ATC Innovation

At the SAQA conference back in April, I received the coolest business card from a CQFA friend, Maureen Lardie. Go check her awesome collage work in both fabric and paper!

 It's an ATC stitched to her business card, which is just such a greatest idea.

And it's a little work of art displaying on the mini-easel.

Incoming ATCs

 What a fine selection of ATC's I was happy to trade for at CQFA meeting.

Maureen Lardie's painting on paper, I would love a large version of this to hang on the wall.

 Diane Carver, brightly painted silk.

 Nancy Riffle's painted canvas. I really love the way the stitching on the edge looks so much like a frame.

Jaye Lapachet's clever applique.

The Most Recent ATC's

This time around for ATC's I used some interfacing fabric, and did all sorts of things to it before cutting it up to ATC size. Stamping, embossing, inks, etc.

 Oh I just noticed that's upside down to read the words. sigh. 

 I stitched them to emphasize the words that were stamped.

 See Truth.

Then I had to make one for myself, for my collection, but I was out of the main fabric so I used up what was left.

New ATCs

 Another 4 lovelies added to my ATC collection at the last CQFA meeting. Aren't these great?

 Maureen Lardie made this one using indigo dyed fabric and lace.

 I really like the stem stitching on this one by Jaye Lapachet.

 Beautiful painting from Nancy Riffle.

Angela Obeso has been working on this stitch-sketching technique, love how cute and happy this one looks.

August ATCs

The ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) that I made for CQFA this time were a mixed-media collage process as usual.


I started out with a mottled dark green fabric and stitched it to a batting/backing in parallel lines.

Then I started changing the fabric, first with big dots of Tee Juice in gray.

Then using the fine point Tee Juice I connected the dots.

 I then added some dots of gold with a Zig leafing pen and lighter green splotches with a Seta Skrib marker. I liked the overall look especially when chopped up into ATC size (2.5 x 3.5")

 Here's all 6 that I made.

 Measuring tape printed cotton knit ribbon was chopped up to show one number in each section.

 I dug through my button stash and found a bunch of brownish buttons that looked good with the green fabric.

 Lastly I stitched some X's on by hand with lime green cotton thread.

 There were a lot of buttons in my stash that worked, plastic, wood, metal, leather.

This wonky-edged one with the messed-up button was the one I kept for my collection.

Three More for the ATC Collection

 I was lucky enough to swap for three new ATC's at the December CQFA meeting. And got to keep one of mine. These little beauties just shine, don't they?

 Jaye's has a lot of really nice details, and I of course, love this color combination.

 Maureen's has so many great colors and textures.

Virginia's is a perfect little composition.

Painted Silk ATC's

Here's the story on my ATC's for the CQFA meeting.

 I started out with this cream colored luscious piece of textured silk-blend snagged from FabMo.

 Using my Tsukineko ink brushes I highlighted the ridges with red.

 And then dotted the whole thing with blue. Blending the two colors with a wet brush, the inks combined with the crinkled texture acting as a mild sort of resist.

Keeping in mind that when it dries, it won't be as dark or intense, while it was still wet I added more color with Inktense watercolor blocks and then wet brushed the additional pigment to blend.

 Here's how it looks after it had time to dry and was heat-set with my iron.

 Measuring and cutting the 2.5x3.5" ATC's out of the stitched piece.

 I did some minimal quilting on each ATC, I didn't want to smash down that wonderful crinkled texture.

 Closeups of each one. I used striped washi tape which I machine embroidered either a 2 or a 5 depending on how many lines of quilting were in the ATC.

 Then I added a small piece of pink dyed wool roving, held down under some paper lace that I stitched down.

 I stitched around the edges and then zig-zagged once also.

I was really pleased with how these ATC's turned out this time and I was happy to have something to trade at the CQFA meeting. More on that tomorrow.

Newest ATC's

 Great ATC's this time at CQFA, every single time they're all so creative and unique. This first one is by Amy Witherow, I love the "Pow!" energy of it, almost like a comic book illustration.

 Here's a lovely one from Virginia Schnalle, each one that she made had a different character and on the reverse it said what it was, the one I chose was "Friendship."

 Lastly, a great one from Maureen Lardie, it looks like the best sort of puzzle doesn't it?

The backs of all of the ATC's were interesting too, I love the paper that Maureen used on hers.

My ATC book is so fun to look through, I'll have to bring it to a meeting so everyone can see them all in one place.

Returning to ATC's

 CQFA was this past Saturday, and that meant I needed to make some ATC's. Using the scraps from the Pies and Points class I laid this out and quilted it in a grid.

 All raw edges, fabric shapes not cut or modified to fit, used 'as-is'.

 Quilting in an unmarked, not-quite-exactly-even grid was pretty relaxing.

 I fussy cut out of the quilted piece, five 2.5x3.5" ATC's.

 Replacing the pieces I'd cut out in the reverse orientation gave this an interesting look, I might have to use the remains of this piece in that way.

After I zig-zagged around all the shape edges and the outer edge, I thought they were done, but one more round of stitching around the outer edge was needed.

These were the final versions that I traded at the meeting.  I haven't taken pictures of the ones I received in trade, that'll be in another post.