I have had a busy summer which started with a 2 week trip to Costa Rica, which looking back seems so long ago. Costa Rica is an amazing country, if you never have visited, somewhere I highly recommend for its beauty, wildlife and bird spotting, flora, and fauna. We had so many sloth encounters that seemed to get better over the trip, something I had not expected. And spending a week in an amazing house in Manuel Antonio was one of the highlights.

BIG NEWS My book ‘Capture your own Life in Collage Quilting’ Making unique quilts and projects from photos and imagery, will be released on September 19th. It is available to pre-order from Amazon. here. I am very impressed by the work of my publisher Landauer Publishing, part of Fox Chapel Publishing. The quality of the book, the paper, images and clear layout, I couldn’t have been happier. So if you are wanting to dabble in fabric collage it is a reference and idea guide with patterns you can use or instructions on making your own.

Front Cover showing some of the project ideas inside. The book has 12 projects, 7 patterns, 150 pages and is priced at $24.99

Over the next 3 months I have a busy travel schedule coming up, heading to quilt guilds and to teach at quilt shows. Today I am heading to Denver to the Colorado Quilt Council for a lecture and Sunflower workshop. After that I will be visiting Tucson, my first time there, Sunnyvale to the Granary Quilt shop, PIQF in Santa Clara and finally to Quilt Market and the International Quilt Festival in Houston. It will be my first ever visit to Quilt Market where I will be signing books and hanging out in the Fox Chapel booth, so stop by if you will be there.

The other big event this summer was that I headed to my homeland for a couple of weeks to visit family and friends and to visit and teach at Festival of Quilts. Again if you have never been this is a great destination quilt show that should be on everyones bucket list! The show is huge. Its located at the NEC in Birmingham, about 2 hours north of London. Staying at one of the NEC’s hotels makes a nice self-contained visit with an array of restaurants, all walkable was perfect. The quilts I saw were different (in a good way!) and vendors were also different from what I am used to seeing in the US.

There was plenty of seating everywhere, the Prosecco Bar was amazing, and wonderful small exhibits too. I taught 5 classes, 4 being Quick and Easy Classes (90 minute) which worked out great and a lecture in a small theater. My students were amazing and really appreciated all the kits, fabrics, patterns and quilts I had lugged out in my suitcase!

If you want to see where I will be teaching next this year or next look up my calendar here on my website. I continue to sell patterns and kits from my shop there. I have PDF content that can be purchased and downloaded from anywhere that you will print at home.

Sign up for my newsletter as I will soon have some online classes that I will publish there first.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the summer,

Jane H