Book review: Freestyle Color Collage Quilting by Carly Mul

Here’s my review of Carly Mul’s book Freestyle Color Collage Quilting: A Unique Method for Creating Bold Designs with Fabric, that is out soon. Starting out it’ll sound like I did not like this book at all, but read the entire review and I think you will understand where I’m coming from with my thoughts around the book and the art quilt ideas it offers us as artists.

I love the grid of work-in-progress art pieces on the book’s cover, which is what drove me to pick this title up in the first place. That and the title Freestyle Color Collage Quilting – so many yummy words in one book title. I’m a dabbler as you might know, maybe not much of a quilter really but definitely an art appreciator. I love colorful art, and working with collage is my jam.

The author of this art inspiration book i called Carly Mul. She is of dutch decent but lives in the US were she owned a big fabric store for many years. Now thought, after her first granddaughter was born, she sold her business because she wanted to concentrate on living to the fullest, creating her textile art, offering workshops – and writing this book I guess.

Initially I got extremely excited by this title and the inspirational image gallery that starts the book of. I love the idea of anything freestyle that involves bright colors, which is not a big surprise if you know my style. I also really enjoy my own version of collage quilting (although I prefer hand-sewing and embroidery to actually quilting on a machine). From viewing the initial gallery of art in the book I immediately knew that I wanted to try this method of working, but my own interest wore of as soon as Carly got into all the materials needed. I own a sewing machine (actually two) but still… this feels a bit too overwhelming to me, I am sad to say. Let me explain.

For me, new fabric, batting and fusible webbing is expensive, and to create colorful collages like the author demonstrates, you will need a substantial stash of FQ with big patterns, very unlike most quilting fabrics that I already own (and perhaps that most quilters own). Our stash often consists of small prints that can be divided into squares and strips, the kind of patterned fabrics that are used in most blocks… But here we’re learning raw-edge applique, using found forms like spirals, big flowers and organic pieces instead. The stash you got might not be adequate, no matter its current size.

If you’re committing to this style of quilting, forget about throwing any fabric away! Even the tiniest scraps can find a place in your freestyle color collage, which I also like to call organic color collage. And yes, “ugly” fabrics are just as valuable as your favorite ones. You can mix batiks with super modern or reproduction fabrics.”

Going into a creative outlet like this you will need to make a big investment of time and money. The need for space to store your materials will emerge quickly as well, or at least that’s my worry when reading the book. Quilting fabrics in Sweden are not cheap. When working with paper collage you will find a lot of materials for free all around you, at least once you start collecting and keep an eye out, but with fabrics that is not the case. Even if you start going to thrift stores today, it will be a long while until you have enough variety to make even a small color wash wall hanging using Carly’s method. Not that that’s her fault of course, it’s simply the reality of her chosen art form. She even warns the reader in her introduction:

It would be difficult to make a freestyle color collage without a fabric stash because achieving the look we want requires a tremendous amount of fabric.”

Yes, I do think this is a fun book about a very inspiring concept. It makes me want to take a week long real life class with the author to pick her brain and learn her tricks hands-on, but mostly because she’d probably bring the perfect stash of fabrics for us to choose from! That would excite me to no end I’m sure.

This book is where she reveals how she works to create a personal expression of flowers & colors blending together in an organic way, using a stash she’s been building for years. And how lucky are we that speciality books like this still gets published and exists in the world. I love that!

Not all techniques are simple and not all ideas can be considered immediately. Maybe we’re all so used to instant gratification that we don’t even know how to think long-term anymore. In any case, this kind of project requires long term thinking and a big stash, that’s just the truth. I also think it requires a specific set of personality characteristics, like patience, accuracy and pre-planning before you start working on your first art quilt (in fact, that is true for most quilt projects). That, or simply already owning a lot of smaller bits of fabric so you can get started immediately after finishing the book, when the inspiration is high.

Maybe it’s just me but I need to get started straight away with a project book like this, or I loose the momentum. And you can of course only do that if you already have all the supplies at home… Beyond all those fabrics, your batting should preferably be fusible, so that ads to my distress. I need to buy that as well? Plus a foundation paper called “Pattern Ease”, and a fusible web that you can reposition (Carly recommends Lite Stream a seam 2, which makes your fabric into stickers!) as well as fabric glue, stabilizer and maybe even an adhesive spray.

I still wanted to review this book here, because it is well worth checking out. The quilts in it are swoon worthy and unique. I’m pretty sure anyone who is a fan of bright, happy color will adore them and feel inspired by looking at the photos of them. Maybe you’ll wish, like me, that you could crawl even closer or run your hands over the surface to learn where the edge of each fabric piece is. The whole point of this kind of quilt, or art piece, is that you can’t tell where one fabric scrap ends and the next continues. Put together right it will look like a painting that is masterfully done. Carly’s quilts look magical to me.

Feeling inspired to dive in, but…

So, is the fact that the author is indeed an artist deterring or encouraging us? you might ask. To me it’s both. The examples are indeed inspirational, but also, that level of detail orientation and deliberate planning feels foreign and far fetched. Rather unobtainable to me really. My own art experience is more haphazard and messy. I need to get started quicker and work with my intuition. But, and that’s a big but, when you read the instructions (and maybe have the money, time and patience to really dive into the steps the art form requires) it starts to look… manageable. Doable even, if not easy.

I’m sure it would take a few years of practice to master free-styling color collage quilting in this way, without fabric puckering, colors looking disjointed or you running out of the perfect next scrap option, but I also think you could enjoy the process of it all while you are learning. The book will really hold your hand in that way, and what more could you wish for in a craft or art inspiration book?

And even if I personally can’t dive into this idea right now, I was happy reading the book and looking at the artwork. I learned new words and got insights into someone else’s creative process, and that’s always valuable. For example, the sentence “Batting ads warmth and loft to your quilt” taught me that loft is not just an architectural design idea.

Again, I’d argue that buying (and in Sweden even sourcing) all those fabric bits would be difficult and the biggest hurdle to get started with fabric collage in this style. Carly agrees and admits that it is choosing the right fabrics that is the hardest part for her students. This is why she gives many suggestions on what kind of patterns to look for. She’s even named the different types so she can talk about them in her technique description. I like the names shes given her colorful fabric pieces; leaders, followers, connectors, kisses and solids. Carly explains how to divide the scraps into the correct piles and how to “build” the quilt using the different scrap categories to achieve the desired effect. Using lines and pathways through the color wash you will learn how to place each piece so that it fits into the whole, and compliments it.

I like the layout of the pages, and that is important to an aesthetic person like me. I also like the beautiful photos of the artwork and the many different types of examples we get inside the rather short but well-packed book (96 pages). Carly’s technique descriptions are comprehensible even to someone like me, who does not have English as her first language. Each step comes with easy-to-understand descriptions and includes many image examples, which makes it easy to follow along.

Overall I really like the book and only feel bummed that I myself can not jump in to create a collage quilt like this straight away (not that I need another hobby anyway). I am not an artist with such a big fabric stash (or the desire to start one) that I could pull it of, unfortunately. But even if you’re not going to get started with color collage quilts, this book is a joy to the eye.

If you have such a stash in your studio already, I am confident that you will find this book a great inspiration as a workbook. If fabric collage interests you at all, you’ll want to check the book out for sure.

Get more Freestyle Color Collage Quilting

• Freestyle color collage quilting by Carly Mul – more information on amazon where you can pick up a copy
• Author Carly Mul’s homepage – take a look at her collage quilt gallery and her blog:
• Mind of Color – Carly’s blog
• Collagefabric.com – Carly Mul’s Fabric Shop for quilt collage in her style
• My previous book reviews – for example I’ve previously written about a book on Quilt Improve and the colorful book Kaffe Fassett in the studio

Disclaimer: I got a free ARC of this book from the publisher Landauer. All opinions are my own and shared here as a helpful look at the book from my personal perspective, so that you in your turn, can make an educated decision about it for yourself. Links that lead to the book or other products from this review are affiliate links. This book will be published in May 2025. Book review written by iHanna.