Susan Carlson On the Road: Relaxing Into Fabric Collage in WI—at Woodland Ridge Retreat, Part 2

Here’s a recap of last week’s Part 1: Woodland Ridge Retreat class in Downsville, WI.

First of all, there’s my class of fun, lovely, and very fun women, pictured outside the very comfortable, airy and open building that contains all we need—classrooms, dining room (with food that magically appears), bedrooms, and a fabric store in the hallways (Chris Daly’s Dye Candy)—for a relaxed week of fabric collage art.

Second, in last week’s post, I included comments from Mary McKay about this retreat’s setup. Mary is a long-time student of mine, but first-timer at Woodland Ridge. Her comments included: small, private, incredibly serene; the studios have great light, and look out onto green spaces; everyone gets a very large table and plenty of vertical work space; and Woodland Ridge is a very special place. If you go, I am sure you will agree.

This past week I’ve received class photos from Mary, Lavinia Marx, and Kim Bates—thanks to all of you! Below, are photos from Kim that underscore Mary’s “incredibly serene” description of Woodland Ridge Retreat. As Kim wrote to me, “a great class at a wonderful place!”

Be sure to click on any smaller photos in the photo galleries to enlarge the photo and to easily scroll through the images.

The photo above right, is of owner Chris Daly—caught as she was video visiting with her cute mom. In the center of the photo gallery is the retreat’s impressive dining room table, the gathering place for so many scrumptious meals. Aside from how much I like Chris, the food that she serves is a major reason I return to teach at Woodland Ridge year after year. Toward the end of this post is a photo gallery of a few impressive buffets we were served. Chris has even shared one her fan-favorite recipes in that section—it’s a yummy one.

Third for the recap, are a few extra photos (below) that Kim shared with me of students, their work, and teaching moments—that are otherwise featured in last week’s Part 1 post. If you missed that post, be sure to check it out to get the full experience of a week at Woodland Ridge Retreat.

Fourth, last week I sent a shout-out to Kate Lamontagne, of Kamala Boutique in Edgecomb, Maine. Last year I discovered the clothing that Kate both designs and sews—with fabrics that all us quilters are familiar with. Amazingly fun to wear shirts and pants I now wear all the time, and especially for classes. Included in above photos are a couple detail shots Kim took of my “nest” pants, made by Kate.

Fifth and final are photos that Kim took of classmate, Terri Drimell, below. Terri’s collage project is included in last week’s post, but these new photos struck me as showing the beginning, middle, and end sequence of the process itself—getting started (which can be hard to do), keeping at it, and after much concentrated work, celebrating progress and accomplishment.

If you too would like to experience a fabric collage class with me at Woodland Ridge Retreat, Chris and I have scheduled a special Fabric Collage “Immersion” next year, in April 2026—one-class for two-weeks. No need to pack up and go home. Get to the end of one week, relax, see some sights (or keep working on your project), then start another week to get that much further in the fabric collage process.

Susan Carlson Fabric Collage Immersion: A 10 Day Workshop

Click Here and Here for More Information

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Student Work Gallery

Another thing I really like at Woodland Ridge is the space that students have to spread out and create. The two classrooms for twelve students allow that, plus the space for me to spread out the examples I bring along to demonstrate various steps of the fabric collage technique.

Part 1 post of this class covered one of the classrooms, this Part 2 post covers the other. What was fun for me to see is that students wandered the halls from one room to the other, checking on each other’s progress, getting another cuppa of tea or coffee, or ducking into this particular room—for the snacks that Kim and her friends Jean and Joan, brought along. The Twizzlers were a particular favorite.

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Kim Bates

Kim Bates is from Markesan, WI, and attended last year’s class with her friends and created that cute red squirrel you see in photo above (and last week’s show and share). This year, Kim was adamant to collage a realistic sandhill crane, which she did beautifully. By the end of the week she was far enough along to audition potential background fabrics from the in-house fabric store. Kim found her perfect source photo by Dave Hoefler on the Unsplash photo site.

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Jean Grube

Jean Grube from Madison, WI, also attended last year’s class where she collaged her sweet blue dog. Her impish granddaughter is this year’s subject as Jean interprets her as a fanciful sun portrait. Jean is very nicely using the patterns in her fabrics for the subtle contours in a child’s face.

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Joan Hanrahan

Joan Hanrahan is from West Bend, Wisconsin, and is the third in the trio of WI friends who have attended the last two year’s classes together. Joan brought back her big red cat collage from last year for show-and-share. See it in last week’s post. A big blue wolf was this year’s subject. In talking with Joan, she said how she saw her wolf as being more of a spirit animal rather than realistic, which opens up fabric choices in color and pattern. This wolf is definitely developing a riveting and eye-catching spirit.

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Lynn Randall

Lynn Randall joined us from Berlin, Wisconsin and began one of her two adorable pups. From an initial fabric selection of whites and creams, she’s beginning to push herself to add color where she can—such as interpreting a gray as a blue. She is also successfully training her eyes to pick out “fluffy fur” patterns in her fabrics.

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Lavinia Marx

Lavinia Marx traveled all the way from Portland, Oregon, for this class. She’s also working on a furry duo, but of her cats. She’s getting an impressive amount of pattern-rich detail in this portrait considering the overall size of her design.

The personality of her fur baby was already coming out before the end of class (photos above), but what a loving and fantastical treatment Lavinia has given her, in the updated photo, below.

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Marcia Altaffer

Marcia lives in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, and is taking a very abstract approach to her collage. She’s giving color, form, and a story to line-art that’s probably decades old. The image is a horse twisting with its head down and front legs splayed apart. Marcia is also creating a lot of detail with very small pieces of fabric. This is a difficult idea to interpret in fabric, but bit-by-bit the horse is emerging.

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Mary Caldwell

Mary Caldwell drove from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and is well on her way to a beautiful wintery portrait of her daughter, amid snow-covered evergreens. Mary has used softer colors and values for the face, but also a lot of visual texture and interest in the roundness of all the fabric patterns—very effective.

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Delicious Meals at Woodland Ridge Retreat

Thanks again to Kim Bates for the photos—I was too occupied anticipating the food to think about taking photos. 😉

Chris has a three-ring binder stuffed with recipes she cooks for us. She suggested to post The Best Vegetarian Chili—originally from the website: Chew Out Loud by Amy Dong—as a popular go-to dish she prepares for every class that comes through the retreat center. Chris’s alterations to the basic recipe: Add tomato paste and fire-roasted tomatoes last, eliminate vegetable burger crumbs for a gluten free version, optional vegetable additions—2 cut and roasted zucchini or 1 cubed and roasted butternut squash. This week’s version included the butternut squash. I’m pretty sure I took seconds.

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Meals Out and About

Jake’s

A classic Wisconsin Supper Club—meat, potatoes, vegetable, lots of butter, cheese curds on the side. As a gluten free vegan (no meat or dairy) it was a questionable choice, but I wanted the experience of the location regardless. I had a trio of sides that were great and I cheated with sharing an appetizer of Wisconsin’s famous fried cheese curds. They were melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Cocktails are another Supper Club thing—and my Old Fashioned was a flash-to-the-past when my parents hosted cocktail parties in the 60’s. As always, it’s as much who you’re with, and this was a fun dinner out.

The Kingfisher

After class ended on Friday, there were only three of us and Chris left, and it was The Kingfisher for dinner—a renovated old building overlooking the river with really good food. I’ve been here before and always enjoy checking out the funky (non-fabric) collaged artwork created by the very personable owner who greets everyone.

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Food Foraged

One thing I make sure to do on every visit to Woodland Ridge is to take a short walk in the back woods to the “watercress stream.” I have photos of it from every season. This time it was nearly lost in the bright green growth of springtime. You can just make it out in the top photos. I pinched some stems early in the week to add to meals, then returned the last evening for a healthy batch to pack in my suitcase for the longer trek back to Maine.

Refrigerated in a paper bag, it was the last thing to pack as Chris took me to the shuttle for the airport. It traveled well and at home I enjoyed a couple watercress salads, a batch of watercress pesto, and a delectable new recipe of watercress mayo to finish up this year’s trip to Wisconsin. Guten Appetit. Until next year.