Art Quilt Collage – A Course Review
September 20, 2023
Hi!
This week I’ve had a bit of a treat, which has actually become a bit of a revelation, which, I fear, may be about to become a bit of a passion… I have learnt something new through a fabulous short lecture course on Art Quilt Collage, and I am inspired now to just get playing!
I watched the “Inspiring Ideas for Art Quilting” by instructor Deborah Boschert from Creative Spark Learning and I love the ideas she presented and how she made it seem so easy and do-able to get playing with some ideas for art quilt collages, using fabric, and supplies I pretty much had on hand.
Review:
Deborah’s course is in three easy-to-watch, play-on-demand videos on the online learning platform called Creative Spark, from publishers C&T. The platform itself is easy to navigate, and I really enjoyed this course.
Deborah is all about creating art with fabric, paint and stitch, and this course is based around a few chapters from her book “Art Quilt Collage”.
She explained all about inspiration and fabric selection, then surface design (with paint), and lastly how to embellish and add another layer of interest with stitching, both by machine and by hand.
Her techniques include raw edge fused applique, and broderie perse, as well as a great selection of easy hand embroidery stitches.
I feel there’s a different sense of freedom that you can gain through this style of personal, expressive quilting. As Deborah explained- you’re creating art for the wall – these pieces will not be washed or cuddled up with, and from a technical side, that also means that the ‘rules’ of making quilts don’t seem to apply. You can just play with fabric and construct pieces as you like, without having to worry about things like seams or points matching!
Check out some of Deborah’s stunning art quilt collage pieces:
You can see some detail in the image below of fused applique, hand and machine quilted stitches and how handwriting can add another layer of interest.
The image below shows several different techniques, including broderie perse, hand embroidery, and interesting surface textures from handwriting on fabric, as well as stenciling and machine quilting.
In the first video, Deborah talks about where to find inspiration for your own art quilt collages. One example (below) shows a photo with interesting colours; the fabric pull Deborah did, based on that photo, and then the finished piece she made using those fabrics.
I love a bit of hand stitching, and adding it to these fused applique collage quilts is just another level of fun!
My Turn:
So, having finished the course, I decided to try it myself.
I took an hour today and decided to just play, following some of Deborah’s suggestions, and just seeing what I could come up with. Can I say too how much fun I had?!? No rules, no writing up patterns, and no preconceived ideas!
I took the suggestion of finding a feature fabric, and getting colours and fabrics to coordinate with it. Not all fabrics made the cut either, but then they didn’t have to – it just gave me a starting point.
I made a tiny 4 inch square scene –
The back – you can see the machine stitching, as well as a couple of hand stitched embellishments. Not super neat, but it does the trick!
…and the front.
I decided to frame mine as a mini quilt, and I’m thinking “Midsummer’s Eve” might be a good name.
In short, this was a great course on “Inspiring Ideas for Art Quilt Collage”, and I’m thrilled that the instruction provided was more than enough to get me started and making my own collage art quilts. This is something I’ll be doing more of, and I can recommend this course from Deborah Boschert and Creative Spark wholeheartedly. (Full disclosure too – I’m not making any money from this review, but I do think there’s some great content and it is worth checking out if you’re interested.)
Fun part – Creative Spark have given me one of these courses from Deborah as a Free course to giveaway!
To be in the running for access to this class for Free, just leave a comment below letting us know why you’d like to try Art Quilt Collage, and we’ll choose one lucky reader for this next Wednesday.
Enjoy your week!
18 responses to “Art Quilt Collage – A Course Review”
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I have continually look at landscape quilts and collages
and think, I do not have the imagination to that. The collages illustrated above seem achievable particularly with some expert instruction. They are simple but beautiful. I love what you did with yours Jody.
I would love to have a try and see if I have the imagination to achieve something special to hang on my wall.
This looks like so much fun. Very freeing. I’d love to try it.
haven’t tried all these forms of stitch in one piece before, inspired by her work, and your small piece too
I love your framed art collage piece! I think it would be fun to learn how to do this.
I really want to try this technique. Sounds freeing…
Like most quilters, I love fabric and nature. I think this form, collage, will allow me to be more creative and designing fabric art for my grandchildren.
Art quilts fascinate me! I’ve been learning on my own and know that having additional ideas/information is always a good thing.
Whilst in my local quilt store today, the owner and I were say how wonderful it was to be quilting right now. The freedom to do traditional homely quilts to quilts with amodern twiston traditional forms, right through to truly artistic forms. Quilting continues to evolve and has become multidimensional, with new techniques, amazing fabric designs, paints and other materials to help bring out our creative talents. I love all things fabric and the forms it takes from our surrounds.
I’ve tried similar techniques with varying success. I’d love to be more confident in the process.
I love the look of collage quilts and have always wanted to learn how to do them.
I seem to be missing the mystery advent calendar blocks. Is there someplace on the web that I can find them??
Thanks
Hi Elaine,
Our Quilter’s Advent Calendar is set to start on the 1st December, and run through daily until the 25th as we countdown to Christmas together. You should already have your welcome email with the bonuses to download, and I’ll send another email out next week to touch base. You haven’t missed anything yet, as we haven’t started sending out our mystery patterns. Any queries, please just let me know – santa@quiltersadventcalendar.com Thanks, Jody
I have had an epiphany about my quilting journey. Collage quilting makes one be “in the moment”. I have always been one to have to have things all planned out, and on a recent trip to Africa, I learned how great it felt to be “in the moment…to be present in the present”. The freedom of no real rules, no worry about all the points, seams and corners match is really a freeing feeling. I am just learning collage/art quilting and I believe the course would be the right start to this part of my quilting journey. The Africa safari trip was my 75th birthday present to me. Little did I realize the changes I gave experienced and now embrace.
Love Deborah’s work. Her smaller pieces are so inspiring that we don’t have to work big as a quilter all the time. She has a great sense of design😍. Her book is great and a class would be the topping on the cake to get me creating some collage work😊😊
I’ve always loved looking at art quilts and wanted to make one. Was never sure how or where to begin. I was told by someone that you needed to be artistic to make a art quilt. I’m not very artistic.
Thank you
It helps use up small pieces of fabric, take a photo and put it to fabric.
I have always been interested in art quilts of all kinds. This looks like an interesting way to accomplish an art quilt. I believe the instruction would be very helpful.
This looks very liberating. Sitting down with a bunch of fabrics and threads, and not having to produce something traditional. I would love to give it a try. Thank-you Jodi