Is it Autumn yet?

I sure want it to be autumn, but the weather here is still acting like it is the middle of summer. I am ready for some nice fall breezes and pumpkins sitting on my porch. So in anticipation of that, I have signed up for some autumn themed postcard swaps. These four cards I made for the ladies in my Art4Mail group. My initial plan was to embroider some leaves onto some orange fabric and put them on top of some corn printed fabric, but then I got to thinking that I already had some leaves embroidered out. Two years ago, I made myself a fancy Halloween hat. On the hat I embroidered all different sorts of autumn motifs. But before I put the final design on the hat, I sewed out a few samples to make sure they would sew out like I wanted. Being the pack rat that I am though, I couldn't throw away those samples. They have been sitting in a bin in my closet for two years.
It's a good thing I kept them. they were perfect for the cards I had planned to make.  So I went to my closet and got them right out of the bin they were in. I may keep lots of things, but I know where almost everything is. I seem to have a bin for everything and everything fits into a bin. :)
Below is a picture of the hat I made. After going through my photos of Halloween two years ago, I realized I didn't have a good photo of the hat, so I had my littlest one pose in it on the front porch for me this afternoon so I could show you what it looks like. I got the pattern from Embroidery Library.com. That is my favorite place to shop for embroidery designs. They have almost everything I am looking for and I get the designs instantly on my computer once I pay for them. The site is awesome! They actually have two sites. One that sells the designs (emblibrary.com) and another that has all sorts of free project links.

Pizzazz QTCs

Postcard Pizzazz had a quite a few QTC swaps with colors as themes. One of them was called Summer Glitz 2 for 1. We each made a gold and silver QTC and sent it to our partners. Here are my two. In the beginning I read the rules wrong and was making ONE card with silver and gold on it. So that is why my silver card has some traces of gold. I had already finished the silver one when I realized my mistake. But the ladies in my swap said they were fine receiving the silver card the way it was. I was glad of that otherwise I would have had to make another whole set of silver ones.


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These were made for the Pink QTC swap. I took bits and pieces of all my pink fabrics and ironed them onto the peltex and then added a chain stitch to cover up the raw edges. Then I added some form of embellishment to all the pieces, except the very thing pink stripped one at the very bottom left. It was too small to add anything. I didn't want it to get stuck under the needle down there while I had to sew on the edging. These were the only ones I remembered to take a group photo of. The others I had put in envelopes and had them ready to mail out. So I had to take a photo of the ones I saved for myself.

This one is my version of a BLUE QTC. The center blue is what was leftover from me trying to make blue inchies. It is s stiff piece of Peltex covered with some light blue fabric. I can't seem to throw anything away. Even if it is only one inch. I think to myself, I can use that in some other project in the future. And sure enough, the little one inch covered square finally found a new home on this blue QTC.








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I liked the feel and texture of the raised blue square on my blue QTC, so I decided to try that same technique in my purple QTCs. This time I punched out the letter P in purple covered peltex. Instead of sewing it down with yarn, as I did in the blue QTCs, I used a blanket stitch to hold the letter down. Underneath the P is some shiny purple fabric. It is hard to tell that it shines on the photo, but in person it looks great. I couched some cording around the shiny fabric to hide its raw edges, and then finished the corners of the card with some free motion quilting. Once all the QTCs have been traded I will have a wonderful unique rainbow in 3.5in x 2.5in rectangles.

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My time wasn't used making just QTCs lately, I also made a regular sized postcard.

I had plenty of butterflies and dragonflies left over from my Jars and Bottles Swap, so I used them for a few more postcards for my Art2Mail #46 swap. This time I added some grass for them to fly around in with a nice blue sky and the card wouldn't be complete without some free motion quilting in the graa and sky.

Where did August Go??

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted anything here in over a month. Were did August go? It came and went faster than I anticipated. I guess I was busy with kids, vacation, the last days of summer, and school starting that the month just flew by. But I was not unproductive, I did manage to find time to create a few goodies for the ladies in my swap groups:




These three sets of ATCs (artist trading cards) were made for the Alphabet/Numbers swap on IFQ. These were for round 9. I was assigned the Number 4, the Letter N (Night), and the Letter T (Tiny Turtle). These were mailed out on the 29th of August. This is my third time participating in these rounds. The goal is to collect all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9. I have just been putting them in a basket on my coffee table to enjoy them as I receive them, but now I think it is time to make the Alphabet wall hanger to see how many I have of each letter, and to see which ones I need to fill in my alphabet gaps.



This card was made for a "My Garden" swap in the Art4Mail yahoo group. When I signed up for this one, I automatically thought of my vegetable garden. It is the only type of garden I have. I definitely don't have a green thumb and I am lucky my tomato plants have survived the whole summer this year. I hand cut out each of these vegetables and appliqued them onto the card.





Here I decided to try a new technique I saw on someone else's web page. They had taken yarns and other fibers to create a background. So I tried it myself. I put a piece of decor bond, sticky side up and layered orange, blue and purple yarns on it. Then I ironed it down to make them stick. They were a little fuzzy and I wasn't sure they would go through the mail without a clear envelope, so I used some tule and layered it over the threads to hold down the fibers that were sticking up. Then I added some orange fish and finished it up.


I was just playing around with some leftover shapes that I had cut out and came up with this card. I had punched out a lot of clouds out of white fabric earlier in the year for some other post cards and I had a few left over, So i turned them into a "Every cloud has a silver lining" card. I used some silvery crochet thread and hand couched it to the bottom of the clouds.


The Alphabet... The theme for this swap was " What A means..". I had the idea of Alphabet automatically but wasn't sure how to put that on a card. Then I saw this image online. It is a actually a quiz. Every letter comes from a logo of a famous American brand. I fancied it up with some zigzag stitches in between the letters and some green and yellow iron on gems. I mailed it to its recipient and told her to email me when she got it and I would send her the answers. I had fun with this one. :)


This next card was made for a "Jars and Bottles" swap for my ArtsNtheMail group. I picked some organza, cut it in the shape of a jar and put some bright butterflies and a dragonfly escaping the jar. I really like the way this one turned out.









Here is my finished Light house card. I embroidered the lighthouse onto some blue fabric and then free motioned quilted around it. On the bottom I tried to mimic the waves that were already in the embroidery design. If you look close you can see the curvy waves of the original design blending with my own free motion design. On the top I changed the free motion to an echo design, echoing the shapes of the top of the light house and the clouds. I love the texture that the quilting designs have made. This is one I like to hold and feel it as well as look at.

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.

Green Delights

I have been working mostly green lately. Below are some green QTC's, (cutsies, or Quilters Trading Cards) that I made for Postcard Pizzaz group. Partners are not even assigned yet, but these are ready early. First time that has happened. I usually finsish my items the day before mail date is set. ;) But for these, I was using my machine to embroider lighthouses for another swap, (those will be posted later when I finish them) and needed something to do in between thread changes, so I did all these green QTC's by hand, except for the border. I did the border after the machine was done with all the embroidery I had set up for it.


I stitched down the green fleece trim with solid green beads. Then I added little leaves to make it look sort of like a vine. On all the polk a dots that were not too close to the edge, I added some transparent shiny green beads. All green. :)



This card is also for Postcard Pizzaz. It is for a 1 to 1 swap. I really like making these. This is my sixth one. But I have about 20 more ready for the hand embroidery to be added. Such fun. ;) I can't seem to just sit and watch TV, or movies, or play on the computer for that matter without some thing in my hands to work on. Just as an example, I finished this postcard while playing WOW last night during the down time in between arena ques. :)

July Creations

July has gone by faster than I anticipated. I have spent a good part of the month traveling and visiting relatives. But I did find time to get some postcards made for some of the swaps I am in.

This is my version of an "Underwater" swap. I picked a background fabric that reminded me of water and then printed out an underwater scene and ironed it on. Then added an orange starfish for more color and finally did some circle free motion quilting on the blue background. I like the way it makes the card feel with that type of quilting. I can feel little "bubbles" in the fabric.

I made these red flowery ones for an Art 2 Mail swap. These three fabrics are my three favorite out of my whole stash. :)

This card started out as a "Purple Haze" card for a swap earlier this year. I didn't like the way it was turning out though, so I let it sit. This month, I added some yellow stitches and a fancy yellow fabric edging and I must say I really like the way this one turned out. I wanted to keep it for myself, but I was a good swapper and mailed it out to it's destination. :)



I had some leftover hands punched out of blue fabric from a previous project and wondered what on earth I could do with them. I laid them on the post card in what seemed like hundreds of different layouts. I finally decided on this one, My version of an Inkblot. I like how it turned out.

This card was made for a flying Geese swap. I received some really great ones so far though that blew mine out of the water. They are pictured below. The first is from Vicky, the second is from Barbara. These women are great piecers.

I had a box full of rolls of ribbon that didn't have enough yardage to make much of anything with. Instead of throwing them out, I decided to make postcards out of them. I took all that extra bits of ribbon and wove them together. I had enough varieties to make 14 different cards. I sent them to the ladies in one of my Art 2 Mail groups, and of course kept one for me. :)

This is the latest card I have made. Its is for a July Mingle swap. July and Watermelons go great together, So I stitched out this Sunbonnet Sue and added some squiggly quilting around her. She is going all the way to Germany.

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.

Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt

I have to go to the Farmers Festival this Saturday to represent the quilt guild I am in. Since I am one of the few members who live in Lake City, where the festival is being held, I was put in charge of the event. I called the ladies at the Bean Museum, the place we were asked to set up, and asked what they expected of us while we were there. They said they would like us to set up a quilt frame, demonstrate hand quilting, and be on hand to answer any questions anyone may have about quilting in general.


Well, I had a home made quilt frame, but I didn't have a quilt top to put on it. So, I made this scrappy log cabin for the event. I wanted to make it small, (45in x 60in) because I knew if I made it too big, it would sit a very long time till I could finish any handwork that wouldn't get done at the festival.


I prefer to machine quilt my quilts because I like to see quick progress and machine quilting gives me just that. I do like the look of hand quilting as well, though, and have tried it a few times, so hopefully I won't look too much like a novice at the festival Saturday

IFQ ATC's Round 8

I finished up my last of three sets of ATC's for IFQ. Pictures are due tomorrow, but I posted mine today. I had two sets already finished and ready to go, I just had to finish up my "R is for Rocky River". I like to post all the photos at the same time so I waited till today to post the photos when the edge on the R cards were finished.

They were going to be R is for Rocky Road, but the wavy road I punched out of fabric looked more like a river when I was finished. I first thought, "oh, a dark blue road would bring some color to the card instead of such a dark black." But the waviness of the road made it look more like a river so I changed the name to Rocky River. My other letter was B, so I made a Blue Balloon in Bubbles. And my last assignment was the #6. I racked my brain for weeks trying to come up with something for that, but all that kept coming to my mind was the Six Fingered Man from the movie, The Prince's Bride. So I printed the six fingered hand out on fabric, as well as a little image of his face and put a quote from the movie and sewed it all together.

I should get my partners on the 19th or 20th and then swapping can begin.

"Rocky River" & "Blue Ballon in Bubbles"

"Six Fingered Man"