Fabric Collage Finish Line: Online Submissions 20

There are only so many superlatives I can use to describe the wonderful work exhibited by my past students and others who have learned fabric collage from my book, Serendipity Quilts, or my online learning resource the Fabric Collage Master Class. So please forgive if you hear words of praise from me that sound familiar, such as great, fantastic, wonderful, stunning, or lovely.

I’m proud to share all the quilts in this edition of the Finish Line. The talent and determination displayed by each artist is quite impressive. As I prepare to launch my first ever live online class in March, I draw inspiration from these and other Finish Line quilts. After our accelerated online experience of 2020, and a lot of planning to develop the live online class, I’m confident that students will be able to achieve even more outstanding results.

---

Judy Crotts

We decided to begin this batch of Finish Line quilts with this heart-warming quilt by Judy Crotts of Long Beach, California, in honor of Valentine’s Day. It’s love personified, in fur-person form. Judy is a former student who has mastered fabric collage—she took to it immediately on a very large scale—and has continued forging ahead with more superlative work. But don’t just take my word for it. You can check out her quilt, “Through Corbin’s Eyes,” here, here, and here, arm-chair traveling to both Asilomar in CA and the Road to California 2019 Quilt Show in the process.

I’m quite pleased that Judy continues to show up in my classes—both in-person and now online as well—not only is she a lovely person, but I love her work and hearing the thought that she puts into these pieces. This newest Finish Line quilt of hers was begun in my 2019 Empty Spools class. Judy does seem to have a “way” with eyes. And her comment below is absolutely correct, her friend’s UFO and the way Judy cut and arranged it, is the perfect solution for this cozy couple.

From Judy:

I started collage quilting about 4 years ago in a class with Susan at Asilomar. I was hooked. Since then I have tried several different processes but Susan’s is the best, not only the process but also the artistic freedom it gives you.

This quilt is from a photo of our cat Riki and her best friend Carlos, although Carlos may not always feel the same way. The original photo was of a white cat and a beige dog on a beige couch. It was difficult finding fabrics to make Riki and Carlos look distinct. I also had a hard time with Riki’s eyes. She kept coming out looking like an evil cat. I hope I got away from the evil eyes.

The problem of the beige couch was solved when my good friend Juliet offered a UFO. It was perfect! At first I tried to use the blocks uncut but it didn’t look like a blanket. It was hard but I started cutting up the blocks with Juliet’s encouragement and it worked!

The night I got home from Asilomar I placed my design board on the floor. That is Riki at the bottom of the picture pulling pins out of Carlos’s side of the collage; maybe not BFF’s after all.

---

Judy Barnett

Judy Barnett of Magrath, Alberta, Canada has been following along with my Thursday Night from My Studio Live! presentations, and working with a couple of my patterns. She submitted a fish (following below) for our Show and Share Thursday Night Wrap-Up in December, where I had the pleasure to meet her online. Her fish and turtle together make a striking complementary pair.

From Judy:

I made the collage turtle first and auditioned him on many backgrounds. I know that water isn’t orange, but I liked how he looked so that is what I used. I put sparkling orange glitter netting over the whole quilt. Then I added the turtle and cut away the netting where I didn’t want it. Did lots of free motion with metallic threads.

Judy’s got a knack for the bright colors, bold patterned fabrics, and also it appears, fantastical sea life (my kinda girl!). In both her creatures, she’s done an excellent job using her fabrics for contours and visual texture, and color values to create form. And I’m all for placing your subjects on whatever background works best for your subject (why not orange?) and listening to your gut instinct. Keep sparkling, Judy!

---

Christine Feaster

Christine Feaster of McIntosh, Florida, is another Thursday Night student and took up my challenge to work along with me during a 4-week series addressing “drafts” in fabric collage using spiral projects as examples. Christine took her projects down a different path for embellishment with luscious beadwork to match, contrast, and accent the colors and patterns found in her collaged fabrics. I love it!

From Christine:

I’m sure that Susan is told time and time again how she inspires people. I love working with textures so this has been a great outlet for me.

 

This is an “in the works” piece as it is not finished yet and will be a framed piece.

From Christine:

A friend gave me a bag of batik scraps and I had admired Susan’s work but hadn’t tried anything yet. My challenge was to only use those scraps! From muslin to Crystal it was fun to make.

---

Virginia Brewer

Years ago I read the book, “The Girl With the Pearl Earring,” and enjoyed the historical insight in this work of fiction. So I immediately recognized the image of this quilt by Virginia Brewer of Maryland, and based on a painting by Johannes Vermeer (1665). Virginia did an amazing job on this first collage quilt! She took the plunge, as she says below, and came up with a treasure. I hope that sometime in the future I’ll get a chance to meet you in a class, Virginia. In the meantime, you definitely got your feet wet, now what are you gonna do?

From Virginia:

I have tried to get into Susan’s classes for several years, but have had no luck. Two friends in my quilt guild had attended and were working on pink turtles and blue flamingos. I ordered your book “Serendipity”, I studied the book and watched my friends work and here is the result.

Our quilt guild was having a 30 year anniversary and the theme was “Pearls”. I used that challenge as a catalyst to take the plunge into collage. I used heavy vinyl to make a line drawing of the famous artwork. I used about 30 different flesh tone batiks. It is my husband’s favorite quilt!

---

Jean McCreary

Jean McCreary of Victor, New York, has taken disappointment and a blue mood and turned it into a phenomenal work of art. Jean’s use of the values found in her assortment of blue fabrics is spot-on. Squint your eyes, it’ll help you pick out the values better. This giraffe has form and solidity and seems to pop right off the background—like the head is going to swing around and nudge me.

But beyond that there is a serenity and grace to this giraffe, and maybe it’s just a mood I’m in that I see a reflection of where we’ve been in the past year of uncertainty. We’ve been isolated, alone in ways we’ve never been before, slowing down and getting by with appreciating the little things—being outdoors, sunshine, grazing on good food, and noticing the flowers that bring color into our lives.

Thanks, Jean, for a very memorable quilt from 2020. And here’s to a chance to meet you down the road.

From Jean:

I am mostly self-taught for fabric collage, but started with Susan’s “Serendipity Quilts” book, and then took classes from Melinda Bula (flowers) and Rosemary Burris (pet portraits). After retiring at the end of January, I was signed up to take Susan’s collage class in Santa Fe in April of 2020. When it cancelled due to Covid-19, I decided to try on my own what I was thinking of doing for my class project (in the spirit of Susan’s pink rhino) working with “values”.

The quilt is based on a photograph that I took in the Masai Mara (Kenya) in 2019. I created my own pattern, and because I felt a little “blue” due to the cancellation of the class and other travel due to Covid, I bought a bunch of blue fat quarters from Pieceful Seams in Victor (shopping virtually with curbside pick-up), and got going trying to capture values and whimsy, rather than using realistic colors. I fervently hope that the Santa Fe class that has been rescheduled to April 2021 goes forward because the experience of trying this on my own highlighted about a million questions for Susan!

---

Addendum from Susan: Alas, my 2021 classes are beginning to fall like dominoes to another season of COVID. However, in addition to the learning options already available online, live online week-long fabric collage classes have been in the works, with information available for viewing in today’s extra blog post.

---

Happy Chinese New Year of the Ox!

Yesterday, the day I’m writing this post, is the Chinese New Year of the Ox. I’m particularly fond of occasions that revolve around animals and so I always mark this new start on my calendar. Eight years ago, my sister, niece, and I traveled to San Francisco. We stayed in Chinatown and just happened to be there for the Chinese New Year of the Snake. The streets were decorated to the nines with lanterns, and lights galore. A short walk away and we were in the parade crowd for the spectacle. I referred back to my photos today to remind myself of celebratory gatherings of lots of people and the experience of travel. We’ll get back there eventually, but for now it was fun to peruse some photos. In the video below, I had forgotten how immensely long and wonderfully bright and sparkly this magnificent dragon was. Hope you enjoy it too, and Happy New Year, again.