Summer Travels

I was lucky enough to have a short break in my teaching schedule between mid June and the end of July but since then I have taken three great trips. In July I taught at Maine Quilts in Augusta, ME, spent a few days in Capitola, CA teaching the Pajaro Valley Quilt Association and I have just returned from a trip to Denver and Arizona.

Dinner at Shadowbrook in Capitola. What a beautiful setting?

Maine Quilts is the state wide quilt show organized by the various chapters of the Pinetree Quilt Guild in Maine. It is an annual show with competition quilts, various special exhibits, lectures, raffles, vendors and many classes by a variety of teachers from around the US. I was scheduled for one lunchtime lecture and 2 1/2 days of classes. All these were sold out. My students were great, very friendly, as most quilters are, and they made great progress on their collage projects. The classes I taught included; House and Home, Colorful Cats and Dogs, Chickens and Hummingbirds.

I did enjoy meeting the other teachers, attending the banquet, listening to teacher lectures and hanging out with Sarah Ann Smith, the featured artist for the show. We had dinner one night at the home of the TV show Maine Cabin Masters, which I had previously never heard of, but have since enjoyed a few episodes on Hulu.

A week or so later I was prepping and getting ready for my trip to Capitola which is approximately a 3hr drive from my house. We headed down a few days early so my husband and son could hang out for the weekend, before I was due to teach. We had some great food, and enjoyed exploring the coast. We visited Santa Cruz wharf where there was abundance of birdlife and sea lions. Then to the Elkhorn Slough which was quiet, a great place to hike and again we saw a lot of birdlife.

I spoke at the Pajaro Valley Quilters Association meeting Monday night and taught my pet Portrait workshop on Tuesday. Everyone seems to love what they were doing especially as they were all working on quilts of their own pets. My thanks to Pat G for hosting me and taking me with a few other members to Shadowbrook for a delicious dinner.

Seacliff Beach and the offshore wreck has an interesting history.

I had 2 days at home to repack before leaving for my next trip that included a stop in Denver before heading to Prescott, AZ to the Cottonwood Quilters. Early in June I was invited by The Quilt Show to be featured in one of their shows. This is a great honor and had been on my quilting bucket list! With some thorough preparation by the shows producer Shelly, I began prepping for my 2 demos. One would be a how-to on making collaged Pet Portraits and then an overview of ideas for putting together a background for collage. I am happy to have survived the experience. Once it came down to the recording, my nervousness had passed and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Converted church was a wonderful location for taping The Quilt Show

After 24 hrs in Denver I was off again with all my luggage to Phoenix, my destination Prescott, AZ. I had a wonderful time again teaching Pet Portrait collage to another great bunch of quilters whom I hope will complete their collages that they started. Having no idea about the history of Prescott I got to explore the downtown and Whiskey Row and learn about its Wild West heritage. Dinner at the Palace Hotel and visiting Jersey Lilly Saloon was eye opening.

I am now home and happy to breathe a little before my next trips to meet more quilters in California and then North Carolina. As ever I have plenty of work to complete, quilts to make and prep to do. Happy Quilting.

Downtown Prescott has so much history.

Summer's getting Hot!

Here in Northern California we are going into a hot, hot summer. I don’t ever remember a time when Auburn (East of Sacramento in the foothills) was forecast to have a stretch of at least 8 days over 100”. Usually we get a few 100’+ days in the forecast and Sacramento would get many. Here at my house we have ways to beat the heat! Swim early and often, make and eat ice-cream, eat plenty of salads using local produce from the Auburn Farmers Market, walk early in the morning and close all the blinds and live in a cave! That last one I don’t like so much.

June is over and what have I been doing? I taught three different classes both on Zoom and in person and I traveled to Temecula in Southern California. I taught Sunflowers (a great 3 hr Zoom class) to Wandering Foot Quilt Guild in Pasadena, CA, a House and Home workshop in Temecula and Zinnias and Stitch to a local community group. All were great classes and well received. I never fail to say quilters are all such nice people.

I have been working on getting through my commissioned quilts using neckties and T-shirts. I feel a sense of achievement and relief when the tops are made. This is the more time consuming and daunting part. I am happy to report I sent off one Necktie quilt and have 3 T-shirt quilt tops made. I have also been free-motion stitching and finishing a few projects of my own, which is great for me! And as always I am embarking on a few new designs also. Sharing some of my smaller patterns on my Facebook Group: Fabric Collage School is what I am doing this summer. These smaller projects I enjoy hand stitching. This I tend to do at night and as I heard it called “sofa crafting”.

This also seems like the season to sign up for classes and to enter quilt shows. Sign-ups for my classes have been going well but I do still have availability in some. If you enjoy doing the Zoom classes especially if you can’t travel to take a class with me check out the Mancuso Virtual Schoolhouse 9 where I am teaching Colorful Cats and Dogs and Paintbox Chickens. Both of these classes you will be emailed a choice of pattern and then you can use some of your scraps.

International Quilt Festival in Houston I still have room in Christmas Cardinal and Fish and Stitch workshops, both 3 hr with a kit. If you have already signed up for my classes I have added a page here on my website with more details about my classes, especially if you will be doing the 2 day Pet Portrait workshop. Check it out.

Road to California January 2025, my classes re filling but I have a room in Puffin Collage and Stitch, and My Turtle and Fish fabric Collage.

All the links are here for details and registration. Perhaps I will meet you soon.

Mid June we took a family trip Morro Bay to collect James from collage, enjoy some walks on the beach, visit a couple of wineries and of course take photos of this finished quilt. It’s my newest downloadable pattern available in my shop. Birds on a Wire.

Article published in the summer edition of Art Quilting Studio

On a sad note I recently saw that Ruth McDowell died. She was a big influence on my early quilting and I think part of why I love being challenged in my quilting goes back to when I would work in Ruth’s style of piecing.

See her incredible work here.

Continue to enjoy the summer, beat the heat if you can and maybe I will see you later this month at Maine Quilts, where I am teaching 3 sold out classes and a lecture.

It's almost Summer!

It’s been a busy 2024 for me so far and now as we are heading into summer I can settle at home and catch up on a variety of activities. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all that goes on around traveling and teaching that my home, my family and even my own art gets neglected. I am happy, even though I still have commitments teaching, that I have a bit of breathing space.

My front yard after spending time power washing the deck and planting up my veggies.

As a traveling quilt teacher I don’t think my husband or I realized I would be gone quite so much. He used to travel for work for years and now, since he works from home, our roles have reversed! I do love to travel and explore new states and places I have never visited before, but traveling with large luggage is not so fun.

Lecture time at Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, England.

Last summer whilst in England at the Festival of Quilts traveling with a 29” suitcase, large duffel and backpack was not good! I had to navigate staircases in the tube stations, packed trains with no luggage storage and then drag that suitcase down very bumpy, lumpy streets. Never again! Saying that my experience of teaching and visiting this quilt show was great and so I do plan on going back.

My next teaching adventures in 2024 will take me to Maine Quilts in July, Santa Cruz CA, Prescott AZ, Raleigh NC, Omaha NB, Houston TX as well as other quilt guild in California. You can always check out my Calendar page in the About section for more details of my schedule.

New Projects, Patterns and Ideas

Although I may have a stack of unfinished collage quilts, I am always looking for new ideas. I don’t think it is just me that works this way! One new pattern that I have available in my shop is ‘Birds on a Wire’ This idea started from a wooden wall hanging I saw in a quilt shop and I went home and made my own quilt version. My sample is a small wall hanging but could easily be made into a table runner or baby quilt. In fact that is what I will be working on later today!

21 blue birds needed for my baby sized quilt.

Fabric pet Portraits workshop

I have been teaching this workshop a lot recently. Guild’s having been signing up to take this as a 2 day workshop, 1 day workshop in person or via Zoom. A quilt guild in Maryland signed up for my online, on demand Love of Pets version and were able to work at their own pace and still see me on Zoom for help. This is a great option if you have group of 10 or more. I provide a discount code and then arrange a couple of group Zoom sessions to get you started and then a follow-up.

A few works WIP from my class at The Granary Quilt Shop in Sunnyvale, CA

I am always so impressed with the quilts that people make especially when they share a finished quilt or collage. It’s a challenging project when you want that animal to look like the photo or the real animal.

A few examples from the 2-day workshop hosted by the Delta Quilters in Brentwood, CA.

Finally let me just talk about using scraps in Collage. I am lucky enough to have many fabrics to choose from for my collage projects. But as I make collage I create more scraps in a variety of sizes and, apart from tiny pieces that I do through away, a scrap for collage is always worth saving. These I keep in gallon bags and smaller pieces in quart sized bags. Many of my newer classes are using SCRAPS. Look at making Chickens in bright colors, or doing a colorful cat or dog pattern using bright and patterned fabrics. These projects are always “out-of-the-box!”

Thanks for reading and keeping up on my progress this year and (as I have said before) I hope to add to my blog more often especially now I have a quieter summer ahead of me.

Check out my FB group called Fabric Collage School where I will be sharing free PDF patterns, over the summer, for you to download, make and enjoy. Poppy is available right now.

Who doesn't love a POPPY