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.