For four evenings in February, I live-streamed via Zoom as I created a fabric collage quilt. For this event I chose my Gecko Pattern as a starting point. I encouraged those watching to create their own gecko quilt, making the pattern available and explaining the process I would follow. Later we held a Zoom where my students shared the progress on their quilts.
Today I’m sharing the first of those quilts with you. Only one of the four included is completed (Leigh McMorrow’s, detail above), but completion wasn’t the goal. The goal for this exercise was to explore and play with fabric. The quilts here exemplify that creative exploration.
Look for more student gecko quilts in upcoming posts. If you are inspired by what you see and would like to try your own fabric collage gecko, for the next month you may purchase recordings of our four February sessions. See link below.
Glorious Gecko Follow Along
Receive links to all four sessions—more than six hours of demonstration and instruction.
$95
Email Tom for payment instructions.
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Vickie Ostrow
From Vickie:
I work quite slowly, so I’m not even halfway to a first draft yet. I get drawn back into fixing up my initial, pretty plain efforts, So I make limited progress overall, but I figure I’ll be somewhere between a first and second draft by the time my drawing is covered with fabric.
My goal with this collage is to incorporate more “regular” cotton prints and even metallic ones with my usual batiks. I’m getting there! I’m also working on using this particular pattern as a starting point and trying to be less rigid with the interior lines. But mainly I’m just having fun while trying different things.
I am very happy Susan decided to add this last sharing section. I really want to see what others are doing! That inspires me to keep on working.
Cynthia Byron
From Cynthia:
Attached are some photos of my Groovy Gecko as GG changes, so does her story. I’m looking forward to digging into my no cotton fabrics and get to my next stages of her growth. I’m in the middle of refreshing my quilting room with new paint and storage, so I haven’t been able to get my hands on “fun fabrics” yet.
I enjoyed watching Sue’s presentation and her process. I’m finding that I like to work with smaller pieces of material. I would have liked to have a bit deeper study of the process with the eyes of the gecko. Thanks for the fun class, I’m already looking forward to it making my next collage.
Leigh McMorrow
From Leigh:
I have named her “Glorious and Glam – Gloria the Gecko”. She is ready for a night out with the girls! She is unapologetic and fierce in her love for all things wild and sparkly.
I really enjoyed this class because it allowed me to be totally free from my pre conceptions of what the gecko should look like. I allowed myself to totally experiment with my fabric. I also picked up a forgotten tip during class about how to add an edge or outline a piece of your project. Simply by glueing a fabric underneath what you already have and cutting around it. I changed her head and other parts of her body multiple times until I was satisfied. I had a blast with the embellishment stage of my project. Once I started adding bling I couldn’t stop. It was a lot of fun. I tried to get a picture that showed how much she sparkles without luck until I took the last picture of her sitting below a window in my studio.
Sara Crocker
From Sara:
My gecko collage is still in the “first draft” stage. The gecko is somewhere in between first and second draft, but now I’m auditioning backgrounds. My “story” for this quilt is that she (I haven’t named her yet) is scrambling across a stone walkway, but then spies a tasty meal out of the corner of her eye. I’ve used mostly batiks and Kaffe Fassett fabrics, which are my favorites.
Susan Carlson Fabric Collage: Fantastical Fish eWorkshop I
INCLUDES:
• All four recordings from the four-week class.
• Extended 10-minute edition of piecing time lapse (see below).
• Over six hours of video instruction.
• Annotated videos with “jump points” to help find the information you need.
• Materials list
• Links to helpful blog posts.
• Free fish pattern of your choice.
Such a lovely garden of geckos!!
As I was drinking a cuppa (as Susan would say) and reading this morning’s blog post, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and sure enough there was a gecko on the wall of my kitchen – must have been reading over my shoulder.