In 2025, which is correct across the nook, we’ll be holding two four-week stay follow-along lessons by way of Zoom. You’ll have seen them promoted in a earlier weblog submit.
This coming February, the category can be exploring one other method to creating a less complicated fishy topic—equivalent to final February’s “Quilter’s Fantastical Material Collage Trophy Fish” Comply with Alongside—which was beforehand about utilizing large and daring prints, pictured above). In July 2025, there can be a brand new “Fascinating Bug and Butterfly” Comply with Alongside.
Every of those four-week lessons will think about a special side of material collage. The Fish Comply with Alongside will use a fish sample (which you’ll select free from my assortment) with a 2025 give attention to mixing—one in every of my most requested about abilities—the method of utilizing the colours and prints in materials to facilitate mixing one into one other, usually to create the phantasm of type.
The Bugs and Butterflies Comply with Alongside (additionally based mostly on my patterns) will give attention to butterflies themselves, and particularly the flowing and colourful shapes of their fascinating wings. Be taught what to search for in your printed materials to create motion and type—letting the material do a lot of the be just right for you.
Use the hyperlinks beneath to register for these four-week lessons, held every Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. jap time.
Within the meantime, particularly if you’re new to cloth collage, it could be useful to assessment the fundamentals of the material collage method earlier than these lessons start. So within the subsequent few weeks, we’ll cowl the matters of selecting cloth, making a cloth palette, glueing, working in sequence, backgrounds, and sheers.
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February 6, 13, 20, 27, 2025 — 7 pm, Jap Time
Fantastical Material Collage Fish Zoom Comply with-Alongside
REGISTER HERE
Value: $78
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July 24, 31, August 7, 14, 2025 — 7 pm, Jap Time
Fascinating Material Collage Bugs and Butterflies Zoom Comply with-Alongside
REGISTER HERE
Value: $78
For those who’ve ever thought-about giving your self the present of a 5-day week-long cloth collage class expertise with me—and are usually not scared off by staying cozy in your house, not touring anyplace, and retaining your cloth stash shut by—do we’ve a particular supply for you—a $100 low cost (which provides you the chance so as to add extra cloth to that stash!).
January 20-24, 2025
Susan Carlson 5-Day Stay On-line Class—All Ranges, Animals Solely
Value WAS: $995
NOW: $895
REGISTER HERE
Benefit from this particular supply solely for January’s “Cozy” Stay On-line Material Collage Class
Additional Susan Carlson Studying Sources: Susan Carlson Quilts web site, patterns, weblog (generally), YouTube movies, Spiral eWorkshop, Patreon, and our February Fantastical Fish and Summertime’s Fascinating Bugs and Butterfly Work-Alongs
Selecting Material for Material Collage
(Up to date with Video)
Initially posted March 25, 2017
Up to date Put up
I acquired the next touch upon my Fb web page the opposite day:
Query: Do you employ batiks completely or common cotton cloth as effectively? Many of those items have a lot element within the cloth that I’m guessing you would need to be searching for cloth on a regular basis with the intention to discover the very best match in your piece.
This query, together with latest expertise in my lessons, satisfied me that it was an excellent time to re-visit “Selecting Material for Material Collage” (see unique submit beneath). Selecting cloth to carry to class, or to buy in a retailer, will at all times be a problem as a result of a lot of it depends upon trial-and-error expertise. Plus there’s a mind-boggling assortment of materials to select from. Little question, the proper cloth can be left at house—or on the shop shelf— it’s simply a kind of guidelines. And so far as the second a part of the remark above, “Sure, I do store for material on a regular basis—doesn’t everybody?”
Because it was apparent some may use additional steerage, I made a decision to take one other crack at deciding on cloth on this replace.
First, although, let me reply the Fb query straight:
Sure, I do use a whole lot of batiks. The truth is, that’s type of a short-hand reply for what sort of materials I’d select for material collage. (I additionally use all kinds of different cotton, and non-cotton, materials.) Nonetheless, I have to make clear. Some batiks work effectively whereas others don’t.
The excellence I draw is between common batiks and “printed” batiks—batiks which have an total sample or design printed on them. I favor the printed batiks. The best way I work and the way I train my college students is to make use of the prints within the cloth to assist create type. Don’t ignore the print. Don’t minimize by means of or throughout the print. The printed design is used to emphasise contours, visible motion and texture within the picture being collaged. It’s like a treasure hunt to seek out the suitable print—mixed with coloration and worth—within the cloth. I then minimize alongside that print to create an irregular form, including to my palette of “scraps” to select from.
Listed here are a some batik examples.
The hand-dyed batik on the left is a stupendous coloration, nevertheless there’s no print for me to chop round—and if I have been to create a form it might appear like a strong coloration. I’ve discovered strong colours exhausting to “mix” (however that’s a topic for an additional submit.) The one on the suitable, can be a non-print batik, however with extra gentle/darkish variation which may very well be seen as random shapes to chop round. It’s probably helpful, relying on the subject material, however wouldn’t be my first “greatest guess” alternative.
The batiks that flip my head are printed batiks like those above. The prints present motion and one other layer of variation in coloration and worth along with the bottom batiked cloth. I discover materials like these far more versatile for my cloth collage technique.
Check out the 2 new movies I’ve added to this submit. They method the problem from reverse instructions.
The primary talks in a basic approach in regards to the materials I have collected lately, however with none specific undertaking in thoughts. They is perhaps good for any variety of material. However you’ll be able to see from my examples the varieties of materials I’d recommend so as to add to your stash.
The second, longer video takes a subject-oriented method. In it, I encourage you to look carefully on the options in your topic to assist select printed materials that can work with it. Does your topic have lengthy, flowy hair or a tail? Is your topic spherical or extra angular? What are the shape and contours of the options you’ll be portraying in cloth? Answering these kinds of questions will show you how to focus in on the print you’re in search of, whether or not you might be at school or at a cloth retailer dreaming about your subsequent undertaking.
After these movies is my unique weblog submit from a couple of months prior. Gathering cloth for material collage is an on-going course of. Might this up to date submit show you how to in making your “greatest guess” choices in your subsequent undertaking.
Authentic Put up
In fact, whereas I have to admit that I’ve such a broad style in coloration and design that my husband typically says it quantities to no style in any respect (I favor to explain my style as “eclectic”), I do have some broad pointers for the way I choose cloth.
If I needed to break it down, I’d use the next standards:
- Shade
- Sample
- Scale
- Amount
College students at all times discover it tough to know simply which materials, and the way a lot, to carry together with them to my cloth collage lessons. One benefit of educating at a spot just like the Quilt Gallery in Kalispell, Montana, the place I used to be lately, is that it’s a cloth retailer. This is likely one of the locations I train the place, if college students don’t have the suitable piece, they’ll browse an entire store’s price.
So what makes a selected piece of material helpful for material collage? What varieties? What colours? What patterns? How a lot do I purchase?
These have been the kinds of questions my college students in Kalispell have been asking, so one afternoon proper after class, I invited them to accompany me on a tour of the shop as I shopped for my very own stash. As I pulled bolts, I talked aloud about what attracted me to them. College students additionally pulled bolts and requested my opinion of them.
It occurred to me then that cloth choice can be an excellent subject for a weblog submit.
Shade
As I’ve talked about earlier than, I like robust, vivid colours. The extra coloration the higher. A number of colours are nice. However after all I’m interested in sure colours—aren’t all of us? If I don’t have a selected undertaking in thoughts, I are inclined to gravitate towards that individual coloration vary. Take a look at that choice above. A bit of heavy within the pinks and oranges, with inexperienced creeping in and touches of aqua. Add some yellow and that’s me.
With out consciously looking them out, I had pulled materials that color-wise may work effectively collectively. I’ve realized that if I belief my intuition, I don’t go far flawed.
As soon as a sure coloration cloth has caught my eye (reasonably like one thing shiny catches the attention of a magpie), I then have a look at the worth vary within the piece. If the material is just about all one worth—is visually flat—I’m much less possible to purchase it. If, nevertheless, it has a dynamic vary of worth, from darkish to gentle—perhaps even with one other coloration thrown in—I’m more likely to maintain it in my purchasing cart. Patterned batiks, for instance (all however three of the above samples), are sometimes helpful as they comprise a whole lot of variation in worth, and normally coloration.
Sample
The photograph above of my Quilt Gallery buy must additionally provide you with a clue as to the patterns I favor. The prints I select are primarily pure shapes: leaves, flowers, bugs, shells, swirls, animal prints, marbleizing, and so forth. Summary prints are additionally helpful, particularly these which can be based mostly on pure shapes.
These patterns normally present a pleasant number of curves, repeated patterns, and variations in worth to assist in giving type to the photographs I create. I look for designs within the cloth that I can minimize round and use as contours in my picture. Such cloth is commonly capable of serve a number of functions. Lengthy curves for hair or the flowing tail on a fish or air currents throughout face of a solar may all be from the identical cloth.
Scale
A dialogue of sample leads straight into scale. Scale refers to how giant the repeated picture is. I’m interested in bigger scale prints. College students are usually hesitant about utilizing them, however I discover them extra helpful that small-scale patterns. For those who want a curve, it’s simpler to chop one from a big sample than it’s to mix a number of smaller bits to create that curve.
Nonetheless, smaller total designs have their makes use of as effectively. I usually use them for extra refined mixing from one worth to the subsequent, equivalent to in a face of an individual or the physique of an animal. See the images of the “Cousins” and Kali the canine beneath.
Amount
I inform my college students selection is extra essential that amount. I can and do use lots of of completely different materials per piece, but most of my quilts are not any greater than a pair yards complete in dimension.
I usually purchase materials in half-yard (give or take) increments. Even fats quarters are typically sufficient. When do I purchase extra? The reply to that query is generally dependent upon scale—the dimensions of the picture repeated inside the cloth.
For instance, in my quilt “Dixie Dingo Dreaming” I used completely aboriginal motif materials. A lot of these Australian materials have giant design components, so giant that I normally purchased a yard or extra of every to make sure that I bought sufficient of these repeated patterns to make use of within the piece. A couple of of these materials then got here in helpful for Crocodylus Smylus, an Australian saltwater crocodile, a couple of years later.
Examples
Typically you simply must see one thing carried out with the intention to perceive it. I take advantage of two of my items, “Kissin’ Cousins” and “Golden Temple of the Good Ladies” to show how and the place I used specific materials.
For scale of the patterns, every cloth swatch is 5 inches large by 8 inches tall.
So, there are only a few of the ideas that undergo my head as I’m making cloth alternative selections. I do know some college students could also be in search of exhausting and quick guidelines for selecting cloth, however I suppose it’s extra like pointers.
First, purchase cloth that makes you smile and also you be ok with. There’s nothing unhealthy about that. Then complement with cloth picked particularly in your undertaking, be it due to coloration, design, or scale. Go for selection. Extra is best. That’s my motto and I’m sticking with it.
I stay unapologetically eclectic.