Usually when I teach a fabric collage class, very soon thereafter I feature the class in a series of blog posts. In the case of my May 2023 Live Online Fabric Collage Class, however, life intervened: travel, Covid, elder care, and so on. At long last, more than a month and a half after the class ended, here we are.
As is often the case, this class included students from all across the continent, from Virginia to Missouri to Alberta, Canada, to California—every time zone in North America! I’m still amazed at the technology that allows us all to share a virtual classroom together.
If you are interested in exploring fabric collage in a concentrated five day virtual workshop as well, check out my upcoming All Levels class to be held near the end of September. Click here for details.
This particular class from May 2023 ended up with 10 of a possible 12 students. It felt so much more relaxed time-wise as I moved through the classroom to help everyone, that we are now offering a maximum 10 students in September’s All Levels class. Tom and I feel it’s one more way we can make this online class experience even better—more teaching time per student.
In today’s post we start covering the May class with a visit to one of the three breakout rooms—these ladies called themselves the “Diggers,” and one of them, Susan Stitch, created the papa bluebird, pictured above. In following weeks we’ll spend time with the “Progress Not Perfection” and be welcomed into the “Animal House.” Just you wait till you see the collage work these folks did in only five days! It’s amazing even to me!
The Diggers
The self-named (literally) Diggers were made up of DIana Bareis, GERi Willems, and Susan Stitch. See what they did there? (Yes, we know there’s a G missing.)
My criteria for grouping students together in breakout rooms varies from class to class. Sometimes I need place friends together (of course). Often I group together those who have similar subjects—all dogs, for example. Neither of these criteria helped organize the Diggers. Rather the three in this group seemed to have similar levels of experience and similar goals. (I gather this information during our individual 45-minute pre-class coaching sessions.)
The range of goals were: working with color, value, and visual texture, and working with funky fabrics. So the diverse subject matter—blue birds, an elephant, and a flamingo—may seem unusual, but there is a method to my madness.
Susan Stitch
Susan joined us from Saint Charles, MO. Usually a first-time class student doesn’t make it all the way through from start to background in a week-long class—but Susan did, in such a beautiful way. It was fun for me to see this come together and the fun that Susan had with finding the colors and patterns in her fabrics to create the feathered and fluffy parts of her bluebird pair. In the time since class ended, Susan submitted the finished quilt photo below.
From Susan S.:
The Eastern Bluebird is our Missouri State bird, but I never saw one in the wild for the first 60 years of my life. We had a bluebird couple move into a birdhouse behind us a couple of years ago and they and/or their children have returned each year. My granddaughter and I are fascinated with them! They are very difficult to photograph well, so I found a couple of photos on Shutterstock and consolidated them.
It was actually helpful to be able to see my project on the computer screen regularly. It helped me step back and see the overall impact of something instead of being tied into the nitty details. I really appreciate the way Susan brings a story into her quilts and encourages the students to do the same. No one has done that in any of the classes I’ve had before and it impacts fabric choices, layout, details, and my perspective on the work.
At first I thought the baby bird was yelling at her dad, but near the last day she ‘told me’ that she was instead taking voice lessons! I had some fabric with musical instruments and symbols that I incorporated into the piece. All of our children and grandchildren are musical, so it fit!
If you click on any of the photos in the post, you can see them larger on your screen. If you click on the ones below, you can more easier pick out part of a cello, part of a trombone, and cute little musical symbol “spots” on the baby bird.
Diana Bareis
Diana joined us from Kents Store, VA. From the very start, Diana wanted to give this elephant pair their own non-realistic colors using magentas and aquas. I often find it interesting how non-realistic colors can end up looking so natural after all. Diana did a beautiful job blending her fabrics from one to the other, with such a nice flow from color to color.
Diana’s painterly style showed up in her initial drawing (a little “looser” than I would normally recommend) and in the collage itself (very impressionistic “dabs” of fabrics). And what a lovely touch she has—using her fabrics to imply wrinkles and such, without overworking an area.
From Diana:
I always wanted to take one of Susan’s classes and when i saw that she had a on-line class I immediately signed up. At first I wasn’t sure how an on-line class would work but it went very smooth. We had plenty of time to work on our projects and Tom was always giving us a heads-up when Susan would be back in our room to give us some feedback.
She took a lot of time with each of us and was able to annotate what she was trying to convey which helped tremendously. Susan also has a very gentle approach and is always encouraging. She is able to understand everyones thinking process and artistic style which helps when she is trying to indicate what needs worked on. I would highly recommend Susan’s class!
During the week, I ask students to send in photos of past work that they’ve done as a show-and-share slide show to get to know each other better. Below are a couple collage-style quilts that Diana made as she has explored various ways to create fabric collage images.
Geri Willems
Geri joined us from Florida, where she took this amazing photo of a flamingo—a work of art in itself. In the Pre-Class Coaching screenshot below, I’ve drawn annotated lines over Geri’s photo, as we talked about what sorts of fabrics to look for before the class week began.
Below, Geri starts to fill in areas of color and value and visual texture as she progresses across the wing and back.
As students are working on their projects, I love seeing close-up shots such as the tail feathers, below. You can easily see the fabrics, the cuts, the details that are going into just one area—and it looks good. I do tell students to “go big,” and Geri did, so she still had a bit of feathery work cut out for her by the end of class week. However, when I think of those tail feathers, I know she’ll be okay, she just has a lot of bird to cover—one patch of feathers at a time.
For the show-and-share slide show, Geri sent in the collages below, beginning with a magnificent moose.
Join us next week as we continue through May’s online classroom to visit the second of three breakout rooms with more in-progress fabric collage projects!
Don’t forget our September online class for all levels. There is also an October class for advanced students, but only one spot out of eight in that class is still remaining as of yesterday evening, July 14, 2023. Click here for details of both classes.
Thanks for sharing your students work, very impressive.
OMG! Geri Willems was my boss back in the 80s at Kalmbach Publishing. It is so nice to see her still using her creativity.