This past week both Tom and I have been recovering from our individual travels of last week—he to Scotland for kayaking, and me to Santa Fe to teach a couple weeks of classes. We each had great times and new scenery to experience, and stress-inducing delays on our flights home.
Luckily, past students of mine—Jenny Satterthwait, Lynn Koelsch, and Vera Jacobson (that’s a detail of her “Koi” above)—have come to the rescue by submitting their finished fabric collage quilts to inspire both you and me in this week’s post. The passion and creativity on display keeps me excited about the work I do to promote and educate people about fabric collage. If you have missed previous Finish Line quilts, you can use the search feature (side of screen on computer, bottom of page on other devices) to select the Category > The Finish Line. This will give a listing of all the previous 78 Finish Line posts, amounting to hundreds of fabric collage quilts submitted by readers such as you. A wealth of collage quilts to peruse! Thank you all!
If you too have a fabric collage quilt you’d like to share, please use the button below to submit your work.
Submit Quilt for "Finish Line"
If you have admired Finish Line quilts such as these but haven’t attempted your own fabric collage yet, let me remind you of one of the best ways we have to sink your scissor tips into fabric collage learning (or continue to learn more)—the Fabric Collage Online Master Class, always available for you to use anytime, anywhere.
Jenny Satterthwait
I first met Jenny Satterthwait from Eagle, Idaho, at a 2019 Quilt Gallery class in Kalispell, Montana, and again later that year at Art Quilt Tahoe. In all the work she has created, Jenny has the knack of using the prints in her fabrics to her benefit—curves of vines or other patterns for the contours of her animals, or as seen above, letting the prints tell the story of the wood and leaves of Rocky’s background. Beautiful work, Jenny.
From Jenny:
A friend wanted a collage of her husband’s turtle, Rocky, as a surprise gift for Christmas. When I picked up the tracing enlargement at the copy shop, his head was not clear at all. I had erased a couple of times in the tracing and it just did not copy well. I wasn’t going to be able to make it back to the copy shop for awhile so I started on his body first.
Meanwhile I retraced his head (without erasing) and worked with the copy shop to get it the exact size of the original tracing. It worked! I always feel like I need to do the eyes first so that my subject can start talking to me, but in this case I just had to wait.
From Jenny:
Zuri is for a friend who lost his pup last April and wanted something special to remember her by.
Jenny has also submitted a few quilts (below) to previous Finish Line posts—to view them click: here, here, and here.
Lynn Koelsch
Lynn Koelsch of Raleigh, North Carolina has collaged her animal portraits purely through online learning. When she submitted the rhino quilt below, she commented that, “I have taken Susan’s Online Master Class and would strongly recommend it.” I appreciate not only when someone gives such a positive comment, but also when it’s so obvious, as in Lynn’s portraits, that she’s followed the steps and put in the time to create the images that she has. It shows us (me and Tom) that the work of putting together the Master Class was worthwhile because look at the artwork that’s come out of it.
I had to smile at what Lynn wrote below, about choosing a more realistic pallet for her gorilla. It just goes to show how realistic a well-chosen pallet of blue fabrics can appear. I’ve said it in other posts, it’s not so much about the color but all about the value. Very nice job with the values, Lynn—I also like the linear patterning and cuts of fabric in the nose area and parts of the fur. Very effective.
From Lynn:
I took Susan’s online class a couple of years ago and was totally sucked in. I found myself veering a little from her method and choosing a more realistic pallet.
This is the only male gorilla at the Memphis zoo. His name is Mwelu and he is 33. The photo was by Josh Cotten. It was difficult to find fabrics of the same value and color that still had some variety.
Below is Lynn’s previous submission to the Finish Line—read about “Collaged Rhino” in this post. Based on photo by Joel Sartore, used with permission.
Vera Jacobson
Vera Jacobson of Medford, Oregon (along with her sister and mother) took a class with me in September of 2018 at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon. I love it when friends or family members come together in one of my classes. A class can be an intense experience and it’s good not only to have that extra support, but also to share in the act of creation.
Creating an image that relies so heavily on “white” is not an easy task, but Vera has done an excellent job with just that. Be sure to look closely at the variety of prints and light/dark values that Vera has use on her koi (easier to see by clicking on the in-progress photos below). And nice touch Vera, with the strands of translucent fabrics horizontally across the finished quilt.
From Vera:
My daughter designed the quilt. I pulled most of the fabric from my stash, augmenting with some of the wondering fabric from the Stitchin’ Post. I layered with tulle, including some sparkly tulle to mimic the glistening of the koi scales which isn’t given justice in the photos. Top stitched with varied thickness of thread as well as variegated thread. Very enjoyable process!
In looking back on photos for this post, I found the in-progress spiral by Vera, below—she had begun it prior to class way back when. I don’t know if she ever finished it, but that’s more than okay. I feel that the simplicity of a spiral, if it gets finished or not, makes it a great beginning exercise into learning the fabric collage technique. To view a few spiral-focused Finish Line’s before you’re finished with this post, click here, here, and here.
I love your posts
Your so beautiful in every way
Hope to start one soon