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This is what happens when you are searching a shelf and find a box and wonder what's in it.  In this case the box had these things in it. There once was a Accuquilt Go! die that made these 3 sizes of triangles. I ordered it thinking that the triangles were bigger and was surprised they were so small. I should have sent it back right away but, no, I had to play with it. Like every 5 year old I quickly tired of that game and put the bits in a box where they have comfortably resided for a few years.  Of course when I reopened the box I was most fascinated with the tiny ones.  I was listening to a book, it was evening...let's see how many I can put together before bed.  This many....in 3 hours. Only one thing to do with it at this point.  Make a postcard! I did finish off the edge with a purple satin stitch but I forgot to take a photo.
Usually when I make a postcard design I make at least 2 so that I can keep one for myself. Not this time. This is a true on-of-a-kind card that I sent to my best friend for her birthday. She loved it and so do I but I'll not make another. Today I'm off to my monthly sewing days with my quilt club. I'll finish the autumnal Hunter's Star and start the gray/brown one this weekend. the weather is crummy so it's a perfect weekend for sewing.
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 These are probably the most special postcards that I've ever made. Even Chris says that these are his favorites.  I unearthed these embroideries from one of my Bins of Magical Things a few months ago. I made then YEARS ago and they were intended to be ornaments just like you see in the pattern photo. I did the embroidery but never actually made the ornaments. It was time to do something with them.  The first step was to pick some fabrics. I had a nice red satin that would be a great background for the 6 red and green ornamants and this green would be a perfect frame for both designs. I eventually dug up a pretty purple satin for the background of the gold embroideries.  The first step was to fuse WonderUnder on the back of the green fabric and cut out the circles that will frame the embroideries. I used WonderUnder because I wanted to be able to draw guidelines to help center the circle.  To put it together I first cut the embroidery about a half inch larger than the hole and then centered the embroidery in the hole and tack fused it in place. The teflon sheet is so helpful. I had prefused the back of the satin fabrics and then cut out circles the same size and the hole in the fabric. I used the paper backing to position the satin fabric on the postcard base and fused it down. then I flipped the embroidery part on top of that and fused all the layers together. I used a pressing cloth to protect the embroideries.  I did a satin stitch around the ornament and added a hanger and bow.  I stitch lines like the bow and hanger at least 3 times to build up a bold line and to hide any bobbles. Here's a close up of the stitching. These cards will be mailed in clear envelopes to protect the stitching. I made 12 of these cards, 6 in each design.  I also unearthed these two old/vintage cross stitch projects that I might have done over 35 years ago! I used the same method to turn them into cards too. That's 88 cards made this year!
There's still a ton of stuff in that bin.....  Peace Tree Postcards These cards, like most all of my cards, started with trash. This was the pile of cutoffs from the Groovy quilt blocks. Just look at that pretty pile. I couldn't toss it out! Instead I grabbed a sheet of WonderUnder and fused the strips into stripes. (Say that 3 times fast.) It reminded me of all things 60's so the design for a Peace tree came to me quickly. Besides I always have one tree design every year.  I wanted to screen print the Peace lettering so I created a Word document and sent it off to Susan and she had the screen to me in just a couple of days. Getting custom screen made is really easy and not expensive.  I just couldn't accept a solid color Peace. It's easy to get a rainbow effect by overlapping the colors that you apply to the screen. I did have to wipe everything clean every 10 cards or so because it does eventually blend to brown.  It was very peaceful.  The trees were cut and fused to the cards and at this point I was in love!  The fabric bits aren't totally fused so they had to be stitched down. I tried several methods and colors of thread but a simple black outline worked best and set the stage for a colorful serged edge.  fabric psotcards This variegated thread was perfect for the edging and one little crystal tops each tree.  I made 30 of these cards.
Usually I make 3 designs each year but this year I actually made a 4th very special design and I'll share that one Monday.  Spirograph Snowflake Postcards After I finished the blue diamond postcards I still had a big stack of scraps left and one night in October I sewed them all together and made a big piece of "new" fabric. I didn't have a plan for it, I was just play sewing.  A few days later I needed to either put the new fabric away or do something with it. The easy answer always is to cut it into postcard backgrounds and that's how this new card design started. I thought they might look nice with a Spirograph motif on them for a stylized snowflake look.  It took a surprisingly long time to get to this point. I tried getting the designs to work on fabric but I just couldn't get a sharp white line. So I broke my rule of not buying supplies for postcards and ordered some krafttex. That's awesome stuff! You can sew it like fabric but it's also like paper. I'm going to have to play with it some more. But for now I have bright white snowflakes. They looked a little lost on that background.  A rummage through the Drawer of Magical Things unearthed this white fabric that had been over-painted with pearlized paint.  That's what it needed!  All they needed after that was backing and some edging. I got 23 cards out of that pile of blue scraps.
Over the next several days I'm going to be sharing this year's Christmas postcards. I was very happy to get all of them done by December 1 and now I'm finally editing the photos to share. First up are the Blue Diamond postcards.  Blue Diamond postcards When I make the sample quilts for Paula Nadelstern I like to try to use some of the scrap fabrics in my Christmas postcards.  These are the fabrics that I started with from her new Artful Snowflake line. I made my "I'm Not a Snowflake" quilt and it involved a lot of fussy cutting so the remnant fabrics looked like a lot of Swiss cheese.  I decided on a framed diamond shape. I started by cutting as many symmetrical diamond shapes as I could from the scraps. That turned out to be 21. I added a frame in black. I also had a lot of cut off corners from that fabric that looks like beads. They were perfect for making the frames. Some of the frames are narrow and some are wide. That's because some of the diamonds were smaller than others based on the scrap of fabric that I had for the symmetrical design.  After I serged the edges black I thought it needed a little something else and for Christmas cards that something is almost always crystals.
I made 21 of these card. There's nothing much to be done about a cold except to wait it out and that's what I'm doing. I did have the energy for a little bit of sewing yesterday but I didn't want to do anything that required math.  These are the scraps from the sample quilt that I made with Paula Nadelstern's Artful Snowflakes collection. They have a nice bit of silver metallic in them so I thought I'd see if I could come up with a postcard design for one set of my Christmas cards.  I worked through several ideas but settled on this. It uses the symmetry print leftovers for the centers and a cool border print for the edges. I'll finish them off with metallic thread edges and will likely add some crystals. This is going to be a fine project to work on in bits of time over the next few days.
 Well, you know how nutty I get about my scraps. Here's yet another example. Sometimes I'm almost embarrassed to share just how weird I am about tiny bits of fabric. But, it's not as if you don't already know me well enough not to be surprised by another story. These are the cut-offs from making the border of the puppy quilt. After I finished the last border and was putting everything away I just could not toss the strips out. It's as if they were screaming "Postcards!" to me. So I made postcards.  I didn't want to put too much thought into it so I just started sewing strips to cards with the raw edges exposed. At this point I was thinking that I might applique a flower motif or something on them.  Some got applied horizontally and some vertically. Why? Because that's how long my strips were. Next it was time to really think about what to do with them.  I found these in my "Postcard Bin of Magical Things". I screen printed them a long time ago and they have just been waiting for a home. What could be more appropriate than some crazy ladies? I fused some Mistyfuse scraps to the backs and cut them out to be fused to the cards.  Not bad at all! But they needed a little something else.  Like some fabric marker to add a little color. The black edging was a perfect finish to reference the black lines of the :"drawing". This is a screen that I bought a long time ago and I honestly don't remember where I got it.  7 more postcards for my every-growing collection.
Probably not!  I've been working on this last set of shibori sea cards, that I'm calling Spring Shibori Sea, over the past week. I had a lot of the yellow sky bits thatwas enough for 14 of these cards! I'll be all set for our Airbnb guests next Spring. One of my recent guests, Jessica, comes here pretty regularly with her son to mountain bike and when she came last week she told me that she loves her cards and has them all on display in her house. That makes me very happy. The bright colors in this set of cards makes me very happy too.  I've been playing around with different sky stitching for each set of cards. On these I stitched straight lines in different designs. I don't really have a favorite design. Do you have a favorite? I like all of them and I really like the effect of the Superior Glitter thread. It's pretty finicky to sew with but worth it in the end. It's got great sparkle. Of course I have just about every color they made. I'll never use it all up.
In my ongoing efforts to purge some things from my all of my Drawers/Cabinets/Bins of Magical Things, I found something else that I'm thinking about turning into postcards so I might have even more to share soon. I really need to switch gears and start thinking about some Christmas designs but my head just can't go there yet.  Yet another set of shibori sunrise postcards! I'm calling these August to represent the oppressive heat of this month around here. August actually looks a lot more pleasant in these cards than in the reality of July and August in Virginia. I have two different shibori patterns to go with my orange sky bits. So, you're wondering what determines the orientation. That's all about the size of the sky bit that I have. I had some that were 4" wide and some that were 6" wide. These cards always start with the sky and then I dig around for a shibori fabric to pair with. So the sky piece determines the orientation and the depth of the ocean.
I'm trying to do a little something different for the sky in each of these Shibori sea postcards. For these I found the sparkly sheer fabric that's probably used in things like dance costumes. I fused some Mistyfuse on the back and then cut out some clouds to fuse to the cards.  A little metallic thread was perfect to stitch down the clouds. There are a total of 6 cards in this set. I only have one more set to make (as of today) but they are so much fun with them that you shouldn't be surprised if you see even more of them.
I had a great weekend. There wasn't much making going on (actually none) but there was celebrating happening. Today is Mom's (insert big number)th birthday and the whole family gathered at my house to celebrate. It was almost 100 outside but the AC kept us cool and happy inside. She should receive her card in the mail today.  If I don't have a fixed idea for a new card I'll often start here in the Drawer of Magical Things. The DOMT is full of random trim and other ephemera that I've collected over the years. Some people would call it trash but we know better. Here are just a few of the cards that come out of the DOMT. So that's where I started for Mom's card.  It took some determined digging but I eventually unearthed the fusible daisy ribbon. I then found a postcard base that was already fused with a beautiful hand dyed velvet. All I needed to make the card was some green thread.  For each of the stems I stitched with a very narrow zig zag and I stitched out and back for extra dimension. Because the background is velvet the stems needed that extra stitching to show.
I fused every one of those daisies on this card and I love how it turned out. It's just this kind of "win"that makes me buy more stuff for the DOMT. You can bet that the next time I'm in a trimmings store I'll probably buy more of something like this and it will sit in the DOMT until inspiration hits again. |
About Vicki
I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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