End of 2023 Summary

December 23, 2023

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.

Capture your Own Life in Collage QuiltingMaking Unique Quilts and Projects from Photos and Imagery

This book is available now from a variety of retailers, Amazon and a signed copy I will send you available to purchase in my online shop

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.

Foothill Quilters Guild Block of the Month 2024.

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!

Where has the Summer gone?

August 25, 2023

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.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the summer,

Jane H

Maddie's Quilt

February 15, 2023

I spent much of January working on a very special quilt for the family of a very special girl, called Maddie.

In 2022 I was contacted by Maddie’s mom, Leslie, who had clothing and other special items of her daughter’s that she wanted made into a quilt for the family. Maddie had passed away in October 2021 at the age of fifteen and a half. Leslie had spent a long time looking for the right person to make the quilt. When she chose me I knew I was the right one. I knew it was hard for them to let go of these items when they planned on driving from Southern California to my home in Northern California to drop them off. I wanted to create a meaningful and truly, special memory quilt for them using Maddie’s things.

Once Christmas was over and another project was completed, I felt I had the time to focus on this quilt. I used my bedroom floor to lay out all the items as I knew this would be a large quilt. From the initial layout of folded clothes I was able to measure, cut and join the blocks using clothing and fabric for sashing to create larger blocks. After making these blocks I would work on creating other units in other areas, always measuring to make sure these units would eventually join together. I think of this process almost like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

When it came to finishing the quilt I included Maddie’s quilted bedding for a border and the duvet cover for the quilt back. I felt it was a perfect solution for this special and unique quilt. The quilt finished at around 98” square and included all of Maddie’s precious clothing items, hats, socks and her well loved blankets. Last week I shipped the finished quilt and all the unused fabrics and clothing. I was excited for them to have Maddie’s things back.

Here’s Leslie taking Maddie’s quilt to visit her school friends and teachers.

As soon as Leslie received the quilt she took it to show Maddie’s school friends and teachers at Agape Village Day Program in Valencia, CA.

You can read more about Maddie’s story on Leslie’s blog at maddiesjoy.org You can also donate to Maddie’s Joy, a fund set up by her parents to honor their daughter Maddie’s memory and to serve children with special needs.

With such a large quilt it is hard to get a great photo of the whole quilt but I love how personal it is including her favorite blankets, hats, shirts, dresses and bedding.

I feel honored to have worked on this special quilt, and hope that by sharing my talents using these fabrics will help this family heal and celebrate Maddie’s life. Even if it helps in just a little way.

“…fabrics transcend their function and became symbols of peace and better times.” Quote from Haptic and Hue.