1, 2, 3 Quilted Postcards

As promised, here is a post about some quilted postcards I made recently.

Last August, shortly after seeing a video about quilted postcards, I contacted my quilting cousins/sister to see if they wanted to do an exchange at our retreat in February. They liked the idea, so it was set.

Then I forgot about it! At Christmas my sister asked me a question about the project and had to remind of it. (What a terrible exchange host I am!)

Less than a week after getting home from that Christmas visit, I started my first card.

I took a piece of white cotton and laid some strips on it, covering the entire surface--one overlapping the next, raw edges showing. Once I had it covered how I wanted, I sewed along any raw edge that was showing. I just used black thread for all of it, but you could make it more complicated and match thread if you wanted.

Then I had the idea to lay some tulle over it. (I just happen to have a roll of it.)

I cut the tulle a little larger than needed, spread it out over the surface, and sewed it down around the edges.

But, before I sewed down the last side,

I threw in some tiny fabric pieces I had cut up. I wanted them trapped under the tulle but loose and free to move around.

Next I added a few more strips on top of the tulle. First I put on some very thin strips, so thin they just needed one line of stitching and I could bend and curve them as I went. You can see a little bit of the centre blue one and the black on the right, and a tiny bit of the yellow on the bottom.

That step turned out not to have a big impact, because most of it was covered up when I decided to put some big "trees" in the foreground. To do that I added the strips of brown and sewed a wood grain pattern on it.

I finished it by attaching strips of black for the border (also raw edge) and appliquing a couple fussy cut flowers. The edges were finished with two rounds of zig zag stitch.

The last step was to add the paper card to the back. I used a 4x6 index card and sewed it on the machine from the front along the inside edge of the zig zag edging.

(The little gap you see is where I didn't sew over the pink flower.)

So that was a fun little project I finished in a day. I pinned it up on my board with plenty of time to finish the other two.

At the end of the month, my sister came to visit and, of course, I showed her the card. (I'm a big believer in show and tell on both sides of the interaction!)

She loved it. Maybe she was being polite the first time, but about the third time she picked it up again and said how much she loved it, I was taking note.

It so happens her birthday was the following week, so after she left, I mailed it to her as a birthday card! We had debated how well a quilted postcard would make it through the mail, and I put it to the test. It did just fine. She was very pleased:

Now it would seem I was down one postcard, but one cousin dropped out of the exchange. Not the best outcome, but convenient for me nonetheless! So there were still two to go.

One of the piles of fabric and stuff lying on my sewing machine table was various extra honeycombs I had cut for my Lucy Boston quilt, but not used. Most of them were from the gradient block I did. I went through all my fabric at the time and instead of pulling some out and having to put it all away again, I just cut a honeycomb from any fabric that might work. This gave me lots to choose from.

[too long; didn't read: I had lots of extra honeycombs.]

I decided to put them together in a random but pleasing sort of way to cover the surface of the card. I hand stitched them together and then decided to hand quilt as well.

I used the same color floss for all of them. Unlike the last postcard, I actually did use some batting in this one. I used a solid white for the backing.

Once it was stitched and quilted, I trimmed the edges straight. This little quilt did not want a zig zag edge, but called for a hand-stitched blanket stitch.

So that is what I did.

And now the final card. Like a third child, this poor postcard has no in-progress pictures! So here is the final result:

I did the letters with the improve method in Tonya Ricucci's book Word Play Quilts. I chose to make all of the letters from red fabric, but the word is subtle enough you have to look for it. I added the strip of people across the top because, well first because they're cute, but also to make the proportions work better.

I put batting in this one too and did straight line quilting mostly along the vertical lines of the letters and then some in between to even out the spacing. I didn't quilt over any part of the letters.

Neither of these fit the index cards I had, so I cut a back for each of them from a piece of white card stock. I sewed the paper onto the Hello card with no problem--once again using a straight stitch on the inside edge of the zig zag edging.

I did the same thing with the honeycomb card and it didn't not come out at all. That was the end of the day and I left it. By that time it was getting close to retreat time and didn't have a chance to do more than pull out the bad stitches.

With some embarrassment but hoping for some understanding, I gave the card to my cousin with promises to finish it before the weekend was done.

I was a little flummoxed as to what to do. I didn't trust just running it through the sewing machine again. The paper was perforated around the edge from the first stitching and sewing over it again may just separate the paper along the stitching line. I also didn't like how the perforations looked but I didn't want to use a new piece because I had done a little lettering design on it.

I finally hit on the idea of trimming the paper a little smaller, which would cut off most of the perforated part, and then sewing it by hand. I made holes with a needle along the edge of a ruler every quarter inch and then used the holes for some more blanket stitch.

Here is a peak at the lettering:

I did it on the other card as well, but no picture, because, you know, third child.

Here are all the cards we made and exchanged:

The ones gifted to me are the ones on the bottom of each "column". Lucky me!!

Christmas Card 2010

Ok, here's your warning. The gifts mentioned in this post are going to be given to people who may or may not be reading this post. If you think that might be you and you don't want to know, you should just carry on to the next blog. If on the other hand you don't mind possibly knowing ahead of time (after all, you won't know for sure if it's for you), then read away. It won't bother me...

This post will also be a little preview if you get a Christmas card from me. Some of you have gotten yours already, and the rest are still in the mail. I got mine out on the first of December this year!

I gave you a tiny preview the other day of the post card quilt I made. Here it is completely revealed:

I laid it on a piece of black velvet and this picture became the front of my card.

The original card was mounted on black velvet and then framed.

The last couple years, I just mailed the card as a postcard, but this year I wanted to do a little more. (If you're wondering about the size, the card is just a bit bigger than 5x7 and it is an 8x10 frame.)

The second card which didn't get picked for the Christmas card also found a lovely frame:

Merry Christmas, to all!

A Little Fun with Fabric

It's getting to be that time. That time when those of us who craft realize that we really have to get going on holiday projects. (Now normally, I don't like to even talk about Christmas until advent begins, but when you have to make stuff, preparations must be made!)

This weekend my determination was strong enough that I got out my sewing machine, some fabrics and lots of thread and worked on my annual postcard quilt. I turn a picture of the postcard into my Christmas card. (My last two can be seen at this post.)

As usual, my head was swimming with ideas, but I settled on a thread painting technique. I pulled out two scraps of  black velvets to try. I pulled out a lot of threads

and off I went.

I'm not going to show you the one I settled on. (Sorry, you'll have to wait until they're sent out.) but I could be persuaded to show a sneak peak:

While I had everything out I experimented with a second card. I wasn't quite as happy with it, but still not too bad.

After doing some free motion waves with snowflakes, I couched some of my leftover mohair

and then added some sparkle.

(Why not?)

I think it's good enough to send out to someone...now just who will it be??

I just love doing free motion. I think every time I do it, I love it more. I still do better when I have a shape or line to follow, but it's fun either way.

I finished both cards with a satin stitch and then couched more mohair around the edge. It makes a nice subtle frame.

Quilts as Postcards

Have you heard of the craze of making mini quilts and sending them as postcards? People love them because they can finish them in an afternoon and they make a very fun surprise to send to someone in the mail.

I made my first one last year shortly before Christmas and was inspired by some fabric triangles my sister sent me to show me the fabrics she was using in a quilt. Her bright scrappy and white quilt turned out wonderful and the little fabric bits she sent me were irresistible. That inspiration turned into the following postcard:

Lessons learned from that postcard were 1. shortcuts can be fun (I would normally want to piece a pinwheel, but just slapping down some half-square triangles worked and was much easier); 2. you really do need to stick down applique pieces or they will slide around; and 3. more stabilizer is better, especially with the heavy sewing I needed for the lettering.

Then I struggled with what to do with it; I mean, obviously I couldn't make one for everyone on my Christmas card list! So I settled on this plan: I would send the postcard to my sister, for indeed she had inspired me to make it, and then I would take a picture of it to use in the general Christmas card I sent out to the rest of the list.


I "borrowed" a friend's Christmas tree and got this picture of my postcard sitting in it:

and I then used the picture in a Christmas postcard:
I was happy with the solution. I really didn't want to send a postcard with just my mug on it because what does that say about Christmas? Not much. So this way I got a Christmas message, and could also pass along a personal picture which does say something about my life. (Like in this case, "I cut a lot of wood this year!")

So this year, the same question: what to do for a Christmas card? A friend had given me some gold lame scraps and I had some nice leftover fabric from my Hawaiian Star quilt sitting on my desk. This was the leftover pieces from the fabric I'm only using the dark parts of. And it grew on me that I wanted to do a star. There are so many quilt options for stars and I settled on a simple Sawtooth Star:
I had some gold thread already as well, so it was perfect for the quilting. I started in the center and just sewed outward in a gentle arcs. I wanted to imitate the general shape of a galaxy (as seen from very far away, obviously).

The main thing learned from this postcard was that you really do need to have a very stiff layer in the middle (this one isn't stiff enough to mail on its own). And gold lame is very hard to photograph.

And then I took a picture of the postcard sitting in the evergreen bush in my front yard and made that the front of the card.

The inside of the card has a small family pic printed on the upper half and the quote,

"We saw his star in the east

and have come to worship him."

printed in the usual place. I had it all printed up at WalMart.com and they turned out pretty good. I hope to have them all out by tomorrow. (Phew!) I had Troy write up this year's letter which was a load off my mind.

So who's getting the "real" card this year? Sorry...I'm keeping that secret so it won't spoil the surprise when they get it!

Good luck with your Christmas/Holiday/Seasonal cards this year...give them some thought and I'm sure the recipients will appreciate it.

All for now,

christina