Fabric Collage UFO

For many years I have been entranced by the creative possibilities inherent in Collage. I subscribe to both Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors which feature a lot of collage techniques. I have taken classes on how to put fabric collages together with June Colburn and other instructors. I continue to collect bits and peces of deritus to eventually use in my collage masterpieces.

I love collage BUT I suck at actually doing collages.

I can gather lots of related things together and can come up with a great concept but when it comes to actually putting one together I have rarely gotten results that I would be proud to display.

Many years ago I took a class with June Colburn here in Houston on her fabric collage technques. June has the uncanny ability to take many different, but related, fabrics and collage them together into a new piece of fabric that looks like it was manufactured as whole cloth. This was my second or third class with her and thought I could produce something pleasing to both of us.

No such luck.

After spending a couple of hours cutting and placing fabic on a 16" x 20" muslin foundation, June came over and pointed out obvious flaws in my masterpiece. I was hurt but not daunted and spent the rest of the day reworking my piece.

It never measured up to the potential I saw all around me.

The other day I dug it out again and began to re-work it ... again.

I had the inspired notion that I would complete the origianl piece but this time I would just try get all the pieces of fabric attached to the foundation and not worry about the piece's eventual use.

From well thought out concept to slap on the fabric in one easy step.

Here's how it came out:

Not pretty but there are bits that are quite pleasing like the Japanese lady and the fish motifs.



Not letting it go into the trash bin after the huge investment in time to had spent, I decided to use the bits I liked in several little projects.



From one 16"x 20" ugly fabric collage I came up with a holder for my iPod Nano Touch:

Front

Back

Attached to my purse

A cover for my address book,

Before

After

And, a box to hold paper and pens near my sewing machine.




Not bad for an ugly piece of collage.


I hope your weekend is going well and that the typical pre-holiday cleaning is not getting you down. I have set a small goal for myself... getting all the laundry done AND put away in the right drawers and closets. Somehow laundry gets done here with great regularity but not everything gets put away correctly. Tea towels end up piled on the counter, socks to be folded languish on a dresser top and towels get re-used before even seeing the inside of the linen closet. For just one day I would like to see it all done and put away.

And while I am working towards laundry nirvana I will be on the look out for more UFOs that I can complete before year-end.