Moo-Shu’s seven tips to finish your collage quilt

The whole collage quilting process is so much fun! Choosing fabric for your collage, fusing, cutting out the motifs and placing them on your Pattern Ease foundation. But now you have to turn it into an art quilt!

1. Cutting out Moo-Shu’s outline – You have a decision to make. Cut along the marked outer line of your pattern … let a design motif spill over or cut along the motif line. I do both depending on the look I want to achieve. Look on the back side of your fused design and decide!

2. Moo-Shu’s Background fabric – Audition your background fabrics for Moo-Shu. I chose two bright green batiks. Ultimately, I liked the look of the flatter green batik for Moo-Shu’s background … and used the wilder bright green batik for the backing.

3. Steam it! – I have had two quilts machine-quilted and have heard from my awesome longarm lady at A Needle and Thread that the fusing sometimes gums up the needle slowing down progress! I have read many online comments that suggest giving Moo-Shu a great steam. Apparently, this makes machine quilting easier. I will let you know if it helps on the next quilt!

4. Machine quilting needles – Since I send my quilts out to be machine-quilted, I do not live in that world. For those that machine-quilt at home (not longarm), several kinds of needles have been recommended at various online sites: Madeira Embroidery Anti-Glue needles, Schmetz Embroidery Gold, Schmetz Super Non-Stick size 4. I have no knowledge if these needles could be used on longarm machines. I welcome your suggestions!

5. Quilting Moo-Shu ideas – There are so many ways to quilt Moo-Shu. I chose to have Moo-Shu custom-quilted around various motifs to make them puff out. Moo-Shu’s outside edge is also outlined. The idea is to catch as many of the free edges as possible so your quilt will last a very long time. This is an art quilt and meant to be hung on a wall. The background has an all-over design. I have seen collage quilts quilted with very close parallel lines and also cross-hatched. It is up to you!

6. Moo-Shu’s Quilt label – My lovely friend, Sally, machine embroidered Moo-Shu’s quilt label. Labeling a quilt is important. My awesome son-in-law, Chad, has a quilt handed down to him from a relative that is priceless … but no label. So … give your Panda quilt a name, put your name on it, and who quilted it. Don’t forget your town/state and the year finished. Fifty years from now someone is going to want to know a little of the story behind your quilt.

7. Moo-Shu Hanging sleeve – Moo-Shu is going to hang in my sewing room just as soon as I get the quilt label finished and the hanging sleeve on. I have five quilts hanging at all times in my house, rotating them for the seasons, and no two are hung the same. Blame that on my engineering husband. He is so creative. But each quilt has the same type of easy hanging sleeve made from fabric the width of the quilt and around 9 or 10 inches in length. Fold the fabric, finishing the ends, make a tube, turn inside out and hand-stitch to the upper back of your quilt.

I hope you found these tips helpful!

Interested in purchasing Moo-Shu’s collage quilt pattern? My first pattern is for sale on Etsy.

Moo-Shu, my collage art quilt panda

Yesterday, figuratively speaking, I jumped off a cliff and released my first collage art quilt pattern. Yep … I have my own Etsy shop! Moo-Shu comes with her own full-size pattern, supply list and detailed instructions. The link is provided, or you can head over to my “Home” page, and click on the “Etsy” button.

Over the past forty year, I’ve done lots of different types of quilting. I love it all! It has always amazed me how fabric can be manipulated and turned on its head to create a personal story. Every quilt is so unique … and no two quilts are alike.

It wasn’t until I took a collage quilting class earlier this year, that I found my joy. Everyone in the class was making a different Laura Heine collage quilt. I was the only making Lulu, the elephant. It was so fun creating my own interpretation of the quilt. I think my husband thought I was a little nuts when I bolted through the door after the first class day. The emotion expressed was “excited” and it was an understatement. He encouraged me to create my own pattern and Moo-Shu is the result. It took me a couple of months to create a prototype quilt. I wanted it to be perfect.

The basic premise of collage art quilts is fusing small amounts (fat quarter size or smaller) of cotton fabric, cutting out the motifs you want to highlight in your quilt, and pinning them on a background (your line drawing). After you like the way your collage looks, the paper fusible backing is removed on each motif and placed back on the background. A final fuse with an iron and you are onto your next step. Next week I will write about that!

Notice the word “sewing machine” has not been mentioned. There is no sewing involved until you get to the machine quilting stage.

Let me know what you think about Moo-Shu! I am also pondering my next collage pattern. Any thoughts?

Lulu collage quilt – she is finished!

Picked up Lulu from Erica, the awesome long arm quilt lady at A Needle and Thread, and couldn’t be happier! It was so fun to collaborate with her. Erica quilted an outline around the entire elephant image and custom quilted around the flowers, leaves, butterflies and other critters. I especially love the puffy textures she created with thread on the fishes. On the background yellow batik, Erica quilted an lovely all-over leaf design.

I’ve seen collage quilts quilted in tight vertical and horizontal grids. I know this ensures the fused fabric pieces will stay in place … but then I saw an alternative. Our collage quilt instructor, the awesome Jo Lynn, brought several completed collage quilts to class and they were stunning. On her quilts, the collaged image was custom quilted around the whole image as well as into the flowers, feathers, critters and such. I loved the look!

The amazing Sally embroidered the patch for the back of the quilt in hot pink thread. I had Sally place it on white fabric to remind me to “audition” background fabric on all future collage quilts. I almost had a huge “Oops.” I originally purchased plenty of white fabric for the elephant background while still taking the collage quilting class. I was obviously trying to hurry the process. Thank goodness I brought an unfinished Lulu for “show and tell” to the prayer quilt ministry I volunteer at on Wednesdays. The ladies stepped up and gently prepared me for an intervention. Yep … I would be making a huge mistake with the white! It was either Noreen or Cathy that suggested yellow and it really works on this quilt!

So what is next? I created a collage pattern and am busy working on a prototype collage quilt. Stay tuned! Future blog post in the making!