On the Road: Catching Fabric Collage Fish at The National Quilt Museum

On August 1-3—in a very roomy, light-filled, and temperature-controlled (it was very hot outside) classroom off a side hallway of The National Quilt Museum—a fanciful fabric collage school of sea-life was in the making as twenty students let loose with their fabrics, scissors, pins and glue to create nineteen very colorful fish, and one seahorse. In photo above, wonderfully untidy (messy but not scary) piles of fabric and scraps unfold on the tables of Lynn Gross and Corrie DeCamp.

In blog posts last week and the week before, I gave overviews of my 12-quilt “Specimens” exhibit at NQM in Paducah, Kentucky—installed and hanging until November 19, 2024. The museum also arranged for me to teach a class while my show was on display. The format we settled on was a three-day workshop, which is just enough time to sink our fabric collage teeth into a perfect subject for a hot summer week—fish. Fish imagery lends itself to a certain playfulness and adaptability to numerous artistic styles and color palettes.

Me and my class on Day Two, usually a tough day since the excitement of Day One has passed and energy is starting to ebb—but not with these folks—they swam through all three days quite swimmingly. 😉

I love teaching this class because it allows me and my students to throw all caution to the wind and lose ourselves in the play of color and pattern. There’s a lot of information to cover in just three days, so there’s no time to dawdle in getting started, and this class jumped right into the deep end of creativity.

As all teaching mornings begin, there were daily demos and Q&A, leading my students through the fabric collage process. Below are a few fishy quilt examples hanging on the classroom wall, to add to other quilts of mine we could talk about in the museum gallery.

To get a quick-start in a class such as this, I suggest starting with one of my fish patterns, which all but two students did. So as I proceed with showing you all the fantastic work accomplished in such a short time, I’ll link to the patterns used in case you’re inspired to try your own hand at catching a fish, or two.

Let’s begin at the end

By the end of Day Three, Rosemary Bradley (above), progressed to the third draft “sparkle” netting stage of her, “Sargasso Gold.” “Goldie” (below), was given a very floral treatment by Mariann Nixon.

Friends Char Cool and Julie Harris (above left to right), pose for final photos with Julie’s fish, “Gulf Stream Traveler.” Below, Char and I were caught in action, consulting on her, “Solstice Serranid.”

You’ve seen a few results, now see their beginnings and progressions in the slideshow below:

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Catching the waves with, “Wavelength”

This fish pattern caught the eyes and interest of four of my students (following below), but by the end of class it was hard for even me to guess at their beginnings. It’s one of the things that I find great about teaching this class—no two fish will be the same, it’s not possible. Since we work free-hand and don’t create templates, it means that each collage—even generated from the same pattern—will automatically, to one extent or another, vary in shape and arrangement of fabrics due to the fabric selection and whims of each creator.

Dana Ryan’s fish (above) has found its background and is heading out of class. Corrie DeCamp’s rosy beauty (below), is chilling for a bit longer.

Marie Johnson (above), used her fish to learn the blending of values within each color group. Norma Harned (below) melded bold designs in her fabrics to create a cohesive fish body.

The creative flow of “Wavelength” in slideshow below:

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Dipping into the goldfish bowl

Carpe diem, carpe carpem. Sieze the day, sieze the carp. My students did both. Just over 1/3 of the class chose my, “Carpe Carpem” goldfish pattern, to base their fish design on. But as you’ll see below, they were anything but the same ol’ carp.

Chris Pagano had a varied stash of fabrics (above)—with sheers and stretchy sparkles added to quilting cottons for the beginnings of her collage.
Marilynn Morrow (above) and Candy Hassenstab (below) are friends that met years ago, doing their fabric thing. Both started this class with the same Carpe pattern, but immediately wildly diverged in their fabric choices and artistic visions.

Beautifully glowing gold-fish collages created by Lynn Gross (above) and Laurie Kern (below).

Beautifully rich and succulent non-gold-fish collages by Lyn Frostman (above) and Michelle Jackson (below).

The making of the amazing evolutions of “Carpe Carpem”  in slideshow below:

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And then there were five

Rounding out the selection of my fish patterns is, “Spiny Lionfish.”—a fish that is more fin than body, but an alluring fin it seems to be.

These lion-kings are expansive with their radiating appendages—a regal magenta and purple fin in Barbara Wendel’s specimen (above), while Nancy Hutchison’s royal fellow (below), flaunts his peacock plumage at us.

I missed out on a final photo of Cindy Cripes lionfish (above), which I’m bummed about, since last I knew, he was morphing into a catfish. If you look close on this guy’s back, you’ll see one of the “cats” Cindy added as the days went on.
Both Marilyn (above), and Sky (below) took off in their own directions when it came to pattern-making. Marilyn Smith’s sturgeon collage is going to be as amazing as the sturgeon species is, and Charla Sky’s seahorse came into being so well and quickly (I didn’t even get a beginning photo), it must have been a fantastical vision she’s dreamed about.

And here’s the in-progress photos of the final five sea creatures:

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A big thank you to my attentive, hard-working, and delightful class, and to all the lovely and helpful folks at the museum. I thoroughly enjoyed the fabric-filled days, schooling a few fish-lovers, visiting my quilts, and staying cool—at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky.
Thanks to the team at The National Quilt Museum for helping make both my exhibit and class such a success. Pictured above—next to me and “Kaloli Moondance”—are staff members (left to right), Bonnie Schrock, Becky Glasby, Rachael Baar, and (not pictured) Laura Hendrickson.

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