Creating a mixed media collage in textiles

Creating textile collages is great fun and a good use of scraps of fabric, wool, felt and accessories such as buttons and zippers. Pieces can be made as big or as small as wanted. It can sometimes make sense to make a larger piece which can then be cut up into smaller pieces or used as part of a larger quilt.

Step 1 - Choose a colour theme

Choosing a base colour scheme will help you focus on the right colours of fabrics for your project. This doesn’t mean you have to have only one primary colour rather that there is some focus. So, you may decide you are using psychedelic colour scheme which would involve yellow, vivid red, malachite, shocking pink, inter-dimensional blue and turquoise.

Step 2 –

Cut a piece of visolene or a similar type of double sided fusible web, heat activated and pressure sensitive. The fusible should be sticky and repositionable so that you can move your design around before ironing it for permanence. This is what you will lay your design onto.

If you don’t plan to cover the entire piece with the collage, then place onto the base fabric you have chosen.

Step 3 – layering the fabric and other textiles

Remove one layer of the visolene and lay it sticky side up on your work bench. If not covering the entire piece then use your base fabric layer, right side up. Place your pieces of textiles and fabrics where you want. Play around with the look, moving pieces until you are happy with the result. If you find you get a creative block, leave the design, walk away for a time, then come back, stand back and look at it. Sometimes taking a photo and looking at the photo can help too.

Step 4 – fixing it into place

Once you are happy with your design either replace the protective sheet of paper or a piece of oven paper over it and iron to hold the scraps together to create the fabric collage. If using fabric only then the collage may be glued or pinned. Peel off the remaining paper and place the fusible coated side down onto your base fabric layer. Iron it to fuse the collage to the base layer.

Step 5 – embellishments

Free-motion sew/quilt all over the fabric collage sheet. Embellishments such as ribbon, yarn, cotton, ribbon, netting and buttons may be used to enhance the collage. If you are unsure of what or how to stitch just follow the patterns in the fabric scraps – there is no right or wrong way here!