aashley333

I signed up for a class today to make one of her collages. I chose the seahorse pattern. Love to hear from others. Tips, pics, and ideas! I love the fabric collages that I have seen, but I'll bet they aren't their first project! Gotta start somewhere!

Onebyone

I took her class. Be sure you have an iron that gets hot. My small iron did not get hot enough nor was it big enough. A pair of serrated sharp scissors is a must to prevent fraying of the fabric edges. The big pressing/applique mat is wonderful and I wouldn't do one without it. The only thing I would do differently then her way when making another at home is to do all the background first then add the pieces. She has you cut the background to fit around the pieces. I don't have that kind of patience. LOL The class was fun.

suern3

Here's a picture of my seahorse. She was my first collage and I am happy with how she turned out. Seahorses have a special meaning for me so that helped me jump into this. I started on my own with help from Laura Heine's book on collage. Part way through, a LQS offered a class on Laura's collage technique which I took. It was fun to see other projects and I got some help on color placement, especially around Ebba's eye. Otherwise, I just followed the pattern instructions as written. It took some time to complete but it was worth it. I haven't done another collage yet but if one speaks to me, I will. Have fun and enjoy your seahorse!

aashley333

Wow! Suern, that is amazing! Love the large flowers for the fins! I collaged the body but still need background. Possibly today. I agree, next time, I'll do background first. I think I can apply this process with many of my drawings for my stained glass panels. I wanna try to do the surfer girl's headshot.https://www.quiltingboard.com/vbulle...h-t319215.html

lmanna

Here's mine - this was my first collage quilt. It was a lot of work (but fun) and in some ways one of my most challenging projects. I included some fun sea creatures hidden in mine.

Peckish

I've purchased a couple of patterns. Kinda wish I'd taken a class instead, I probably would get a lot more out of it. The pattern is basically an outline shape, which I could have done on my own. The instructions were disappointing - there was nothing about fabric selection, placement, etc. Basically pick fabrics you like, glue 'em down, cut the outline, bam you're done. Pppfffttt.

Danny Amazonas makes drop-dead gorgeous collage quilts. The man definitely has incredible artistic abilities. I took a class from him in Houston to learn his technique. It's very similar to Laura's except his quilts have a ton more detail with regard to depth perception and lighting. I think any quilter could make collages like Laura's. It definitely takes artistic talent to make quilts like Danny.

cashs_mom

Ooooh! I wish I'd been able to take a class from him. I spent a lot of time looking at his quilts. They're fantastic!

thimblebug6000

Interesting to read these comments, I spent the morning helping a friend who had purchased Laura’s Seed Pods pattern. It calls for numerous (sorry she took her pattern home with her) pieces of fabrics to collage into a background. The only piece with any cutting guidance was the bottom 1 1/2” x 34” piece….. the rest, you fuse steam a seam 2 to the back of your fabrics and cut chunks/squares/rectangles and fuse them to the foundation. If she did that with the amounts suggested in the pattern, she would have a ridiculous amount of background fabric that is fused and not usable for anything else. If you were going to make many projects that might be acceptable. Anyway, I did find one youtube that helped me, not her, understand Laura’s collage process, so we will see what tomorrow brings….she took home my ironing board, appliqué sheet, rulers and rotary cutter, and large cutting mat.
I do hand appliqué and machine appliqué but have not had the desire to do the fusible collages. If I can get my friend to the point she loves the project, then I might be interested. She saw a finished project in a quilt shop, but unfortunately they didn’t have any kits. But that said….would the kit have been more helpful than the written directions?

Mkotch

I thought I should step out of my comfort zone, so I signed up for a Laura Heine class in October. I picked a pattern I thought would be easy, but it took forever to finish because it is huge ("Birch Street" photo attached). It took four months to fuse everything down, and now I will take another several weeks to quilt it on my home machine. Some suggestions... Choose a small project to learn with and, if you like the process, you can do a larger piece. If you don't like it, you can move on to something else. It's a very intense process. Do the background first even though the pattern says to do it last. You can then cover the edges with the embellishing pieces. Buy the sharpest scissors you can (Karen Kay Buckey's are great) to avoid fraying, but some of your fabrics may still fray. Batiks are really useful. Share fabrics with others in the class if you can to get a variety. Expect to end up with a whole lot of fabric with fusible on the back that you won't know what to do with!

aashley333

Well, I guess I did not post a finished pic of my seahorse, so here it is. I thoroughly enjoyed it!!
I also made a sand dollar.