As usual the end of the year is upon me and I realized how few blog posts I have made this year. Every year I do intend to write more and keep a regular schedule for Blog Posts and Newsletters! You can probably tell I enjoy the designing, making and sewing more than the computer and social media. My greatest accomplishment was that I wrote and finished my first book. It was published in October and I loved working with Landauer Publishing it was a great experience.

I do like to summarize what I have made, and where I have traveled and taught this year. The year started slow as I knew I needed to complete the projects and manuscript for the book and didn’t know how much I would be involved in the editing process. Happily with just a few additions from me, Christa at Landauer Publishing took care of everything.

I travelled on 12 occasions within California, the USA and to England to teach. Places like San Clemente, Sunnyvale and Sonora, CA, Tucson, Arizona, Denver Colorado, Houston International Quilt Market and Festival and to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. I also taught or talked on Zoom on at least 8 occasions to quilt guilds and the Manucuso Schoolhouse series.

It was my first time to teach and visit the Festival of Quilts in England and it remains one of my favorite trips after Dubai! The show was large with many different features to what I am used to here in the US. Loved the idea of the Prosecco Bar on the show floor! The proximity of the hotel made it easy to walk to everything, although the NEC did feel a bit like a bubble!

Quilt Market was a great experience as I was there with Fox Chapel Publishing. It was a more relaxing time for me than teaching at Festival and I got a to do my first book signing!

The quilts I finished in 2023 I like to divide into three categories; Custom Quilts, Art Quilts and Donation quilts.

I made 22 Custom Quilts and these include 11 T-Shirt quilts, 3 necktie quilts and 8 pet portraits.

I made 6 donation quilts. Which include 2 for SAQA, 3 for the Foothill Quilters Guild and one for the owner of Mia the Bedlington Lurcher. I also donated to the World Central Kitchen from the sale of the Shy Sunflower pattern

I also made about 12 art quilts that include larger quilts, samples for classes and gifts. The Big Wave was accepted into the Hoffman challenge and Peony the Cow won a special award at the PIQF show. This totals 40 quilts.

The Foothill Quilters Guild used my Succulent patterns for their 2022-23 Block of the Month which was so popular they chose my fish patterns for their current Block of the Month. It has 40 people signed up so I think that is pretty successful! Contact me if you are interested in doing something similar.

Teaching on Zoom is still popular and enables me to speak at guild meetings around the USA. January 2024 I will host my first independent Zoom workshop and hope to spend more time setting this up in 2024. I want to make my fabric collage technique and patterns accessible to more people. Check out Fabric Collage School on FB which now has over 4000 members.

Thank you to all my customers, students, followers and purchasers of my book. Hopefully 2024 will be as fulfilling as this year. I wouldn’t be working this hard without you but I would still be making quilts!