Eye Spy: Using Novelty Prints in Fabric Collage

What types of fabrics do you use for fabric collage?

I am often asked that question. It would probably be easier to answer the opposite of that question: What types of fabrics don’t I use for fabric collage?

I use them all, if appropriate. (Okay, maybe not really heavy upholstery fabrics. At least not very often.) (For a more complete answer, visit this blog post: Choosing Fabric for Fabric Collage.)

But what about novelty fabrics? Do I use them?

Oh, yes. All the time. Most often, I cut the prints up so much that the original image—the “novelty” part of the fabric—is almost unrecognizable. I might just be looking for a change in color or value.

However, one of my favorite things to do with novelty fabrics is to sneak in an element that has to do with the theme of the piece I’m creating. I don’t usually intentionally hide them, but I hope they aren’t immediately evident either. I don’t want them to distract, after all. So, in the end, spotting these little trinkets becomes something like that game you played in the car on long trips: I Spy with My Little Eye.

One example is the Australian creatures I included in “Crocodylus Smylus” (or “Stevie”, as I call her). Stevie the salt-water crocodile is so big (20 feet) that hiding creatures in her was pretty easy. I didn’t have to work at it at all. I used a lot of Aboriginal-themed fabrics in this piece—seemed to make sense since Salties are native to Australia.

On smaller pieces, such as “Golden Temple of the Good Girls,” I had to work harder to fit in thematic novelty prints. In this case, they had to blend in because otherwise they might have been too distracting. The key is make the novelty print work for you as is. In other words, to make it work just as your other fabrics do, to either blend or provide contrast in creating form.

So sometimes novelties are hidden, or at least subtle, but sometimes, using novelty prints is part of the point of the quilt. As I have said before, it is often a boost to creativity to set limits or challenges for yourself, such as working in a particular color. In the case of “Peace, Love, Tie-Dye, Save the Whales,” I set myself the goal of working with novelty prints. I specifically searched for novelty fabrics that would fit the theme of each portion of the quilt—Peace, Love, Tie-Dye, and Save the Whales. (For a complete description of this quilt of my son Sam, visit “Quilt Story: Peace, Love, Tie-Dye, Save the Whales.”)

Upcoming Blog Previews

Finally, as a preview of upcoming blog posts, I present a few of my Session Three and Session Four Empty Spools student works. Check in next week and the week after for complete “On the Road” posts for the classes I taught in Pacific Grove, California. Several students worked small creatures from their stash of novelty prints into their much larger images. Check out these works in progress.

So you see, even novelty fabrics can be used in fabric collage. They can either blend in or stand out. It’s up to you. But don’t shy away from them. Give your novelty fabrics some love, too.