Elm Street Quilts Postcard Blog Hop

I am participating in a blog hop for people who participated in Elm Street Quilts' postcard exchange.  This was a one-on-one exchange.  Each person made one card to send to one person.  Swappers could sign up a second time to send and receive from a second person.

I have participated in a number of postcard exchanges, and have taught classes and given lectures on postcard making.  It is fun creating these small fabric pieces, and even more exciting to receive one in the post.  I have found that one-on-on swaps tend to generate better quality cards, than swaps where a large number of cards have to be made.

As almost everyone loves ice cream, I created an ice cream card for my recipient in Texas, and I had fun adding the sprinkles on top!  Her word clue to me was shimmering.  (There is a bit of blank space below the card as I could not get cropping to work! )

The beautiful card that I received was made by Nina in England. I had given the word music, and her white fabric included musical notes!  I am not sure if she realized that I am originally from London, so that getting a Union Jack card was especially exciting.

I made another card for a wildflower swap.  I chose the California Poppy as my flower and created it with free motion quilting and Inktense pencils.  This was made for a lady in England.

People often ask how I do the outside edges.  I use a very close together zigzag stitch on my Bernina 440 or 830, 12 weight cotton thread when I can find the correct colours such as Wonderfil Frutti or Spaghetti.  When I cannot find a suitable 12 weight cotton thread, I use a finer thread and do two rounds.  I usually have my stitch set at a length of about 0.3mm and a width of around 4mm.  If I have to do two rounds, the first round is slightly narrower than the second.  I prefer to use cotton threads as I have found that they "fill" the space and round out unlike polyester thread.

I hope that you will visit the other participants in this blog hop.

Denise @ DottieDoodle

Isis @ Creation d'Isis 

Karen @ Run Sew Fun

Lynette @ What A Hoot Quilts

Laura @ LC's Cottage

Lisa @ Sunlight in Winter Quilts

Marsha @ Quilter in Motion

Michelle @ Creative Blonde

Paige @ Quilted Blooms

Patty @ Elm Street Quilts

Sandra @ mmm! quilts

Valerie @ Val's Quilting Studio

California Dreaming

I purposely waited until after the International Quilt Festival Long Beach to post a photograph of my entry for  West Coast Wonders, called California Dreaming.  The quilt features some of my favorite techniques ---- machine quilting. machine embroidery and fabric postcards.  The photographs were taken by my husband Marvin, my sister-in-law and myself.  Marv did most of the the Photoshop work after taking two classes with Kerby Smith .  It looks deceptively simple, but there were a lot of challenges along the way, and I had to back-track a number of times. The project is also my wallhanging assessment for my City and Guilds Certification.

 The project was inspired by friends who like me to send them postcards from my travels to decorate their bulletin boards.  I started off with a cork tile, which was photographed.  The image was then sent to Spoonflower for printing.  I ordered two yards to allow extra fabric for testing, errors etc.  The postcards are really postcards.  I printed the images or postcard backs onto Electric Quilt pre-treated sheets.  I was able to get two images per sheet. The images were then fused to heavyweight Fast2Fuse.  I used the heavyweight to ensure that the cards would be flat against the background.  I fused muslin to the wrong sides as viewers should not be turning them over!  The edges were satin stitched using several different heavy-weight cotton threads including Sulky Blendables 12wt and Wonderfil Spagetti and Frutti.  Once the postcards were made, I took the ones which needed stamps cancelling to the local post office.  Gino was kind enough to frank them for me!  The background was quilted with a sun and ray pattern in 40wt thread, before I attached the postcards with monofilament thread. I had learnt from previous errors that areas need to be quilted underneath before applying large "appliqués".  As I knew that the piece would have to be shipped multiple times, if it was accepted into the exhibit,  I had to determine the placement of the postcards to allow for "folding" lines.  I used a wide binding to replicate the idea of a frame.  Once everything was stitched, Marvin  helped me to put real pushpins (thumb tacks) through each card.  We then cut off the backs to ensure that other quilts would not be harmed,  and sealed the backs with silicone to make the quilt safe for travel to multiple venues.  The quilt will be shown at the International Quilt Festival Houston, and International Quilt Festival Cincinnati.

Postcard---Israel Land of Flowing Milk and Honey

This is my latest postcard, made for an exchange entitled Israel---Land of Flowing Milk and Honey.  The postcard is made from a fabric and Fast-2-Fuse sandwich.  The back was created in Microsoft Word.  The front features hand dyed fabric, lightweight Lutrador painted with white paint mixed with Liquitex irridescent medium and gold paint, and the jug was enhanced with paint too.  It was stitched on my Bernina 830 taking advantage of the tapering feature.

A Lutrador Postcard

This is a sample made for C & T publishing's Creative Troupe.  I had to wait to post it until Ultra Light Lutrador came on the market---then I forgot to post it.  The card features embroidered fish as well as fish made from painted Lightweight Lutrador.  I used Lutrador "as is" on top of fabric to give it the hazy feel one experiences when under water.