New Quilting techniques are here to help any level quilter to create the most amazing quilts designs with those scraps of fabric that are left from finished quilts, whether you’re new or you have been making quilts for some time, there is always a new method to try to make your new quilt.
How To Do Collage Quilting is an easy and fun method to make a quilt by layering pieces and scraps of fabric of different colors and tones to create a design on a background fabric, then you will need to free-motion quilting to stitch on all the pieces to make your new quilt.
As a quilter, I love to keep all scraps of fabric from my finished quilts, whether they are big or small, and some scraps are really small, and I do keep them with the intention to do something with them, and today I had the chance to make a small Collage Quilting with mixed techniques of free motion quilting and some hand stitching techniques, and the results were amazing and I would love to share some tips to help you to give the Collage Quilting a try!
Supplies You Need For Collage Quilting
- Some quilters will use Heat-n-bond lite web or glue stick or fabric glue
- Iron
- Thread
- Quilting Supplies
Easy Steps To Make A Collage Quilting
1. Decide what pattern you want to create on your collage quilt, it can be a design you draw by yourself or it can be a purchased design from a quilter.
I would suggest making a small test on a quilt of small size to see how you’re sewing machine works with several layers of fabric and if you like the finished look of your quilt.
Draw the design outside lines on a background fabric, some designs can be worked just with the outside lines, and some other designs can be drawn with some inner lines to help you to lay the different tones of fabric on the marked areas.
2. Choose your fabrics and cut pieces large or small, squared or curved to cover the area, you will need to be creative and look for the right color and tone fabric to place on your design.
You can use the glue stitch to stick each piece of fabric in its place, at the beginning I will suggest putting just a small drop of glue in case you need to change that fabric for another of the correct color or tone.
Whenever you’re happy on how the different fabrics look on your design, you can add more glue on each piece so they can stay on its place while you work on the free motion quilting.
If you’re a traditional quilter, you always can skip the step of gluing the fabrics and pin all the pieces on the background fabric, and then do some big basting stitches to keep all the pieces of fabric in their place while you work on the free motion quilting or hand quilting.
3. Time to work on the Free Motion Quilting or Hand Quilting.
Whether you use you’re sewing machine to do the hand quilting, of if you’re a traditional quilter and you want to work on your collage quilt by stitching all the pieces by hand, both methods will work great and you can create an amazing quilt!
Take your time to work on this step, and you can use white thread or any other color thread.
Related: Best Sewing Machine For Free-Motion Quilting
There Are – Methods To Create A Collage Quilt
1. Use Fusible On Each Piece Of Fabric, you can use this method to keep all the pieces of fabric on their place.
2. Use A Glue Stick or Fabric Glue, add a small drop of glue on each piece of fabric at the time to work on selecting the fabric for your design, add a small drop of glue to keep it in place, whenever you’re happy with the whole design, you can add more glue on each piece of fabric.
3. Use A Netting Fabric On The Top, some quilters like to use a netting fabric to keep all the pieces in their place while they work on the quilting, the color of the netting fabric will help you to create the design.
My suggestion here is to always make a small test on each method, and see which one you like more the results and the method to work with each one of them.
How Does The Collage Quilt Look Like When It’s Finished
The collage quilting technique is made with raw edging, by using this technique on a quilt, this means all raw edges will fray after the quilt is washed or used, the more it is quilted the less the fabric will fray.
The size of the fabric pieces are important also, the bigger the size of the fabric pieces used on this quilting method, the less your fabric will fray, but when you use smaller pieces of fabric, you will need to work a tighter quilt to secure all those tiny pieces of fabric.
Fraying will add some texture to your quilt tool.
Closing Thoughts
There are many different quilting techniques you can use to create your new quilt, and the Collage Quilting is one of them, as a quilter myself, I like to try new techniques, as looking at the finished sample will help me to decide whether or not to make a regular size quilt with the new technique.
The Collage Quilting technique is here now to stay, and it’s helping many quilters around the world to create beautiful and amazing quilts.
I hope you decide to try the Collate Quilting technique, use your scraps of fabric to create your new quilt, I’m sure you will love the texture and the look of it!
Happy Quilting!
