More Fabric Postcards

Hello again!

I wasn’t sure I’d make it back here before Monday but here I am.  The Craft Sale was well-attended, though not everyone was buying.  There are always a lot of “Lookie Lou’s” who are just there to see what someone else is making.  That never bothers me because I do the same thing when I go to fairs, don’t you?   I look around and see what’s hot and  if I like it, I might buy ONE so I can use it for a pattern, right?  Sometimes just a look is enough.  Anyway, my fabric postcards were my “Hot” item as they were last Spring.  They are a novelty here.  No one else makes them and many people have never seen them and have trouble believing they can actually be mailed with a postage stamp (first class)!

I would have to say the most popular postcards today looked like this:

Fruities

A number of gals here snatched these up to send back to their gal pals with “Wish you were here” messages.  I have only three of them left so I’ll have to make up some more before the December show.  About half my inventory is gone.  I think  that’s great!  I love making the cards and people seem to love buying them.

I do have a few I made last Spring that I’m still holding on to.  I love them and can’t figure out why they aren’t selling, but several of them I’m forwarding to a fund-raiser for Alzheimer’s research.  I’ll tell you more about that when I get the details.

Here are a few more I don’t think I’ve shown you before.

Chili Man and Western Dude

Fish is Fish

This reminds me of modern art.  It’s the last of my Fish postcards. I have no more of the fabric and don’t know if I can find it again.

Motor Home

The last of my RV postcards.  This is another fabric I’m not sure I can replace, and the postcards were really popular; the fabric showed different types of RVs all with a vintage look.  Popular!

Birds in a Bush

I love these.  They look like watercolors and this is the last on those.

I’m looking forward to creating more, different postcards.  However, I have something else weighing on my mind now.

I just checked Barbara Brackman’s “Material Culture” website and realized I am SIX blocks behind.  How did that happen?  I’ve been keeping up since last January and since we got on the move to come down here, I’m been side-tracked.  I think I’ll have to get them done this weekend or in the early part of the week BUT I have Christmas gifts to finish.   I’m not sure which is going to come first.

Isn’t that always the way with us quilters?   So many quilt projects, so little time or should I say, SEW many quilt projects, SEW little time.

I’m off to cut some large pieces of fabric into smaller pieces of fabric and sew it all back into a larger piece of fabric.  That’s my DH’s description of quilting.  I keep telling him it’s no different from his woodworking projects.  He buys large lengths of lumber and cuts them into smaller lengths of lumber which he then screws and nails into larger projects.   It sure sounds the same to me.  Did you ever get accused of that?

If all goes well, I’ll have some Civil War quilt blocks to show you next time I sign in here.  Happy Weekend, everyone.

Finishing Projects for a Fair and Finishing a Book

What have you been doing this evening?  I’ve been busy trying to finish the rest of the items I’m planning to put in the Craft Fair on Saturday.  With Thanksgiving coming and the requisite cooking/baking, I won’t get much more done before the Fair.

I’ve finished up my fabric postcards. I used Carol Doak‘s Holiday Ornament paper-piecing pattern to make my snowman postcards.  It went together very well, but I just couldn’t decide what to team the snowmen up with.  The snowmen made 3″ blocks so I had to add more in order to put them on the 4″x6″ postcards.  I decided to make some of them have a Christmas look and others just a wintry look.

 

O’ Christmas Tree fabric postcard

"Follow the Star" strip-pieced fabric card

“Follow the Star” is strip-pieced and quilted and placed on the diagonal for this card.  The star is blanket-stitched on top of the strip-piecing.

 

Snowman Fabric Postcards

“Lost Mitten”, “Starry Night”, “Let it Snow” and “Up with the Birds”.  Snowflake fabric for the writing area on the back.

The other item I finished it a little hanging message.  I actually punch-needle embroidered the message quite a while ago but couldn’t decide what to do with it.  This afternoon I decided it would make a cute hanging sign.  “Live Simply” is a wonderful motto to remind each of us that we don’t need so much “stuff” and can live with less than we do.

"Live Simply" hanging sign

The last two things I have to finish tomorrow afternoon AFTER I make a lemon meringue pie for Thursday is two small denim pouches, perfect for credit cards and bit of cash which fits into your pocket for shopping with two hands.  I’ll show you them when they are done.

Today in our quilting group, we learned to make fabric bowls.  They were so interesting to make.  Everyone said they’d seen them before and thought they must be very difficult to make.  With the help of a great teacher, we all were able to make progress.  Some finished, some didn’t.  I believe we agreed that we’d share them with everyone Sunday night during the Ice Cream Social so I will be sure to get DH to take some photos when the group gathers to show off the bowls.  The directions were based on the books by Linda Johansen.

I had to return my library book today.  Fortunately I was able to read it in its entirety before its due date.  The book is HUGE but great reading.  I listened to the first five books of the “Clan of the Cave Bear” series by Jean Auel over the last few months.  I had read them years ago when they first came out but listening to them on the iPhone iPod feature was fabulous.  I enjoyed them so much.  The newest book, The Painted Caves, wasn’t available on audio-book as it’s quite new.  Jean Auel does a fantastic amount of research into the anthropological, and social, history of early man and the locations where they have been historically proven to have been.  She weaves such a story of these people and their lives together.   Ayla and Jondalar are an amazing couple and with their animals and their daughter they present us with details about the actual living arrangements of the early Peoples.  The domestication of horses and wolves (the forerunners of our domestic dogs of today) add a great deal of interest to the story.  Their travels from one end of the earth to the other, taking years to achieve, tell a lot about what the topography was like during/after the Ice Age.   Living among mammoths and aurochs and other long-gone animals seems so exciting while reading this book.  I recommend this series highly.  They are entertaining and educational–what a mix!

I was lucky to get another book I’ve been reading about lately.  Jennifer Chiaverini‘s latest book, The Wedding Quilt, was available to check out so I grabbed it.  I had read about it on her blog and was eager to get it.  I’ll give you a review of the book after I’ve finished it, but I expect it to be just as good as all the other Elm Creek Quilts novels have been.

That’s it for tonight.  Good night, sleep tight!

 

 

 

Fabric Tray or Carrier Tutorial

Today I am going to do a tutorial on making a fabric tray or carrier.  I have photos to share along the way and I think most anyone with some sewing skills can master this one quickly.  It’s a nice gift idea and handy to have around the house.

These can be made in any dimensions including as large as a 9″x13″ size which is great for slipping your 9×13 casserole dish in to carry it to a covered dish supper or just put on the table when company comes.

Supplies:  2 rectangles of your choice.  Cut rectangles 14 1/2″x18″ for a completed 9″x13″ carrier; batting the same size if you plan to use it for hot dishes; eight 2″x10″ strips; two 2 1/2″x42″ strips for binding edge.

Step One:

Rectangles of any size

Cut two rectangles of whatever size you wish.   This one is 8″ x 10″ approximately.   I like to use two contrasting fabrics.  Cut batting to same size.

Step Two:  Determine what color you want to use for the binding and ties.  I chose the red here.  Cut eight strips 2″x10″ for ties.  Fold the raw edges inside to the center line and press again so that strip measures 1/2″  wide.  Turn under raw edge on one side.  Topstitch edge as shown below.

I like to chain stitch all my ties to save time.

Step Three:  Lay your two rectangles right sides out, with batting in between.  Pin or baste as needed, then quilt a large X through the center from corner to corner.  I only do this if I’m adding batting which I usually don’t.  Baste around the outside.

Step Four: Mark 2 1/2″ in from the corners of the rectangles.  Pin your strips at these points with the free ends laying across the inside of the triangle.  Keep the free ends away from the stitching that comes next.

Step Five:   Stitch the binding around the rectangle as you would a quilt. Be sure to catch the tie ends in the seam.

Step Six:  Fold over the binding and stitch down, either by machine using a decorative stitch or by hand-stitching.

I machine stitched using a decorative stitch.

Knot the ties to complete the carrier.  This carrier is actually reversible if you wish.

Same tray reversed.

I hope you enjoy making these trays for yourself and for gifts.  I have made some with batting inside, some with bonding the two layers together with Heat N Bond to add a bit of stiffness and most of them with just the two layers of fabric for a nice soft tray.

The thing I love about these is they can be stored flat, untied, and you can stack all of the unused ones together and keep them neat and ready to grab at a moment’s notice.  Enjoy!

I’m going to share a few of the fabric postcards I’ve been working on.  We have a craft fair the Saturday after Thanksgiving so my turkeys will be in the mail rather than up for sale.

Paper pieced turkeys, design by Quilters Club of America

Printed fabric embellished with hand-quilting and beading

Beading and hand-quilting embellishments

Father Christmas hand-quilted. His tree has beaded decoration

Backs for postcards have snowflake fabric in writing area

That’s it for today.   Hope you are enjoying these posts. I’m enjoying preparing them you!

Catching Up

We all have days when we just need to step back and decide it’s time to catch up, don’t we?   Well, today begins my catch-up.  I am five blocks behind in my Civil War quilt blocks.  I don’t know how that happened as I was all caught up “just the other day”.  You all know how that is, don’t you?   Time flies by so quickly and with the hurricane last weekend I lost a few days I guess.

Anyway, I’m going to do those starting as soon as I get off here.  I’ve been “playing” with some more postcards.  I really enjoy making fabric postcards and they don’t take long to do, like a quilt.   Here’s a few I’ve made recently.

Here are two fabric postcards I made recently.

 

The cowboy–I’m so tempted to call him “The Marlboro Man” but cigarette smoking was NEVER cool so I’m not going to name it that–is made of two separate fabric.  Did the background work out great for this one?  “Chili Pepper” is essentially one piece of fabric which I’ve quilted.  I just thought he was a cool dude.  That fabric came from a scrap I bought out of the scrap bin at Keepsake Quilting in Center Harbor, New Hampshire one day for 25 cents.  He made me smile and I hope he does you too.

These two nature scenes were fun to create.

I’ve seen so many bird nests projects in the past six months, starting with a lovely acrylic painting I saw in Alabama last April.  The artist told me she was creating it for a wedding gift and it was so much fun to watch her add the slashes of browns, taupes, tans, and even a green here or there to make the nest.  My bird’s nest is scraps of various shades of brown and holds three blue eggs.  Some free motion quilting or maybe even thread sketching might describe how I held the scraps in place.

My bird postcard is all applique.  The bird is from a very fabric with a very watercolor-y look which I loved.  Then I just added a brown fabric branch, one fabric leaf and free-motioned quilted the other leaves in place.  The sky fabric I’ve had for longer than I care to admit, in hopes that I’d make a landscape quilt.  Well, here’s my landscape quilt only much smaller than I imagined making way back then.

In case you don’t make or know much about fabric postcards, these are all mailable.  Sometimes the post office will determine they have to be hand-canceled if there’s a chance of them jamming the postage machine.  I’ve never been charged an extra fee to have them hand-canceled but I would just warn you that if you make and mail one, it might happen.  I think it’s about 20 cents extra if they hand-cancel.  They are 4″x6″ or slightly under and must be within a certain thickness.  One post office actually fitted the postcards I was mailing through a guide sheet which has a slot  cut the maximum thickness allowed. They normally mail for the same price as any other paper postcard, at least all of mine have.

I did some fabric postcards earlier this summer for a fabric postcard swap.  It was part of a paper-piecing group that I am part of on Yahoo.  One requirement was that each postcard had to contain a paper-pieced pattern by Carol Doak, the creator of the group.  Carol has hundreds of paper pieced designs available.   Check out her store at www.caroldoak.com for her products.   I was given three names to send my cards to and plenty of time to make them.  In return I received three postcards.  It was lots of fun anticipating what my received cards would look like.

One of Carol Doak's house designs

It wasn’t necessary to embellish the Carol Doak design in any fashion but it did need to make up a 4″x6″ postcard size so I decided to give the house some shrubs and a neighboring tree.

Here is a word card.

This postcard was one I made from Carol Doak’s paper-pieced letter patterns.  I decided to add the hummingbird since I sit at my machine and watch the hummingbirds outside the window at the feeder while I sew.   The H and I made the perfect 4″x6″ size for a fabric postcard.

"Faith"

This fabric postcard was made from two different fabrics.  The “Faith” saying is on a blue background on one fabric that actually has many other Biblical quotes printed around on the fabric-spaced perfectly for my use on fabric postcards.  The lilac fabric was another fabric which I “fussy cut” and placed as needed to decorate the card, and in one spot cover some writing I didn’t want showing.  I sent this one to a friend facing a lengthy recovering from surgery.

Want to make one of your own?  Here’s a very abbreviated set of directions.  You can find these directions by Googling “fabric postcards” online.  That’s where I found mine.

You will want a 4″x6″ piece of fabric, a 4″x6″ piece of fabric stabilizer (I use Pellon Peltex), either a cardstock plain postcard or a 4″x 6″ piece of plain tightly woven fabric such as muslin, spray fabric adhesive or buy the Peltex with adhesive on one side.

You add whatever you want to the surface of the first 4″x6″ fabric depending on whether you want to make it fancier than it was to start with or just leave it as it.  Next cut the Peltex to 4″x6″ and adhere your muslin or cardstock by spraying with the spray adhesive.

Place your fabric design onto the reverse side of the Peltex and stitch around the four sides close to the edge.  So it’s like a sandwich:  design fabric right side up, Peltex, Muslin.  I always do a satin stitch around the edges to cover the raw edges and keep the sandwich together.  I find it easier if I have sewn around the four sides with a straight stitch first.

I like to quilt on my postcards so I add a layer of batting into the sandwich under the fabric design and then quilt it to the Peltex.  Then I spray the adhesive on the back of the Peltex (or if it has it already) and then iron the muslin onto the sprayed Peltex.   Easy-peasy.

The postcard will be approximately 1/4 inch thick but as long as it will fit through the slotted guide I mentioned earlier, they will not charge you extra.

Good luck!!  I hope you’ll try to make one.  They are so much fun to send and receive.

My hint for today:   If you want to make several postcards, cut all the pieces out ahead of time and then you can put them together more quickly.  It seems to me doing it this way, it only takes me a small amount of time more than it does to do one.

Now, on to my catching up! Another Civil War block arrives tomorrow!