Susan carlson

In November and December I hosted a 4-week Fly on the Wall Susan Carlson Studio Watch, where I invited viewers into my studio as I began work of my next fabric collage quilt, a leopard using Africa…

It’s our fifth anniversary and they say that wood is the appropriate gift. In Maine, that might mean a cord of firewood, split and stacked. But really, wood is said to signify durability, whi…

Inspiration comes from many unexpected sources. I’ve found a book on writing by Anne Lamott to be both useful and entertaining when I or my students need a boost.

Something that isn’t obvious about fabric collage (as I teach it) is the importance of the sequence in which you approach the construction of your image. Where you start, and the order in whi…

In this fourth and final post in a series of Throwback Thursdays featuring my Summer Quilt Retreats held here in Maine, we look back just one year to June 2019. What seemed so commonplace—students …

So far in this new year, there’s already been weeks of shared creativity through new Finish Line posts, monthly feedback through our Patreon meetings, a new online mini-workshop (see in-progr…

Last October 2023, I hosted a Live Online Fabric Collage Class solely for advanced students in fabric collage. It was the second such class—the first being a portraits only online class earlier in …

As the end of the year approaches, and we publish this our last post of 2020, our natural tendency is to look back and reflect. What have we done during this unplanned year? What did we accomplish?…

I describe fabric collage as painting with fabric. That’s more than a helpful way of explaining it to newbies. It has been a way of thinking of working with fabric that has guided my developm…

I sometimes receive requests for shorter fabric collage classes, ones that only take a couple days. My go-to class in that case is a fish, bug, and butterfly class. These simple subjects are easy e…

My mother’s 90th (!) birthday was yesterday and today would have been my grandmother’s birthday. In honor of both of them, I thought it would be an auspicious day to feature my newest (…

One of our plans, as we delved into video, was to re-visit and update some of my more popular, technique-oriented posts with short videos. It would also let me update the post itself with any furth…

Cicadas, butterflies and June bugs, oh my! Maine in September means the daily temperatures aren’t reaching quite as high, the nights cool off a bit more, and the tourist level has slowed down…

This week and for the following two weeks we’re going back to basics. If you are interested in learning fabric collage but thought it was too difficult, let these posts prove to you it isn…

Learning fabric collage should be enjoyable. And I can’t think of a subject that’s more fun to learn the fabric collage process than fish. They come in such a wide variety of colors, sh…

Coming up this week in your regular Saturday post we’ll have the second of two reflections on teaching at Empty Spools 2022. I had lots of great students who came to class well prepared. To h…

In this Saturday’s regular post you’ll meet my 2019 class at this year’s Art Quilt Tahoe, held along the shores of Lake Tahoe in Nevada. What a beautiful spot to hold a quilt work…

Posts about How To written by Susan

In the past few days I completed testing three new brands of duckbill scissors on fabrics for my newest fabric palette—adding new photos and information to our already updated Scissors for Fabric C…

We’re sorry. The Spiral eWorkshop is no longer for sale. The Spiral eWorkshop is available as part of the Fabric Collage Master Class.