Fabric Collage Photo Book

Click on the above photo for a larger view.

It is pretty well-known in my family (and friends) that I love vintage photos and their stories. My fabric collage book has been created using photographs that came from my cousin Mary of her mother.

Part of the story is sad — Mary’s mother had an older sibling that unfortunately had passed away without any photographs ever being taken. So when Mary’s mother was born, her parents took lots of photographs of her.

The agreement was that I would scan all of Mary’s photos and in exchange for a DVD of the scans, I would be able to use them in my art...cool deal! (Mary also received a fabric collage book of her own as a surprise.)

My posting today is more of a show and tell than a full-on “how to” tutorial, but I hope it inspires you! You can also take a look at our 2011 tutorial, A Marvelous Memory Book by Liz Kettle, with instructions on creating another version of a fabric photo book, to get you started.

Fabric collage books are a great place to use up scraps of ribbon and trim, and to try out the fancy stitches on your sewing machine (detail photo above). I love the way the bold print of the fabric “peeks” through her coat and leggings.

Above, vintage buttons are the perfect embellishments.

Above, I couldn’t resist adding wings to this sweet little face!

This fabric collage book is designed to be three-dimensional: it can stand (see photo at top), hung on a wall, or enjoyed as an accordian-folded book.

When creating a fabric collage book I generally use the following products:

• EQ Printables Premium Cotton Lawn Inkjet Fabric — This is a high quality, tightly woven paper backed fabric sheet that can be run through your computer printer to reproduce photographs for quilting projects. The tighter the fabric weave, the more details that you can get on the fabric. The product is pretreated to ensure the archival quality of the photos and gives you beautiful, reliable results.
• Heavy Duty Stabilizer — I use whatever I have on hand, whether double-sided fusible or not; Pellon 805 Wonder Under Web is the choice we have for the store. (You might find that a lightweight fusible is enough, and because our Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 has a repositionable adhesive, you can experiment with your design and how the fabric scraps are placed before fusing it permanently.)
• Mistyfuse — this fusible is so lightweight that I can even fuse lace in place quickly and with no adhesive showing.
• Non-stick Ironing and Craft Sheet — invaluable to use when working with any fusible. We carry Goddess Sheets in various sizes, and The Bo-Nash Amazing Sheet...I have multiples (brands and quantities) of these types of craft sheets and simply wouldn’t be without them!
• Vintage Fabric and Linens — if you don’t have these in your stash and you want to create a similar look, we offer “scrap packs”of Vintage Linens and Creams/Pales Silks: these are the perfect size for a fiber collage project.

The following photos are of the book I gifted to Mary.

Both of these fabric collage books featured in this posting have the photos on one side of the page. Each reverse/back side is covered in fabric, trims and stitching to create a finished book no matter how the book is displayed or viewed.

Another fabric collage photo book is in my future: I was just gifted with several vintage photo albums that include photos from the Pacific Northwest in the early 1900’s. I can’t wait to begin working with these treasures!

Click on either photo to view larger: gift book opened and gift book back.