In March, when my sister Rebekah visited, we had one of our group art meetings. She and her daughter Lizzie went along to do some ice dyeing and create a paper fabric collage.

This is Rebekah’s collage. She decided to leave it with me and since I didn’t want to have more stuff piling up in my studio, I decided I needed to add a focal point to it. The one I made that day was not to my taste and I gave it to Deb who has since stitched on it. These collages are made with thin paper, thin fabrics, fusible and paint.

I had recently sketched this succulent plant and thought it might be a good addition to the collage. (Marilyn has since told me that this is called a jade plant.) My original plan was to free motion machine stitch the design on to the collage. But after a little trial and error, I thought it would look better with more color than just outlined in thread. So then I decided to applique with fabric and then machine stitch. I had already decided on purple thread so I opened up my box of colored fabric and right on top was an ice dyed purple fabric that worked perfectly. I guess it was meant to be as that fabric was ice dyed the same day the collage was made. The fabric was supposed to turn out grey but was purple instead. Funny how that worked.

Here is the fabric cut out and fused down to the collage. I used the fusible paper to trace the design from my sketch above. I did leave out a few bits but I don’t think it made any difference to the design.

Then I free motion machine stitched around the edges. I did use a piece of heavy interfacing behind the paper fabric collage as it was quite thin. The focal point of the jade plant definitely helped the composition. I have one more of these to do as Lizzie left hers with me as well.

This is the last chance to sign up for my April session of online classes. Classes start tomorrow. The next session won’t be until September.

You can register at the links below:

Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination

Experimental Screen Printing on Felt

Print, Stencil and Play with Thickened Dye on Felt

Free Motion Machine Stitching on Felt