Karen K Buckley scissors

Quilters new to collage quilting look at a photo of a finished collage quilt and are sometimes confused! Just how did all that fabric make it onto the line drawing pattern? I thought it would be fun to take away the mystery. Believe me … you will never look at a piece of fabric in quite the same way ever again!

When you look closely at Moo-Shu, my panda art quilt, you will notice lots of light-colored flower fabric in her face and body. When planning the quilt, I asked myself … how do I make Moo-Shu’s face and body look like white fur? The answer … why with white orchids of course!

I actually used three colorways of the same fabric line from the Spring 2018 Kaffe Collective. From left to right in the first photograph, I used Kaffe’s Black Orchids, Cool Poppy Garden and Natural Orchids. The fabric actually comes in five colorways and all are quite beautiful. The coloring of the orchid petals in the different colorways have different shades of gray, and also beige, which added another color dimension to Moo-Shu’s “fur.”

After fusing larger pieces of these fabrics which contain all kinds of colorful flowers, I basically cut away the background around the flowers with my Karen Kay Buckley scissors (baby blue handles). I left some of the flowers large to be cut smaller later, if needed. Don’t be concerned when you get to the edge of the fabric and you don’t have a whole flower to cut away. I use smaller parts of flowers all the time to fill in a spot on the line drawing pattern. I saved all the colorful cut motifs that were not “white” orchids to be used on Moo-Shu … or for a future project.

I used a pansy fabric for parts of the face between Moo-Shu’s eyes down to her nose and mouth. There was lots of fussy-cutting since I was interested in just the pansies with purple around the edges. Again, I saved the other pansy motifs in other colors for future projects.

Once you understand the concept of cutting away the background on a piece of fabric, the possibilities are endless! Not only flowers … but novelty fabrics are so fun to cut up and tuck in a collage quilt. Motifs like cans of tuna, fish, butterflies, birds are often not noticed when standing back from a collage quilt. But look at all the fun things you can see up close. My grandkids, Jacob and Ben, had so much fun trying to find all the different things tucked into Moo-Shu.

If you are interested in purchasing a Moo-Shu pattern (full-size) with supply list and detailed instructions, head over to my Etsy shop! Stay tuned for future Collage Quilt hints and tips and new patterns!

Pin cushion using Hoffman challenge fabric

Several years ago I purchased a quilt pattern at the International Quilt Festival for a collage quilt by Laura Heine of Fiberworks. I’ve never made a collage quilt in my life but absolutely LOVED this quilt! The quilt’s name is Lulu the elephant and the sample quilt was a sassy hot pink elephant. I had to have it!

When I noticed Painted Pony ‘n Quilts in La Porte was offering a collage quilting class, I jumped right on it. The class was taught by the awesome Jo Lynn O’Neil. She teaches and runs a quilt retreat house west of Fort Worth named Rock House Retreat in Santo, Texas. Her rooster collage quilt is named Doodle-Doo Rooster and is fabulous! Two long, creative days were spent in a classroom. I was one of a dozen ladies laboring over our creations. The technique is nothing like I expected. In a peanut shell, large pieces of all kinds of fabric are fused and then cut out into smaller pieces. Karen K Buckley makes awesome scissors for precisely cutting these pieces. The smaller fused pieces are pinned down on the quilt pattern. After the pieces are where you like them, the fusible paper is removed and placed a little more permanently onto the pattern. Heck, it is a little more complicated than that but you kinda get how to get started. No sewing machine involved until the quilt is actually quilted.

I was the only one making the elephant and it was, of course, the largest pattern. You know me … go big or go home! We had two ladies making the pincushion and two creating the Cora the owl. The two ladies working on Purrfect Cat had two completely different takes on their creations and both turned out amazing! The dress form (entitled “Perfect Form”) was made entirely with Victorian fabric and stunning. I was sorry I didn’t take more photos of The Guardian Angel (made with narrow little strips) and The Dress collage quilts. Both were turning out awesome!

My Lulu the Elephant all started with her floppy ears. Nearly all my fabric is Kaffe Fassett with some Tula Pink. Personally, I didn’t know where to start. But I had these large pieces of elephant ear fabric cut out. I guess the teacher could see my hesitation on where to begin. Jo Lynn picked up the elephant ear fabric pieces and placed them where they now reside. I was up and running! I took Lulu home probably with most of the fabric pieces placed. Now I am working on getting the fusible off all the pinned pieces. I was amazed how quickly this kind of quilt comes together. In about a week, I should be able to take it to be machine quilted!

Below is a taste on how Lulu is progressing!