Fantastic Fabric Faces- personal portraits in cloth- instructor Pamela Allen

Here's a unique way to use those fabrics with large prints in small art quilts. Pamela will demonstrate a fabric collage technique that uses the shapes in large prints....such as those from sarong batiks or floral fantasy fabrics....as components of a portrait face. A curling vine becomes an eye, a circle becomes a chin. Pamela also provides fabrics that have been bubble jet printed with eyes, mouths etc to help in the creation. Emphasis in this class will be on the creative process with less fussing about sewing techniques and traditional quilting methods.

Materials

-Fat quarters or any fabric suitable for background and backing a small quilt

-A selection of scrap fabrics all types all colours, prints and plains. Include some fabrics with large bold prints and designs. No particular criteria is necessary...just fabrics that have eye and tactile appeal as well as special ones like sheers, velvets and voiles for transparent and textural effects.

-Spray basting or other spray adhesive(optional). Safety mask

-Wonder Under fine fusible in lieu of spray, Stitch Witchery works too as does plain ol' glue sticks!

-Selection of embroidery floss...lots of colours! Thread of your choice

-Scissors, beading, embroidery and tapestry sized needles, thimble, other basic sewing regalia

-Polyester batting suitable in size for small quilt . Faster even is fusible batting either cotton or poly.

-Sewing machine is optional. This method can be done quite nicely WITHOUT a machine except for the final quilting.

-Embellishments of all kinds. This means thinking about unlikely but interesting additions such as found objects, manufactured items and hand made items such as copper tooled shapes ( Pamela will demonstrate) etc. There is always a way of attaching such items either by drilling small holes ( Pamela will bring a Dremel tool) or by capturing the shape with floss. Of course more conventional beads, buttons, lace etc is also useful.

Method:

Students should be able to finish a small quilt over the course of the day. After collaging a variety of fabrics and prints to approximate a head and shoulder image, the quilt will be batted and backed BEFORE any stitching occurs. This makes for a very stable surface to work on and adds dimension to the appliquing work. Changes, additions and subtractions can be made to the image at any stage of development so the outcome is always open ended and flexible. There are NO quilt police in this class and anything that can be attached to fabric in any way that is permanent is grist for the mill! If time permits, Pamela students can machine quilt using Pamela's freemotion techniques which she will demonstrate. Easy peasy!