The Fabric Collage Finish Line: More Quilts from Online Submissions 3

Here’s fresh batch of Finish Line fabric collage quilts from quilters around the country—and, I can literally say this week, from around the world. For those who don’t know, these quilts were either started in one of my classes, or using my book Serendipity Quilts, or through the Fabric Collage Online Master Class Manual (or using some combination of these). They were submitted through my online submissions page which you can find here:

Submit Quilt for "Finish Line"

I hope you like these quilts as much as I do. I feel a motherly pride in them, even when I’m seeing them for the first time.

Thank you to all my Finish Line quilters!

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Susan Looby

The portrait quilt above is by Susan Looby of Perth, Australia. I first received an email and photos from her almost exactly a year ago. At that time she included the finished fish quilt below. I could see right away that Susan had a knack for fabric collage. In her most recent email through our call for Finish Line quilts just a couple weeks ago, she sent along completed portrait quilt photos including that of “Yaai,” seen in photo above. Wow. Susan has come a long way in a year—she took this process and ran with it. Read more about her quilts and personal growth below—including a simple way to help access the relative color value of your fabric.

Hi Susan, I live in Perth Australia. I recently bought your book and online master class and am very inspired. I still have a lot to learn. I am sending you my efforts thus far. The fish was done prior to knowing your work or classes.

I decided to download free colouring pages to create the fish. Then I discovered your work and was so inspired. You are incredibly talented. I immediately bought your book, and then realized I could buy your master class. They are very helpful. Now I have the “bug” to do many more collages. I feel like a real beginner but am trying to develop.

I found this simple tool trick [below] to assess values in fabric. I made my own once I found this idea on the internet. I have shown how to use it. This works very well with fabrics that are particularly close in value and you have to decide which one is darker/lighter. I find it useful as a beginner.

This is my first attempt at a pet. Bonnie is my best friend Claire’s little dog who is her best friend and I was inspired to create her as a gift for Claire. Bonnie the dog was very well received by my friend and is now hanging on her wall in her sewing room at her home.

Susan then told me she, “got very ambitious,” and began portraits of her grandsons and then granddaughter.

I am completing one of my granddaughter and hope to put the three together in one quilt. I have had no other tutorials so they aren’t great. But I am still happy with them as a first attempt. Thank you for your inspiration and knowledge. I hope to continue improving.

I know Susan is continuing to work on the grandchildren portraits, and I look forward to when they can be shared on a future Finish Line post. In the meantime, check out her three most recent portraits below. What a lovely job she’s doing creating these unique expressions and personalities and with multiple fabric pieces, patterns, and values.

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Donna Nicklis

Donna Nicklis from Ponte Verde, FL, attended my 2-day class with the St. Augustine Piecemakers in February 2016, where she started this quilt based on my “Wavelength” pattern. This was one of two classes I taught in Florida on that trip, the second being in Naples, FL. These short and limited-subject classes can be quite fun with the fanciful energy generated. When you only so much time to work on a project, the process needs to become more intuitive, and inventive. Donna made some nice choices with this fish—light-to-dark color gradation and prints in the fabric give extra detail to the eye and fin areas. And you gotta love those bright red fish lips!

From Donna:

I gave this quilt to my fisherman husband. Reel Adventures is the name of his fishing boat which was sold (and is missed) a year before I made the quilt. I used a hand-dyed fabric I made in another workshop for the background. Thank you Susan!

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Feli Alvarez

Feli Alvarez is from Girona, Catalonia, Spain. Her submission was written in Spanish, which I converted to English using Google Translate, so I hope the words below are a true reflection of her intent. I have marveled at this before, but I continue to be sincerely grateful for the ability to have an impact around the world through the internet. I never know where the next Finish Line quilt will come from!

I especially like this bird’s beak—a toucan’s claim-to-fame in any case. There’s a smooth transition of yellows to oranges from one end to another, culminating with great visual texture from the prints Feli used. Even the black of the bill has a gradation in the multiple fabrics used—with fun contrast in those red spots.

From Feli:

I have learned fabric collage with Susan’s blog and her YouTube channel. I found her work on YouTube and fell in love with her technique. From there I researched and found her blog and bought her book Serendipity Quilts. I had the language problem and that’s why the images, photos, videos and Google translate have helped me a lot. I regret not being able to make this email in English, it would be terrible. No one else has taught me the technique. From there I made 2 quilts, the first unfinished, an Asian elephant.

The Toucan was the second collage quilt Feli begun and she took some nice in-progress photos to share with you in this post. Thank you Feli, from Maine to Spain.

I am from the Spanish Association of Patchwork AEP, they made a contest with the theme “the birds of the world.” So I made one of my favorite birds: the toucan. It was finished and submitted to the contest, I was second (without prize). Thank you Susan for your generosity giving so much free information.

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Tamara Milostan

Tamara Milostan from Brighton, MI, has used the Fabric Collage Master Class to create this regal beast. She has mixed strips of semi-solid fabrics with those of printed “flowy” patterns, creating a more graphic yet effective look. The high contrast colors also add an overall boldness.

It’s hard to get beyond those mesmerizing eyes (very nicely rendered), but if you look closer, Tamara has subtly grouped the brighter yellows to the top and outsides of the mane, adding highlights and lift to the fur, reserving more of the dark fabrics to shadow underneath the chin, helping to add more dimension this fellow’s face.

I am part of the Master Class and completed a fish and then tried this lion. Enjoyed it so much – very addicting process.

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Nancy von Seggern

Nancy von Seggern is from the great state of Nebraska, the same state where my father was born and raised—and I see some familiar landscape worked into the background, becoming part of Lilly’s story. Nancy found me online and created the quilt above solely via my blog posts and videos.

My first impression of Lilly’s portrait is the soulfulness that comes through her eyes. The second, is the very nice treatment of an all white dog with more than just white fabrics. Nancy was able to see and re-create the light/dark values in the fur to give her pup a realistic form. With loving attention on both those points, you can see that Lilly has truly captured Nancy’s heart. I’m looking forward to seeing Nancy’s next quilt!

Lilly is my Great Pyrenees and heart. Quilting is another passion. One day I woke and thought, I’m going to try it! Hoping to start another sometime soon. Thank you for sharing your gift with others.

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Colleen Whary

Colleen Whary attended a class of mine “many years ago” at Portsmouth Fabric Company, in Portsmouth, NH. I have to admit that I don’t remember “Jack” in the making, and usually I do. But Colleen wrote that it was only a couple days of class, so maybe there’s been just too many quilts under the bridge for me, as they say. She also said she used my book Serendipity Quilts to guide her in completing the quilt, which was nice to hear.

However when I saw this photo, my “template alarm” went off. I highly suspected that Colleen had used templates in finishing the piece just by the look of it. In class especially, but in all my teaching resources, I stress not using templates in this collage process of mine. But when I read the story accompanying this quilt, I then understood Colleen’s process better.

Working on her own, Colleen used what she was familiar with in addition to what she learned from me. There’s not as much variety in the fabrics as what I’d have pushed her to try if I had had her in another class. But I look at “Jack” and see a happy and playful companion who enjoyed his dog’s life. I’m pleased to have played my part in Colleen’s fabric collage evolution.

From Colleen:

I put the quilt away unfinished after the class for a couple years but picked it up again after Jack passed away in 2013 at age 15-1/2. He was one of those old soul special dogs and working on this quilt helped to heal my grief over his loss. I learned so much from working on this quilt and have gone on to make several others in this style. I admit that my methods have evolved to where I have merged your collage process with a more traditional appliqué so am less “serendipity ” and more pattern. (For instance, I make freezer paper templates but do your raw-edge application and finishing techniques.) Thank you for the gift of teaching. It has opened up a whole new world for me.

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Arlene Dahl

I met Arlene Dahl of Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, while teaching at the Quilt Gallery in Kalispell, MT. At that class in 2018, Arlene started a quilt of a rooster, which you can see here. Arlene has a good energy about her and was fun to have in a class. She jumped right in and got quite far along on a brightly colored and “energetic” rooster—take a look for yourself, there’s feathers flying everywhere, so to speak. I know that Arlene is a regular reader of my blog (thanks for the comments), so I’ll put it out there that I’m looking forward to the finished version. Hint, hint.

The inspiration for this finished quilt of hers was from a picture of a daylily in her garden. In Arlene’s comments below, she alludes to my aversion to flower quilts. This is strictly a personal opinion leading from students (and myself) often having a harder time depicting floral subjects than animal subjects. I wrote a blog post on those thoughts here, if you’re interested in reading more about it. However, there’s always exceptions, and I truly do like Arlene’s interpretation of one of my all-time favorite flowers.

From Arlene:

I had drooled over Susan Carlson’s book “Serendipity Quilts” since purchasing it in 2010, but it took me until about 2016 to give her method a try. I loved the process once I started cutting and placing all those pieces! Of course, this was all prior to taking Susan’s class in Kalispell in June of 2018, so I can now see where improvements can be made (and perhaps I would heed Susan’s advice on not portraying flowers!). I do enjoy embellishments with beads, yarns, etc….hence the beading at the centre of the daylily.