Fabric collage is flexible. You can change things, then change them again, as much as you want—sometimes it’s hard to stop.
This flexibility allows me to work in drafts and it’s why I teach students to work in drafts. The writer Anne Lamott with her book “Bird by Bird,” first turned me onto this way of thinking (see my post “Bird by Bird: How I Use a Book on Writing to Teach Fabric Collage”): first draft (get it down), second draft (fix it up), and third draft or “dental draft” (check every tooth to see if any are loose).
But how does that work? What’s my thought process as I move from one draft to the next? What am I looking for?
Below are a couple examples of what I think about when taking a fabric collage quilt from first draft to second draft. These recordings use photos of projects where I used Zoom to annotate my thinking process as I narrate the changes I think need to be made.
I’m getting to love the annotation feature on Zoom. I think it’s a great tool for communicating visually. I started using it for Fabric Collage Coaching in 2020. And I used it this past week—all day, every day—as I met with the twelve students in my first ever Live Online Fabric Collage Class.
I have one recording for each project below, the sun face and the moon face. Follow along as I talk about contrast, value, form, and blending. I’ll talk about problems, but more importantly I’ll suggest solutions. So if you find yourself at this stage in a fabric collage quilt, maybe this will help you look at your quilt and see both what’s working and what isn’t and give you some ideas for how to improve it.