Please enjoy this week’s selection of finished fabric collage quilts submitted by students, such as Mary Quade with her “Grandmother Portrait,” detail above. A big thank you to all for sharing!
The years have proven that posting my students’ finished work can be inspirational to many others. Seeing in-progress photos are also helpful, as they show how an artist solved certain issues or overcame challenges. You can learn a lot from seeing and hearing how others work.
Which brings me to the video you will find below. Earlier this week Tom and I held a free Zoom introduction to my new series called Fly on the Wall: Susan Carlson Studio Watch, the recording of which is now available to view now! And, if you missed the Fly on the Wall post, here’s a link to it that further describes this new online series.
Also, because of numerous requests, a recording each week’s session will be made available to registrants 24 hours later. This means as long as you register, if you miss a meeting you can catch up before the next week.
With Fly on the Wall I invite you into my studio to watch me work on a fabric collage quilt, to see how I solve issues and overcome challenges. Each Thursday in October you can join me as I work on my in-progress quilt “Winfrieda,” the polar bear. The video below introduces the series so you can experience what these evenings will be like.
So grab a cuppa (or two), kick back, and let the work of others inspire you in your own artistic endeavors.
If you have a finished fabric collage quilt you would like to share in turn, please click on Submit button. Thank you!
Submit Quilt for "Finish Line"
Register for the October Fly on the Wall: Susan Carlson Studio Watch
October 6, 13, 20, and 27
Each Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time
Special Introductory price for the four-week series: $78
October Fly on the Wall Registration
Mary Quade
Mary Quade of Stoughton, WI, first learned fabric collage from my book “Serendipity Quilts.” She started this quilt of her grandmother in my class at Woodland Retreat in November 2021. Mary has done a beautiful job of interpreting an old sepia-toned photograph into a smokey-blue monotone collage. As Mary mentions, I did point out that this would not be an easy task. But after her grandmother’s eye “emerged” from the foundation fabric, I wasn’t terribly concerned— Mary just had to get past (what I call) the mess-scary stage. And she certainly did.
Another point I’d like to make is that Mary arrived to the retreat with a very nice pencil drawing as extra reference (see photo below). By taking that extra step, she further trained her eye to really see the features, contours, and changes in values in the image—helping her to take it from one medium to the next—from photo to pencil to fabric.
From Mary:
Susan told me that doing this portrait would be a challenge but it was something I really wanted to do. The first day of class I felt a bit lost on how this was going to go. In the afternoon she did a demo on doing eyes. In the evening I got one eye done and was more encouraged.
About 1/2 way through Susan suggested adding lace. When I got home I wasn’t happy with the color lace I had but warmed to the idea of using lace. I found, white , smoke blue and navy lace that I liked and used for highlights and shading.
This is a portrait of my grandmother and doing it in fabric was the perfect medium for her portrait. She worked as a seamstress during WW2 making jackets for the military.
Agnes Fells
Agnes Fells of Northeast Pennsylvania created this high-contrast otherworldly spiral filled with fish, birds, butterflies, bubbles, and who knows what else! Agnes remarks of her love for cutouts when she was young—it sure seems like she’s reconnected with her inner child, with fantastic results. I look forward to seeing where in the galaxy fabric collage takes her. 😉
From Agnes:
My original [spiral] design was recommend as a first project in the Master Class. It was a fun learning experience which ironically reminded me of my love for cut outs as a child. I’m hooked.
It was a lesson for me on the vastness of our beautiful universe, since I did some referencing on our solar system to get a sense of its movement, which was genuine artistic fun to create through a fabric collage. I’m getting anxious to start planning out my second fabric collage, following Sue Carlson’s method.
Kelly Stockwell
Kelly Stockwell of Beach Park, Illinois created this portrait of a friend’s daughter. Her first fabric collage was a haunting portrait of her husband Bob, working through her grief over his death. That particular quilt closes out this past post of Finish Line portrait quilts.
Kelly says she first tried to create a collage of her friend’s daughter as a baby, but found it “too intense.” Baby faces are probably the most challenging type of portraits to do in fabric collage as they are so smooth and relatively featureless. But as a young girl, Norah’s image has just enough distinctiveness to allow Kelly to play with the patterns and textures in her fabrics to create a colorful and fun likeness.
From Kelly:
I started Norah with a baby picture but quickly decided that was too intense. I enrolled in every Thursday Night class during the start of the pandemic and enrolled in the Master Class and even had one-on-one tutoring with Susan.
My friend from high school has been so involved with my art work and has been so positive…. I wanted to do something special for her so I decided to quilt her daughter. I worked on this quilt for 2 years…. Having some time to deal with my husband’s untimely death… but through the grief I think I am so blessed that I was able to finish it and I am very happy with it.
Upcoming Live Online Class
For a description of our live online fabric collage classes, visit this link.
November 7-11, 2022 (as of 9/30/22, five spots remaining)
REGISTER FOR NOVEMBER CLASS
January 30-February 3, 2023
This class is now full, please contact Tom ([email protected]) to add your name to waiting list if you are interested.
Fabulous Frieda!! Can’t wait to see how she evolves.