Sitting here I have spent the last week in my bedroom after a Covid positive result! Not the way I imagined my year in quilting would end. I am well, a bit tired and lacking motivation but using this enforced quiet time to catch up on a few things.

My year has been super busy as usual. I did plenty of traveling and teaching, hosting lectures and classes on Zoom, making custom memory quilts and art quilts for clients and entering quilts into quilt exhibits. I like to show this summary as it allows me to record my numbers for the year that otherwise would go uncounted.

In 2024 I made 24 art quilts of various sizes. These could be new quilts, gifts, class samples, hand stitched pieces or quilted bags. I made 2 small quilts that I donated to the SAQA fundraising auctions. I also made 15 custom T-shirt quilts, and 6 custom pet portraits quilts. Every year I say I am taking on fewer custom quilts especially T-shirt quilts. The ones made were all ordered by either previous customers wanting family quilts for siblings or local customers. Again next year there will be fewer of these kind of quilts on my schedule.

As for my teaching schedule I hosted 9 lectures and 5 workshops via Zoom. This included Craft Napa and Mancuso’s Virtual Schoolhouse 9.

I had 20 different teaching gigs to guilds and quilts shows. Eleven of these I drove to and nine I flew to. Places in California included Santa Barbara, Capitola, Roseville, Sunnyvale, Tulare, Oakhurst, Clearlake, Brentwood, Sunnyvale and Temecula. I flew to Hampton, VA, Boerne TX, Augusta Maine, Houston TX, Raleigh NC, Omaha NB, Denver CA and Prescott AZ. This year it did feel like a lot of travel and when things go wrong at the airport it is not much fun!

Unusually I entered many quilts into exhibitions in various galleries or quilt shows around the country. I had 8 quilts accepted and 2 will be on show in 2025. My greatest and surprising achievement was having a quilt accepted into Quilt National which opens May 2025 in Athens Ohio at the Dairy Barn. My quilt is titled ‘Let’s Talk Color’ and is cheerful collection of colorful chickens.

In 2024 I did more hand stitching work than usual and have included in some of my new classes. My style is simple, down to earth, easy stitches including running stitch, cross stitch and seed stitch. I like to work on small pieces that I stitch on batting and then combine into a larger quilt. An example of this is Christmas Collage. Unfortunately I didn’t get it completed this year but I still plan on getting these patterns online for purchase. My intention is for people to work through them as a Block of the Month over the year, so by next Holiday season it will be finished.

If you are interested in fabric collage check out my website and shop at janehaworth.com Here I sell PDF patterns, kits and my books and have details of my teaching schedule. I have a FaceBook group called Fabric Collage School and this coming year plan to share more videos and online workshops.

Thanks for all the support from students, guilds and customers, Jane H