Lotsa stuff on Monday

Great bunch of mail through the slot this morning - three different postcards, and none of them from myself (I always make an extra card for myself and post it, to check how well they travel). The one at left above is called "funny poppies" and is for the Sheers swap on FAI, from Kathy. It may be hard to see from the photo, but she's made the poppies (except the bits at the top of the heads) including the loose fibres in the tail/stems and then covered with sheer fabric, and then added the embroidery on top. Very effective; I like this card a lot.


The one at right above is for the summer swap with my dyeing group and is also a bit hard to see what's going on. Ann made the background "paper" from fibres and cling film (I think this was resulting from a Mixed Media class at Joggles) and added the butterflies on top of it. Guess I must add the clingfilm "paper" to my list of techniques to try...


And finally, the blue beaded one is from Liz, and is from the July Challenge (beading) on Arts in the Mail. In addition to bearing some amazing examples of beading techniques, this card has the distinction of being the heaviest I have ever received, due to the lovely stones on it. Liz says it was the result of doing a beading course and then going on holiday for week where she could only hand-sew. I can imagine!



Also in the post, my copy of the latest issue of QA - I know this has been around for a while, but I don't mind if it comes to me a bit late - I usually have a big stack of stuff waiting to be read. And having it delivered through the door is a darn sight easier than having to track it down. (And what I spend on postage I save on the current exchange rate and the fact that by not going to a shop, I don't buy fabric!)

And here's a view of my beaded doll, coming along nicely. I have now finished the color, and filled in around the red design which I said I probably wasn't going to fill in around (it didn't look right, somehow). I have just added a line of bugle beads as a demarkation line for something - not sure just what, probably a few more lines of bugle beads below, but not sure what above. Terrible photo of the poor thing - better luck next time, I hope.




Today I worked on two sets of cards - to the right, contrasts, for a swap with Arts in the Mail. I'm not entirely convinced by them, but perhaps they will grow on me as I gradually edge all the little apertures. My original idea was nearly solid black, with just a thin strip of something else (or maybe two) running through it; I may yet go back to that and put these in the surplus stack. We'll see.

And the item at left is, as I hope you'll have guessed by now, an igloo. This is for the Starts with I swap. Originally I had thought to use small "bricks" of white fabric, but they didn't look right, so I'm going with quilting the bricks in. The cards will probably have something else on them as well, but I don't know what yet. I did three today - my bricks are getting better, I have to say. Perhaps by number six, they'll be perfect (ha!).

And once again, thanks to those who left comments (and who have subsequently been enterred into my draw) - newly added to the list are: Debi, Teri (if you don't know Teri's blog, StegArt, you should definitely go check it out), Sally in the UK, and Di. Sally asked about groups for swapping postcards; there are lots of them. I belong to a number of them, not all of which are public, but the public ones are: FiberArtistInternational, ArtsintheMail, ArtWeMail, and FiberPC. All of these are yahoo groups - if you go to groups. yahoo.com and put fabric postcards into the search box, I'm sure you'll come up with more. And of course, there are many other places to swap postcards that aren't on Yahoo. I also swap sometimes on the quilting forum at quilting.about.com. And I have so far resisted joining swaps on the many sites that are mentioned by those whose blogs I read, but trust me, there are tons. Not all of them are open to beginners, but many are. Likewise, if anyone is looking for instructions on how to make postcards, a quick google should offer far more information than you would ever possibly use.