I have been a ‘traditional’ quilter since 1995 when I took my first class. We lived in Aiken, SC, at the time and so I attended the NC Quilt Symposium for several years and loved being exposed to all the wonderful quilters that came there to teach.
Fast forward to August 2016 when we were visiting my in-laws near Billings, Montana. One of the teachers that I met in NC at one of the symposiums was Laura Heine and she has a shop in Billings. We stopped to have a ‘look’ and I walked out with a pattern and fabric. This quilt was done using the ‘painterly’ collage method using fusible steam a seam 2.
She was my first collage and I loved it!!!
A friend showed me a picture of a collage quilt she had seen and I LOVED it so made one of my own. There are many hidden people in here. It uses Alexander Henry’s The Ghastlies.
I took the dress form from another line of The Ghastlies that had a sewing theme. Can you find the dress form inside of the dress form?
This one represents how my traditional quilting is being overtaken by the collage.
In 2018, I started reading Susan Carlson’s blog. She is another collage quilter but uses only ‘organic’ shapes from fabric and Aileen’s Original Tacky glue. It was fascinating and I decided to take a class. Well I soon discovered that as soon as her classes open up, they are filled. I got on a waiting list for a class in Kalispell, Montana, for June 2019 (this was the fall of 2018). In November, I just happened to be looking at Art Quilt Tahoe’s website when their classes for November 2019 opened up. I immediately signed up for Susan’s class and got in!
In May of 2019, I got a call saying that the wait list in Kalispell had opened up and did I want a spot? YES! I had to gather supplies, pick a subject (easier said than done), and make arrangements to stay the week. Her class in Montana was 5 days! Heaven!! Here are a couple of pictures of what I was working on:
I took the picture of this Cape Buffalo in Africa in 2014. This is the finished quilt. It took me another 2 months to finish and there are several other animals hidden in there.
Side note: My anniversary was during the class and so my husband was going to ride up so we could celebrate. The morning of June 7, it snowed!! You never know what will happen in Montana!!
Did I still go to the class at Lake Tahoe? Of course!!! We spent the month of September 2019 in Scotland and one of my missions during this trip was to take the perfect picture of a Highland Cow for my class in November. Well this little Shetland pony from Orkney Island jumped in front of my camera and said “why would you want a cow when you could have ME!!”
I was an accountant during my working life and didn’t consider myself any kind of artist. But this process makes me feel like one and I LOVE it!!
Happy Quilting!
Jenny