QuiltsByKeila

If couples really get dogs to hone their parenting styles, Shadow is the dog that snuffed any spark of interest I had in becoming a parent. Mostly because, as an adult, I’ve never loved an animal so much, which deeply satisfied my need to nurture and care for another being. 

Partly because he is a ridiculous amount of work to keep alive and happy. I figure if I can barely handle him, my world is better for me opting out of raising humans.

When I saw the pet portrait collage class offered by Jane Haworth at my local quilt shop (shout out to The Granary!), my first thought was ooh – I’d love to do that, but I could never. I’m a skill-based quilter. I’m detail oriented. I research techniques and follow instructions. I text Shelby (one third of the capital T Trifecta) photos of my quilt layouts to help me rearrange blocks to be visually appealing. I don’t consider myself an artist or even holding artistic potential.

So I passed on taking the class. Sadly, this happens a lot to me – I confuse lacking confidence with lacking ability to learn. I’m sure some of you can relate. The next time it was offered, I stalked the sign up site for awhile before deciding to pass again. This time, however, the universe intervened and found a way to help me rationalize taking the class into being a relatively small risk. 

My husband put in a custom quilt order. He rarely asks for anything, so this project jumped the quilt queue. While researching how to bring his vision into quilthood, I realized that fabric collage might be one technique I could use. There was one spot left in the class, and my twitchy brain told me that I could go ahead and sign up because epic failure at pet portraiture would be okay since I would learn skills I could use in less complex or artistic collages.

I was physically ill the day of the class. In the parking lot, I realized my brain had tricked me: that I really wanted to be good at making pet portraits and I really wanted Shadow’s portrait to not be laughable. I was convinced I was going to humiliate myself publicly in a class of artistic prodigies. Epic failure at pet portraiture was not going to be okay after all. My anxious brain is unapologetically dramatic. 

I was so surprised and shocked at how well the portrait ended up. Like I mentioned in my about section on this website, excellent instruction matters. Jane Haworth broke the steps down for me in a way that made sense to my brain, and I was able to “ride herd over my emotions” (turn of phrase from one of my college professors, Dr. Sauer, that has stuck with me over the years). Now I have a beautiful fabric collage that looks very much like my dog; and my parents have one that looks very much like their dog, Finnigan (I’ll have to share more on his collage another day). 

I’ll wrap up this post with a video of process photos of Shadow’s collage for you to enjoy. If you, like me, think his collage actually looks slightly better on the orange background fabric (the one with the jacks), let me know in the comments! I went with the peachy pink background because it fits with the living room decor a bit better.

P.S. ~ I highly recommend Jane Haworth as an instructor. She does in person workshops and has an online course (both of which I’ve experienced). I couldn’t figure out how to get captions to show on the online course videos, though. Her book “Capture Your Own Life with Collage Quilting” is a pretty comprehensive AND has a photo of the quilt I made of Shadow. Which makes me almost famous and the book a must buy, right?