Fabric Postcards Everywhere

On Saturday, I received this really lovely fabric postcard all the way from Australia from Lynette Linden. 

This is the one that I sent to her. What a fun exchange this was, thanks to SAQA for organizing it.

But then on that very same Saturday, DH and I walked into our branch library community room and found this very cool display of fabric postcards. What a coinky-dink, huh?

I know, I should have moved the fan, but I thought it was funny.

I really enjoyed how these were presented in a curated, sorted sort of way. Like the hearts/Valentines one on the far right for example.

A close-up of a particularly fiber-y one.

Here's the exhibit placard, all these fabric postcards are the work of Barbara Lockwood, a Boulder Creek quilter who organized the CZU Lightning Fire Quilt distribution in 2021.

Summer's End Post Card

 

I have a fabric postcard to make and send by tomorrow, so here's the beginnings before I began stitching. Yes, those are mostly Metro Twist scraps.

I went a little extreme on the machine embroidery.

A lot of stitching. Some of which was impacted by stitching on only one layer of fabric and batting.

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A detail before I added the final fabric piece.

The finished piece.

Details including stitched edges.

I like how this one piece of + + + + + + fabric looks like a ribbon.

I had fun doing circles on the "roof edges." Hopefully my recipient will enjoy receiving the card.

Pantone Project Begun

 

The Pantone Project that I've mentioned previously is based on this lovely box of 100 color chip postcards. Friend Jaye and I each have a box of them and we're sending them to one another at fairly regular but random intervals. It's just really a lot of fun to both write and receive postcards.Very "old school" of us I know, but we like what we like.

These are the six that I've received so far. They're on top of the background fabric we've chosen to use for this project. The plan is to make 2 blocks in fabrics that match the color, one for ourselves and one for the other. We're using all of the block designs in Doreen Speckmann's book, Pattern Play. At the end of the project, we'll have 200 blocks to play with.

Sometimes, but not always, I take a picture of the card that I'm sending. I am writing down the number of the cards I send and receive. Maybe given the iffiness of them actually arriving in one piece will make that worth it in the end.

Our plans have gotten a lot more solidified so it was time to start in sewing. And that started with matching fabrics up. I'm trying really hard not to buy any new fabric for this project. I don't need a lot of fabric for the blocks, less than FQ worth, so I'm combing through my color boxes looking for good matches.

Don't these colors look good together?

When final choices get made, it's time to decide which of the 26 blocks to make.

We decided not to use just solids, but it can be hard to match up when there's a print. 

This picture was taken when the sun was coming in the window, so it looks a lot different than some of these other photos.

I'm really struck by how different these pictures look compared to what my eyes are seeing in person. Especially the color of the postcard, it doesn't translate well, perhaps because of the shine of the postcard versus the fabric?

Mail surprise

What a nice surprise it was to get such a lovely thing in the mail, a fabric postcard from Virginia Schnalle!  I love having such talented, giving friends.

Nevermore Redux

Since it is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday today, he would have been 200 today, don't miss seeing this "special" raven cake over on CakeWrecks.

And oh, here are the other postcards I've made so far for the Raven Postcards Challenge.

This one has machine embroidered leaves and other machine embroidery on top of cotton scraps and upholstery fabric.

This excellent logo from a bookstore snagged online, printed out on cotton, surrounded by cotton scraps including some of my older discharged works. I'm finding I like this one diamond stitch on my machine. It is repeated three times, so the stitching is substantial and stands out.

Nevermore Again

Another raven postcard for the challenge. This one made with three colours of plastic bags layered and melted over cotton, with word and picture of raven printed out on cotton, fused on, a picture from a paper napkin, then all outlined with fabric paint dots.

Nevermore

One of the first activities I do in the new year is to use one of my many tarot or oracle decks to choose which animal guide will be accompanying me through the turn of the year's wheel. This year I chose the raven. Or the raven chose me. Whichever way you look at it, it is then no coincidence that there was a raven postcard challenge announced in the first week of the new year. I've gotten right down to work with one easy one made today.


This is my first 4x6" raven postcard made for the fiber artist group celebrating Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Birthday.

You can still join in if you'd like, over at: theraven_postcards yahoo group. They're due by the end of this month. I'm planning to make several more.

Most of the group is donating them to the Collage Mania FiberArt for a Cure.



The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia is having a big birthday celebration with all kinds of events including a seance where they'll try to contact the spirit of Poe.

Postcards for Earth Day

Hey Happy Earth Day!

I just made three postcards for the Green Postcard Challenge.

Go check out what everyone else made, there are some really cool recycled materials being used.

Mine are pretty conventional and are made with:

fabric scraps that most normal people throw away

rescued/recycled upholstery fabric

painted batting leftovers

a green ribbon from an Amazon.com gift

a mesh plastic bag that used to have limes (it melted on the postcard above, you can see the remnants as a very cool grid-ish pattern on the left side)

all on fusible batting scraps.

Quilting Retreat Weekend

I recently attended the CQFA weekend retreat in Capitola, it was over a very stormy weekend, so it was a great one to be inside sewing. I found that it was super fun just to get away from my sewing room for a while and talk to real human beings in person! We were right off the lobby as you came into the hotel, and if the door didn't get closed, guess who got to be peered at first by curious non-quilters? Luckily I was "in the zone" most of the time and it didn't bug me too much. In fact I didn't even know that that J had taken this picture of me!

The first project I decided to sew on was to set together the black/white/red blocks I received in a Quilt Mavericks "swamp". I set them together with a recently purchased batik panel and some other black/white piecing. I made little sections to set all the different sized blocks together. Yet another quilt top that goes into the make some more blocks to make this a bigger size so that then it can be a useable size bin. I don't think it is good enough to want to hang on the wall and it is too small to be a lap quilt (close though!).

I got this together in a few hours worth of sewing. It involved crawling around on the floor in the hotel conference room we were all sewing in. Fun! There were a couple portable design walls that people were using that sure would have been great to have in that situation, I don't think I can justify getting one as I just don't take many classes or workshops. But never say never, right?
Then I started cutting and piecing some star blocks (a real challenge for me!) to use in putting together the blocks I ended up with from my participation in the last CQFA round robin (mine was a celestial theme). Believe it or not, that took me most of a day! For like 5 blocks completed. Five 6" blocks. Sheesh I'm slow at piecing and cutting, especially when the measurements are 3/8" this and 1/8" that. Oh well, it will look good once it is done. I hope. I don't know if I find block making so hard, just that I'm not that great at it, so I don't practice, so I don't get better, etc., and repeat..

So it got to the last day and I just couldn't stand working on the star blocks anymore so I made this from the donated fabric pile that our members had brought, as well as my scraps from the weekend so far. It was Then that I found that I was happy and relaxed working in the improvisational and raw edge free-wheeling collage-y style that I have worked out for myself over lo these many years. I put this top together right on the backing and batting like I usually do. These two pictures show the editing process I go through as I assemble the quilt picture. Can you spot the differences??

I quilted it once I got home to my normal quilting machine. I didn't have any batting with me at the retreat, so I went next door to Cabrillo Sewing and they didn't have the fusible batting I usually prefer to use. That makes it much harder at the quilting step, but I managed.

And finally, one of our members brought fabric postcard making kits with pre-fused fabrics and fusible and timtex and postcards. So here is the one I made. I sent it to her to say thanks!