One goal of my fabric collage teaching career has been to introduce various subjects that are easily accessible, interesting, and particularly well suited to collage. Favorites are fish and bugs and butterflies—due to the endless variations possible (both actual and imagined) in their shapes, patterns and colors.
My Sea Turtle eWorkshop has given people another subject to create in fabric collage. Sea turtles as subjects have their own special considerations, especially in creating the scales on the shell, which make up the large part of this image. The eWorkshop contains detailed instructions on an easy way to form the thin lines between the scales—among other tips.
It’s particularly thrilling to see the finished results of projects such as the sea turtles in the following post—including “Shelly the Sea Turtle,” by Holly Scroggin—and all the other Finish Line subjects throughout the years. A thank you to those who send us images and stories of the collage work you create. Together, we can share our enthusiasm for the art of fabric collage and appreciation in the accomplishments of others.
If you too have a finished fabric collage quilt and story that you would like to share in a Finish Line post, please click on the submit button below for more info.
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Learning resources referred to in this post include: my website, Serendipity Quilts, my patterns, blog (in general), YouTube videos, Spiral eWorkshop, Sea Turtle eWorkshop, Fabric Collage Online Master Class, Fly on the Wall: Susan Carlson Studio Watch, and Patreon.
Click on any of the smaller gallery groupings below to view photos larger.
Maribel Marrero
From Maribel Marrero of Cortlandt Manor, New York:
I have been following Susan Carlson for a number of years. I purchased her books, followed her on YouTube and most recently through her “Fly on the Wall” African fabric leopard series. After completing the spiral quilt, I challenged myself to complete Susan Carlson’s turtle. I downloaded the image from her website, blew it up to my desired size and proceeded to work.
“How hard can it be?” I asked myself, “Susan has completed dozens of these.” Well those words came back to bite me. I quickly learned that yes, Susan has done dozens of these and they are all beautiful, but she also has years of experience where I have months. I cut my pieces, place them down, rearranged them and stepped back, and what stared back was a “hot mess.” When I showed it to my sister she said “It’s not bad.” lol I took the whole thing apart, reread the book, Serendipity Quilts, reread blog posts and viewed YouTube videos dozens of times.
I started again, deciding where the sun was shining from, what my color palette would be and saw its personality being to emerge. Early on I found palm fronds that I wanted to incorporate and pink flowers that would frame her eyes and therefore decided that my turtle was a girl. Her name changed several times and was ultimately named “Miss Shelly Tortuga.” Tortuga being Spanish for turtle.
I took my time, redesigned and remade her left leg (flipper?) FIVE times. She is made out of hundreds of pieces of fabric, including some of my late mom’s clothing. Shelly took 10 months to complete and now proudly hangs in my office/craft room.
Holly Scroggin
From Holly Scroggin of Dunlap, TN:
I signed up for Susan’s online turtle class during the pandemic. I have her book and made a fish when the book first came out. I had admired Susan’s sea-related quilts and always wanted to make an undersea quilt from her book. When COVID hit and it looked like I’d be house bound for a while, her online turtle quilt class was the answer.
I am a hoarder of fabric scraps so everything fell into place. Challenges included: choosing best value, lots of rearranging on a daily basis and tiny fabric scraps all over my sewing room and worn by my dog. Very happy how it turned out! It won best in show at 2021 county fair.
Linda Carey
From Linda Carey of Saint James City, Florida and Hazelhurst, Wisconsin:
I made my first baby quilt five years ago. After making a few quilts, I realized that I didn’t like following quilting “rules”. When I stumbled on Susan Carlson’s website, I was intrigued and excited. I quickly made several fish and a spiral. Purchased the Master Class manual and began to use photographs to design my own patterns. I am often a quiet observer in Susan’s Patreon group and online events. She is a wonderful teacher and a great source of inspiration during Covid when in person classes were not possible. Someday I would love to participate in an in person workshop.
“Turtle” was inspired by seeing live sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico and finding several photographs that I used for different features in the final quilt. I worked on the quilt in Wisconsin and Florida over two years, with a long interruption due to flooding in our home caused by Hurricane Ian. Fortunately Turtle, my stash and my machines were undamaged and the rest is finally almost repaired. Turtle is now proudly hanging in our renovated Florida home in a beautiful shadow frame that my husband made for her. I tried to think of a clever name for this quilt, but after two years of calling her “Turtle”, the name has stuck.
Turtle is now proudly hanging in our renovated Florida home in a beautiful shadow frame that my husband made for her. I tried to think of a clever name for this quilt, but after two years of calling her “Turtle”, the name has stuck.
All the turtles are beautiful however Turtle is absolutely gorgeous, so life like!