Two Excerpts from
Online Master Class Manual
Lesson 2. The Fabric Collage Technique
(Excerpt #1)
Fabric Selection
First, you gather an initial selection of fabric you think you’d like to use in your fabric collage quilt, knowing that you can change your mind at any point. But you have to start somewhere.
The fabrics you choose should be based on your subject matter and how you want to treat it. People who are drawn to my work and the work of my students are often attracted to bright, bold colors—often looking to not use “realistic” color in their quilts. They create animals, people, and just about anything else, in all colors of the rainbow. But if you prefer naturalistic colors, that’s okay, too. It all works.
In any case, you still need to narrow down a color palette before beginning. I suggest to start with a color scheme. It may be concentrating on one particular color, or on a few colors.
The video below describe how to choose fabrics based on your subject matter.
Now select a wide variety of printed fabrics that also contain a wide variety of values within your chosen color scheme. It’s helpful to organize your folded fabric from dark to light (as I did in those earlier photos) to ensure that you will have a range of values from very dark to very light for your subject.
I encourage the use of large prints in fabrics. It may seem counterintuitive but these fabrics are easier to blend than unprinted fabrics. As I said, blending is the key to this technique and the key to creating form.
You may find that some of your fabrics have a combination of all these elements—a wide variety of value, color, and pattern. For instance, printed batiks are often good for this. If they are in the color scheme you’ve chosen, add them to your palette.
(Excerpt #1 ends)
(Excerpt #2)
Your foundation fabric will help keep your fabric pieces in place temporarily even without straight pins and even if you’re working on at a slight angle. However, pinning fabric pieces in place is a good habit, so that an errant sleeve or unexpected sneeze doesn’t send pieces flying. Hold all the loose fabric pieces in place by pinning into your foam core or styrofoam insulation pinning board. If you reach the stage where it’s difficult to proceed without disturbing the pins you have in place (or you run out of pins!), it’s time to glue.
Gluing
Let’s start with a quick video demonstration of how to glue.
For answers to frequently asked questions about gluing, such as why I use glue instead of fusibles, visit my blog post “Why Glue?”
I use Aleene’s Tacky Glue (original formula). I like this brand because it has a thickness to it that doesn’t sink into the fabric as readily as some other glues will, and it dries flexible so my quilts retain their pliable quality and don’t look or feel stiff in the end.
When you’re ready to glue, simply lift an edge of the fabric and apply a small dab to its center. Notice I said I apply glue to the center of the pieces. Leave the edges loose at this stage. This allows you to trim edges if needed and to slip neighboring pieces of fabric under the loose edge.
Once the dab is in place, smear it flat. This prevents the glue from soaking through the fabric and creating spots. Use only a small amount of glue, just enough to tack the fabric shape in place. This makes it stable, but still allows you to easily remove it, even when the glue has dried, if you change your mind later.
At this stage, only tack down the fabric shapes by gluing at the center of each piece, so that you can continue adding other pieces, tucking some underneath or overlapping the ones that are already secured. Paying attention to how the qualities (color, print, value) of one fabric piece relates to the next and so on, is how you achieve a blending of those shapes—or contrast if called for.
(Excerpt #2 ends)