilting fields. Her sewing career began as a small child at the knee of her dear great grandmother and she's been sewing and writing about sewing ever since!

With the help and encouragement of her mother, also a skilled seamstress, Barbara developed a passion for sewing that turned into a successful lifelong career. Years of award-winning 4-H participation and competition in the "Make It Yourself with Wool Contest" led to enrolling at Colorado State University where she majored in Textiles and Clothing/Fashion Merchandising.

With her degree in hand, Barbara left home to begin her career in the sewing industry with Unique Zipper Company in Seattle, WA. Jobs with Butterick Publishing in New York City as Editorial Director, then as a Fashion Merchandising instructor at a small private college in Portland, Maine, and later as a traveling sewing seminar presenter for Palmer/Pletsch shaped the first part of her creative career.

Writing and editing about her sewing passion was a natural progression. Her first sewing book, with co-author Leslie Wood, was Clothes Sense: Straight Talk about Wardrobe Planning published by Palmer/Pletsch Publishing.  She was the editor of SEW NEWS magazine in its early years and then continued writing for the publication as a free-lance contributor for over 20 years while working first as Executive Editor for Palmer/Pletsch Publishing in Portland, OR, and then as Editor-in-Chief for That Patchwork Place in Woodinville, WA, where she honed her skills in quilting and wearable art.

With an offer to write a 256-page sewing book for Rodale Publishing, Barbara left That Patchwork Place after five successful years there and became a full-time free-lance writer. Secrets for Successful Sewing was published in 1997 and has sold more than 75,000 copies in the ensuing years. She also contributed to Serger Secrets, another popular Rodale sewing book.

Barbara is a designer, too, and introduced her own pattern line (under the name Jo-Lydia's Attic) in 1999. Patterns for quilts, place mats, a jacket and two very popular sets of tote bags are available for purchase at Jo-Lydia’s Attic.

You may recognize Barbara from the pages of Clotilde's Sewing Savvy, where she served as Editor for three years (2005-2007) and wrote a popular widely read sewing e-letter.