I had a couple weeks off over the holidays and have been wanting to try collage quilting. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile and watching some videos, but had not taken the plunge yet to try. Over break, I made a couple of good attempts.
I woke up one morning and decided I was going to just make a simple fabric collage – I decided on an alien as my theme. I began by picking fabrics and ironing them to fusible interfacing, I believe I used Heat n Bond or something similar. I drew a template to follow, and cut shapes to match. I was not sure how to do this so I just laid out my shapes directly on a piece of background fabric. Here is the alien after I laid out the pieces and ironed it:
It turned out a little rough, but for my first attempt I like it. The small bits were a little fiddly but I think it looks nice. This is about 8×8 inches square. I then took it to my sewing machine and added some quilting (I have a thin batting and a backing fabric I layered together before quilting.
My backing fabric was not quite tall enough to fold over so the top and bottom are rough edged. It was just to try this out so I’m not too worried about it.
A few days later I had watched some more videos on youtube about the process, and decided I wanted to try again. Someone mentioned you can use parchment paper to lay out your fusibles and fuse them together, and then you can peel the whole thing off and lay it on your background. So that is what I decided to do.
I drew an octopus for this attempt:
My octopus is about 1.5 – 2 feet tall / 1.5 feet wide. I traced the template onto parchment paper, picked out fabrics and started ironing them all to the fusible interfacing. I then took pieces and attached them.
I decided I wanted him to be purple, and I tried to make sure I had a pile of lights, a pile of mid ranges, and a pile of darker fabrics so that I could try to give the composition some depth and shading. It took me a few hours, but this attempt went better I think than the alien. The pieces were a little larger so that was a little easier to work with. I did have some issues trying to shape the pieces along the tentacles (the exact curves, etc) so I ended up cutting out my drawing and using it as a cutting template to help with that. I thought also that I could maybe put fabrics together and then put the template on top and cut the design out afterward, but I wasn’t sure how the fused bits would hold together if I did that – so that is something I may try in the future.
Here is my completed collage. I have the parchment paper laid on the background fabric I decided to use here. I wanted something neutral and had just purchased a couple of yards of different neutral fabrics (with words or black and white neutral motifs).
Here is the octopus after I fused it to the background fabric. I have not quilted it yet, because that is another thing I want to experiment with before I attempt it on here. I have a couple of sewing machines, and one I bought specifically so I can keep my free motion embroidery foot on it (so I don’t have to keep changing the foot), and that is what I will eventually use I believe. I’m still really new to the free motion foot and how to use it effectively. I want to do some experiments on other fabric before I attempt to quilt the Octopus. I’d like to do shapes and things around it on the background portion, and maybe just the edges of the octopus. I just used my machine with a regular presser foot for the alien.
I really enjoyed doing these projects, so I’m sure I will be doing some more collage quilts / fabric collages in the future.
Jen Powell art 