Painted & Stitched Fabric Collage

In Libby's class we also made a fabric collage.  Like the journal cover, this was built on a canvas background with fabrics and vintage textiles added for texture, and stitched with black thread.  This is Libby's sample (apologies for the poor picture).

The flowers and leaves are thread sketched with black thread on white-on-white fabric, then painted, and appliqued to the background.

Libby demonstrated her technique for painting the fabric after thread sketching.

Sue stitched out her flowers and leaves/stems, then painted them and cut them out.

Here's her background before adding the flowers; all the pieces were stitched down during class.

The flowers and stems were pinned down, with a place holder for the vase to get an idea of the final look.

After fiddling some more at home, here's how it evolved. The pot is made from some hand dyed/thermofax printed fabrics.  The screens used were circles and crackle which can be found in the Etsy shop.

Is it finished?  Maybe, maybe not.  Adding some background stitching is a possibility.

This was a great class, I really felt like an artist while creating these projects!  Thanks Libby!
And because I forgot to include it in yesterday's post, here's a shot of Sue, Paula and Denise with some of our class work.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Last Friday Sue was fortunate to be able to take a class with fabric collage artist Susan Carlson at the Quilters Unlimited show in Northern Virginia. Susan is a well-known award-winning national teacher; her most recent creation is a 22' X 6' alligator called Stevie which you can see here.

This class featured a spiral shape for learning her collage technique.

She had numerous wonderful examples, each more intriguing than the next. The one below was my favorite.

After some basic instruction we got started drawing our spirals and choosing our fabrics.

I got most of the orange section complete. The background section will be teal/turquoise.

Her technique uses glue to hold things in place on a muslin foundation until the quilting stage.

Here are a few of her other wonderful pieces.

This was a very low stress, zen-like class that Sue found to be "just what the doctor ordered" on that particular day.  She looks forward to completing the collage process on this piece.  If you ever have a chance to take a class with Susan, she highly recommends it.  Be sure to go to her website to see more of her fabulous creations!