Practicing My Needle work.

Fabric postcards are a wonderful size on which to practice my needle work.  You can really practice any technique you want on these little beauties.  And I can't think of anyone who doesn't like receiving them in the mail.  :)

Embroidered Daisies Postcard

I spent the afternoon working on this postcard.  At first I was in the process of cutting out purple fabric for a quilt I'm working on. But as I was cutting, out of the blue, I thought that four of these purple triangles would look great on a postcard.  So I fiddled with them on a blank 4x6 piece of peltex and started adding more fabrics.  Then I thought to myself, it would look great with some hand embroidery on it.  So I got out my DMC floss and fiddled around.  I am still a beginner hand embroiderer and this is the first time I have done straight stitching to make a design, but I think it turned out lovely.  Now I just need to decide who should receive this in the mail.  :)

Hand Embroidered Post Card

I really like hand embroidery, but I have to admit I am a real beginner. I bought a couple books a few months ago to help me learn some new stitches and I found myself spending more time pouring over those books instead of making the actual stitches. So for my 1 to 1 post card swap I decided to practice some of those stitches again instead of just looking at them. I pulled out one of my frog post card tops (I think I have about 20 left to finish) and got to work. I have to say these are some of my favorite postcards to make. I hope the recipient feels the same way. :)

Black and Orange

I saw this orange and black fabric at the store awhile ago and was automatically drawn to it. But, since I am on a fabric diet, I refrained from buying it. Later on in the month though, I had to make a witch costume for Halloween and the person who wanted the costume had specific color requests for the costume: the dress had to be black, orange, purple, and green. Well, I knew exactly where to go to get the orange and black. :) And since I always buy a little extra material for my projects, (in case I screw up) I had plenty left over to make these post cards. These cards were made for the ArtsNtheMail Black and Orange swap. From the beginning, I had envisioned embellishing the black squares with some orange something or other, but wasn't quite sure how I wanted to do it. Then I decided hand work was the way to go. I alternated between rows of Daisy flowers with a bead center and a row of clustered french knots. I love the way it turned out. The best part is running my fingers over the top and feeling the texture of the thread. I hope the ladies who receive them like them as much as me.

Crazy Quilt Blocks

I'm still fairly new to crazy quilting and have only really done it on postcards. This time I joined a 8inch Crazy Quilt Block swap in my Art4Mail yahoo group. It was very different for me to work on flimsy fabric instead of a stablized post card. I think they turned out pretty good though. They are very similar to the postcards I posted a while ago. Same fabric. The swap said not to use cotton, and since almost every fabric in my stash is cotton, I had to resort back to these silks I had. I hope they ladies in my group like them.

Playing in the Scrap Box

All my scraps go into organized bins or containers depending on size. But there are always some odd shaped scraps that don't quite fit into any of the categories I have set up. So I put these odd scraps in their own bin. Sometimes this bin starts to over flow, so this is when I raid that scrap bin and use the scraps from it to make postcards. Below are some of the creations I have made this week with some of the scraps from the odd shaped scrap bin.

These Fish are for the ArtsNtheMail July Lottery. Do I feel lucky this month? The drawing for the winner should be done by tomorrow. There are lots of lovely cards posted in the ArtsNtheMail photo album for this month's lottery. If I win, I will get them all. If not, I will send my card to the winner. We shall see who the lucky one is this month.... (update 8/1/08 - I will be sending this card to Amy in CO)

I had lots of scraps with wonder under on the back. So I took those, cut them up into tiny scraps, and made another Bits and Scraps postcard. I do like these. This one is going to one of the ladies in my Art2Mail group.

These two were made from the brown scraps I had left over from the all brown postcards I made earlier in the year. This time, though, I added some blue stitches to accent the brown. These are also going to some ladies in my Art2Mail group.

I finished two more frog postcards this week as well. One is going to a friend who so kindly sent me an extra crazy quilt postcard, and the other is going to one of the ladies in PostCard Pizzazz for our 1 to 1 swap.

QTC's and More

I have been playing around with more QTC's (Quilters Trading Cards), which can be pronounced cutsies if you like. :) They are the quilters version of the ATC (artist trading card). Here are three I have made recently. Two were for some red QTC swaps I was in and one was for a swap called QTC: gone fishing.

I have also been working on more postcards...

These were made for a fun swap called a Rainbow swap. Each person in the swap picked a color of the rainbow and was in charge of mailing out that color to the rest of the group. I picked red, of course. ;)

I made a few extras, one for myself and for some other people who enjoy the color red.

Close up of one of the red postcards. I did some meandering quilting on this red fabric, then added some seed beads on the shadows of the fabric design.

More frogs... I really enjoy doing hand work on these novelty frog fabrics. This time I tried a new flower with a viney stem. I love the way it turned out. This one went out in the mail for a one to one swap. I hope the recipient loves it as much as I do. These frog cards, with all the hand embroidery stitches, are some of my hardest to mail out. I would really love to keep them all. :)

The fourth is coming up so of course I signed up for some festive 4th postcard swaps. This card is one I made for those swaps. I took bits and pieces of red, and blue fabric and covered the card. Then I placed tulle over the bits and did some free hand meandering to keep the tulle in place. I wonder-undered a white firecracker on the top and stitched it down. I finished it off with a thin zig zag stitch on the the edge and sent them off in the mail.

Crazy for Postcards

I just finished up my crazy quilt postcards. Both Artsnthemail and Postcard Pizzazz had a crazy quilt swap and I signed up for both of them. Artsnthemail had a little more rules than the other group, but I used the same rules for all the cards.

Rules:

1. Had to have 6 different fabrics.

2. Each seam had to have decorative hand embroidered stitches.

3. At least one seam had to have beads incorporated in it.

4. In the center of one of the patches a hand embroidered motif had to stitched. (ok, I may have left this off on some of them, but they were all on there for the ladies in Artsnthemail.)

I had to make three for each group, and I made one for myself so that is a total of 7. They are so much fun I was actually disapointed that I was finished. But, I guess I could always make more. :)

The fabrics I used came from a specimen book of silks from Grum-Ko Silk Co. I got the book from my husband's Grandmother. On the front of the book it says "1960-1961, Coast to Coast, Grum-Ko Silks, Novelty Linings". I'm not sure if the company exists today, I haven't been able to find anything about it on google.

This is the one I kept for myself. It was a hard choice, but I picked this one because of the red flowers on the black silk.

More Postcards

This week I have been busy working on our attic with my hubby again. We have almost finished all four dormers and if the weather stays nice, they should all be completely finished by the end of this week. Then we can call the roofers and get our new roof. I will be glad of that.


This attic business has put me a little behind on some of the swaps I have signed up for, but this morning I put the binding on the last of the postcards that were past due and sent them out this afternoon.



This is the one I finished this morning, I made six of these for two different swaps: Fabricards "Go Make Something" and FAPC "Mini Quilt". The little pinwheels have been sitting in my sewing room for years just waiting for me to do something with them. This made them the perfect choice for the "go make something" cards. We were suppose to use something that has been unused in the sewing room. They also fit perfect for the "Mini Quilt" swap for FAPC. I have a hard time coming up with ideas for the swaps so when I come up with one and it fits for two groups, I run with it.


This next one is for ArtsNTheMail group. The theme was "Potty about Pink". I signed up for this one thinking I had lots of pink things to put on there, but as I searched through my stash of things I realized I didn't have as much as I thought. So I put together what I had and it turned out just great. Sometimes the simplest things turn out the best.


I made these for the Pick-A-Word swap for Fabricards. Can you guess the word I picked?

These went out in the mail last week.



These two were made for 1 to 1 swaps. Since all the stitches on these were hand done (except the edging), I was able to work on these while riding in the car and waiting to pick up kids from school. The frog fabric came from left over scraps my Mother-in-law had. I cut out the frogs and other images and turned them into postcards. I have lots more pieces of that and really enjoy hand stitching on these. I really like the look and feel of them when they are finished. So there will most likely be more of these types of postcards on the blog soon.


This postcard was also made from a peice of that same frog fabric. I made this one for ArtsNTheMail's 200 Challenge. The rules were to have 200 of something on the card. I chose to put 200 french knots on my card. I followed the graphic and put the knots on the leaves, flowers, and bugs. I thought 200 was a large number and would take up a lot of space, but once I was finished, I realized that 200 is not that many at all. The knots are very small and didn't take up nearly as much space as I thought. But I still like the look and feel of how it turned out.

Playing Catch Up.

I have spent the past couple days playing catch up with my post card swaps. I had to help my hubby build a couple of these dormers, which has cut into my cut into my sewing time.

I was able to squeeze in a little sewing. Not as much as I would have liked, but here is what I came up with this week:

"Beautiful Brown" postcards for ArtsntheMail, I only had two brown fabrics in my whole stash. so I had to go buy the background. I had lots of buttons to put on them though.

This was also for ArtsintheMail. This is "Starts with D". I chose the word "dew". Its hard to see in the photo, but there are small glass beads sewn onto the grass to represent the dew.

This card was made for Bobbie for the FAPC hand embroidery swap. I really enjoyed making this one. I hand stitched around each fabric square and added some extra stitches near the bottom. Then finished it off with a blanket stitch.

This swap was also for FAPC. It was titled "Red, Black, White Abstract". Can you tell red is my favorite color? It turned out to be the dominate shade in these post cards. I liked them so much I had to make a bunch. I only needed 5 for this swap, but I plan on sending the others to the ladies in my Art to Mail group.

I have a few more swaps I need to catch up on. After that I plan on getting back to some serious quilting. I have lots of projects rolling around in my head and the first thing I want to make is a disappearing nine-patch quilt. I love the regular nine patch, so this should be a breeze. I also am excited to start working on my Butterfly Beauty Quilt. I have received two blocks in the mail already. Only 8 more to go and I can get sewing on that. Can't wait!

Beaded Embroidery

I thought I would try my hand at beaded embroidery, and what better size to practice on then a 4 x 6 fabric post card. I sewed each of those beads on by hand. It was time consuming, but very relaxing for me. I have seen tutorials online that show how to sew beads on by machine, which would probably make the process slighty faster, but I really enjoy the hand work.


Here is what I came up with.



I also played around with my embroidery machine and made this little cutie. She is the May girl from my Girls of the Month Series. She will be sent to Mary A. for the fabricards May Mingle swap.
On a side note, I have actually been working on something other than post cards this week. (Maybe I can finally break my addiction to these little works of art and get back to my regular quilting.)
I have been putting the finishing touches on some butterfly quilt blocks. Keep an eye out for those pictures...