The Postcard's Progress

A gaggle of miscellaneous unfinished cards - all of these are based on photos printed onto fabric. The two flower ones will be birthday postcards for the birthday group in one of my postcard groups; the mother & baby card (yes, it's me and Alex, now 4+) is for someone I know who's going to have a baby and the seaside scene is actually for a swap theme "picture frame" - I had a hard time finding a picture I wanted to "frame", but ended up with this one - of course, I can't resist messing with it first!

Except for the baby card, which is fairly straightforward, the other cards all feature various alterations to the basic photos - the pink lilies feature organza sewed on top of the flowers, with the extra bits cut away with my soldering iron (I like the definition you get with this technique and will definitely use it again); the yellow irises are stitching and angelina with lumier paint on top (they aren't done yet - not sure what's next, but something) and the seaside card has some sheer fabric across the sky and real sand glued on over part of the sand in the photo. And yes, that's me & Alex, too. No one can say I don't put anything of myself into my art now :)

I also worked on these little nine-patch in a square blocks - they are for the June Block Lotto on the quilting forum at about. I was going to make three pairs, but actually, I don't really have much country fabric, so I was a bit limited. But two will do - having won (some of) the blocks from last month's lotto, I did want to send in some blocks for this month, even if it meant stretching the stash a little.

And to the right, some fishies - an Under the Sea card from Kathy - I think that might be all of them, but not sure, really should check that and see. Anyway, nice fishies - and nice use of beads for the bubbles - thanks Kathy!

And finally, I also got this in the mail, which is the start of a new complex cloth round robin - this one with the dyeing group, not the surface embellishment group, so what I do with it will involve dyeing in some way, rather than anything funkier than that. We are doing a "twins separated at birth" CCRR this time - sending two identical (similar) pieces out to be worked on by different people, and seeing how different they end up when they come home. Luckily, I don't have to work on this piece until July - she's early - so I have time to let it sit and whisper to me about what it wants to have done to it. At the moment, it thinks it wants to be tied up in some way before dyeing (that sentence sounds very odd out of context) but it could change its mind...

Scottie Dogs revisited - and thanks!

Didn't have a lot of time to work this afternoon as I spent part of the time acquiring a new toy but I did manage to get a bit done on the Scottie Dog quilt - I finished sewing all the snowballs together and did a row of 10" pinwheels blocks, too. I have one more row of dogs to add on, and I'm thinking I'll put a row of bowties between the bottom dogs in this photo and the other row (maybe double, the way the snowballs are) - just need to work out sizes. Then I'll see how big the whole thing is and if I need to add anything to top and bottom, but I do feel progress is being made. Hoorah.

Nearly finished stitching the binding down on Sarah's quilt, so perhaps a photo of that tomorrow. Or the next day. Has to be finished fairly soon as I have to take it to the showground next week. Yikes. Have to finish Olivia's binding, too, but as her quilt is only about 36x42, I'm not so worried about that. I always tell myself I'm not going to leave things until the last minute, but do I listen? :)

Also, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted about my postcard wallhanging - I've replied to most of you, where I could, but those ones where I couldn't, well, just wanted to say thanks to you guys too. I never quite know what to do about comments where no email address shows - at the moment, I get few enough comments I can still respond to people, which I like to do, though who knows whether that will always be the case. But when there's no email address and no profile showing (and so no link back to the commenter's own blog) well, what can you do? But I appreciate the comments anyway - please don't stop!

A is for Africa...actually

Looks like a repeat of yesterday, I know, but actually, it's much better - here are the African blocks again, this time paper-pieced, the right size, flat, and all those other lovely things. I still really like the block, and now I can bear to send it along to someone else without cringeing. That was it for today, but I did get myriad other things accomplished, just not sewing related. However, I do have binding to sew down tonight (Sarah's log cabin quilt) so I guess there will be more to come!

A is for Africa...almost

And here's today's pretty pictures... Some treats in the post - in fact, just what I like - only two items of post, and one was the May/June issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors (I only just subscribed, so it's probably coming later than most people have got theirs, but that's ok, I'm looking forward to reading some as my bedtime reading tonight - flipped it open randomly and landed on an article about Janet Bolton, who is one of the few quilt artists I actually know anything about already, having been to one of her talks (she gives good talks, so if you get a chance, go. Also, because her background is as an artist not a quilter, sometimes her perspective is really different than those quilters who come from dressmaking backgrounds - which is a good thing, especially if you yourself came into quilting from dressmaking rather than art).

Anyway. The other postal treat is below (today's photos being arranged by size & shape rather than theme) and is a card from the tree swap, this one from Janet, a lovely card of the Weeping Willow in Winter. It's fabulous, isn't it - painted silk, I think, with an appliqued tree branch, and then all the willow fronds done in machine stitches with little French Knots on the ends. The tree series is producing some great cards.



I did some work myself today, unlike yesterday, despite spending a good part of the day in the park, where there was an open day with lots of free sporting activities, including tennis coaching and free crazy golf - the crazy golf pitch is new this year, so we've not played much yet - Sarah, Alex and I had a go around while Olivia was playing tennis; Sarah liked it so much she queued to play at least once more, possibly twice. Anyway. This morning I managed to do some sewing including finishing up the snowballs - they aren't quite all attached into a single row, but are now in groups of four.

I also finished the background to the triangle postcards - all those batik HST units. No idea what I'm going to do with them next, other than it will involve triangles in some fashion. But they aren't due to post until the end of June so I have a few more weeks to worry about them. I think I'm going to put them to the side for a little while so I can have a think. I have to do some Picture Frame cards first anyway. As well as finish the Open Theme with Beads (though I know more or less what I'm doing there, it's just a matter of actually doing it).

And I worked on some African blocks for my private swap with Karol Ann (who was right in thinking my purchase of black fabric meant I'd work on these blocks) - unfortunately, they didn't come out well - I used a design from Judy Martin's Block Book, and was reminded of everything I don't like about this book - all that cutting parallelograms & odd triangles, and then trying to work out how to align them and what not. Ick. I think I am going to get rid of that book as it never fails to annoy me when I go to put the blocks together. There are some nice designs in it, though, which I could no doubt adapt to another method of piecing, so perhaps I'll just write myself a note on the cover...

I do like the way these blocks look in principle though, if only they were flat and not too small, so I am going to do this design, but I am going to paper piece them. I almost paper-pieced them in the first place, and now I wish I had done, but hey, live and learn. Anyway, I have printed the papers out, so will get started on them tomorrow or some time, but Karol Ann, I'm afraid it's going to be several days before yours is in the post!

Some stuff

A nice postcard in the post today - this is to the theme Summer, from Harriett on FAI - it's a photo from her garden - isn't it lovely? And my fabric from my Fat Quarter Frenzy club - roses and toning fabrics, which will I'm sure prove very useful. Whee.

Didn't do any sewing yet today, though I might do a little more beading tonight - this morning I stayed at school to help and this afternoon my friend Lorayne and I went with our littles (she has a 4 yr old too) to Garsons Farm, a pick your own where we had a picnic lunch and then picked loads of strawberries and broad beans. Lovely!

I did do a little more beading last night, but as I haven't finished the piece yet and as I had other photos to show, I think I'll wait until it's done to share it...

Open theme with beads...

I didn't actually do any work today (though in a moment, I'm off to watch an episode of NCIS on DVD and will probably do some more beading) but I did do this beading last night, as part of a postcard series for the theme "open theme with beads" - which means I can do anything I want, as long as I use beads somewhere in the design.



I decided to pull out a basket of 5 or 6 TAST stitch samples I had knocking about doing nothing and add some beads to them - I will then turn it into a postcard - the total area wasn't much more than 4x6, though I will loose a bit off the sides, which is fine. The sample is from the week we did couching & I have added a lot of beads, though I'm not sure how well they all show up. The other samples will be quite different, as they are less free form than this one, but I'm sure they'll work equally well in their own way.



I did actually do something sewing related today, though, as Alex and I had a trip to the quilt shop. I needed some plain black for a couple of projects and the local department store with haberdashery department was out, so off I went to Creative Quilting in Hampton Court. My fabric purchases were fairly dull (the black, and some unbleached calico, which I am also out of) but I got lots of fun bits - some embroidery threads, three spools of variegated thread (I like them for postcard edging), some packs of buttons, some sewing machine needles (not that exciting, but the local dept store w/ hab dept doesn't carry the quilting or metallics, only the standard ones so it was worth grabbing some while in a proper quilt shop) and a fun pack of stuff to stick on postcards. The brightly coloured cat fabric is a 10cm strip which was Alex's bribe for good behaviour (he wanted a bigger piece - they learn young, don't they!)

Postcard display wallhanging - how to

This blog entry is for everyone to everyone who has expressed interest in my postcard wallhanging I finished a few days ago. I've had lots of compliments (thanks!) and a number of questions about construction, so thought I'd do a mini-tutorial on how to make something like this. It's not from a pattern, per se, though the idea is based on an advent calendar I made a few years ago, which is from a pattern by Meadow Lily Bridge. For my wall-hanging, I used the same idea of fabric corners to create pockets to hold items for display, though these pockets are a different size and the layout it totally mine.

So, here are some tips on how to make a similar piece, either to display fabric postcards, or indeed, anything else you like - ATCs, maybe? or small journal quilts (I'm not sure how big a piece could be supported in this way, but I'm sure a 6"x6" mini journal could be - the larger ones, like the size of a piece of paper, might be a bit big for this technique, though it would be worth a try).

The joy of this wallhanging is that it can be whatever size you like, so you can make it to fit your space, which is what I did - I figured out how big a space I had, and worked backwards from there. I recommend sketching this part out on paper or in a quilt design programme. You can adjust the width of the sashing to suit your taste or your space (or both), or you could leave the sashing out entirely, though that will mean you have a few more layers of fabric to sew through, so you might not want to.

Essentially, the hanging is composed of a number of individual display modules. Each module is composed of one piece of background fabric, four squares to form the corner pieces, and whatever sashing you require/desire to surround it. The sashing could be added all around each module and then the modules joined together, or obviously, you could sash with short pieces on one side of your module, join several in a row and then sash all along the other side all at once - just like sashing any set of blocks.

My wallhanging has spaces for postcards in both orientations - portrait and landscape - but you could arrange yours any way you like. The advent calendar I got the idea from has 25 square pockets, so orientation is not an issue. Anyway, how many pockets you make, how you arrange them, how widely you sash them, and so on, is up to you, and I'm not going to address that here, but I'll walk you through making one display module - it's much simpler than you might think!

First, determine the size of the object you want to display. Postcards are usually 4"x6", so I went with that. There's nothing to stop you making a piece to display objects of different sizes, if you want to!

For each individual display module, you will want a piece of background fabric which is 1.5" larger in each direction than the object you want to display, so for the postcards, I cut the cream coloured background rectangles at 5.5"x7.5". This will give a finished size of one inch larger than the object in each direction, or 1/2" on each side - you could make it a little smaller, but then you run the risk of the pockets being too tight. Don't forget that fabric objects have a thickness that paper wouldn't have - with photos, for instance, you'd want a much snugger fit. I found that all the cards, even the ones that are a little on the small size, work well in these pockets - it's especially helpful for those that have funky yarn, etc around the edges, as they acquire a little extra thickness.

Then, you need four squares of fabric to form the corners. These work best if they are just under half the size of the length of the side of your background fabric (or in the case of a rectangle, the length of the shorter side). Make your life easy here and pick a number that's simple to rotary cut - if you have a 5.5"x7.5" rectangle, 2.5" squares are great. If you were making a 4" square display space (so you were working with 4.5" squares unfinished - I'd try 2" or 1.75"). What you are looking for is corners that won't overlap one another or cover too much of what you are displaying, but which will be big enough to securely hold the object you are displaying. You can always cut a few test squares and see which you like the look of best.

Once you have your four squares, fold them into triangles and pin them to the background piece, with the raw edges aligned to the edges of the background rectangle/square (see photo above). You can, if you wish, press the triangles before pinning them; I personally am too lazy for that - I simply pinned them and then sewed the sashing on.

Which is the next step - sew the sashing to the background piece, right sides together, keeping the triangles in place between the background fabric and the sashing fabric. (I have tried to show this in a photo, not sure it was really successful- the photo is the view of the edge you are going to sew, with the folded triangles stuck in between.) This is not as tricky as it might sound, though you may wish to re-pin with the sashing on, or just do what I did and feed carefully while pulling the pins out as you go.

And hey presto! The corner triangles are sewn in between the sashing and background, which keeps them in place. At the moment, they are only sewn down on one side, but the other side will get sewn down when you do the bottom sashing, whether you do it now or in a long strip later. (In this photo, the bottom right corner isn't really crooked, it's just flapping up a bit because I took the pins out.)

And that's really all there is to it. Once you've joined all your little modules up, how you quilt your wallhanging is up to you - I started to quilt mine in the sashing and decided the sashing was too narrow, so quilted in the background of each pocket. Which means that most of the quilting on my wallhanging won't actually show, but as it's utility quilting anyway, I don't mind. Just be sure NOT to quilt over the corner triangles, as they need to remain loose on the folded side so you can tuck your display objects into them...

Hope that helps!

Bits and pieces (again)

Some bits and pieces today, as I only sewed for a few hours - I started putting together some backgrounds for a future group of postcards to the theme Triangles - these are leftover HST units that I cut from the corners of flying geese or something when I was making a batik quilt to a pattern called Bali Hai - can't remember if it was flying geese or something else, but it was one of those quick methods where you use small squares in the corners of larger squares. Anyway, I knew the HST units would come in handy someday. Of course, there's still a huge box of them, but at least it's a start. And I made some blue and black snowballs to go with the Scottie dog rows - here are ten; there will be twenty in total.



I also finished edging two sets of postcards - the London cards, and the Flying Geese ("G is for Geese") cards. Each of these card sets had a single card due to someone not in the main swap, so those two cards have gone out today - to Helen and Janice. The actual swaps aren't due until July, so I haven't put them in the post yet - haven't written on the back, etc, and plenty of time for that yet. Can't believe I'm that far ahead of schedule!

Ta da!

Did the binding and sleeve last night while watching telly and here it is! I haven't filled all the slots yet, just grabbed a selection of favourites to start with. I am really pleased with this and delighted to be able to see so many of my cards at once - plus of course the ones that are in the kitchen, which is reserved for the most recently received cards in whatever swaps I'm in at the moment.

Tuesday's stuff

So, here's what I've been working on today - finished the quilting on the postcard wallhanging and have attached the binding and sleeve. Just to sew them down by hand, and then I'll be able to use it - hoorah! It's hanging in my living room, where I will be able to display postcards with style. And I did edge a few of the flying geese postcards, but didn't finish them all - lots of time yet and I wanted to do something else today...

I also worked on another block for the Birthday Block Swap - this is Wendi's house block, though I realised after I put it in the post that I took the photo before I put the finishing touches on it - I drew in some little windows and a mail slot on the door with a pigma pen. But otherwise, this is how it looks - it's mostly machine applique, though I did piece the basic house unit first.

And finally, I learned when I got back this weekend that I was one of the winners for the May Block Lotto (Scrappy Baskets) on quilting.about.com. I will receive a selection of these blocks. Which is cool, but which made me feel slightly guilty about not having done anything yet with the last blocks I won - the black and white Scottie Dogs, so I decided to do something with them. I plan to make this into a single bed quilt for DD1, but only have 16 10 inch blocks, so have decided to sash them into rows and then make some simple filler blocks to put between the rows. Not sure precisely what yet - some snowballs, maybe bowties or pinwheels - something traditional and simple. I will keep to the colours of black, white and blue, in some or other way. More to come, perhaps tomorrow.

Two postcards in the mail today - a tree card from Sally, no less nice for a small postal smudge, and a Turtle card from Jay in Texas - the turtles are playfully hiding in some coral and seaweed. Great card!


And also in the post today, a selection of melted, printed and painted Tyvek bits and pieces - this lot is from a technique swap with my surface embellishment group, the technique in this case being using Tyvek in some way. Some of them are very creative - Betty Ann has made Tyvek "stones", which are very funky. But I like all of them - very versatile material. Also got these two books, which I bought used from the swap sub-group of BQL. I'm sure you will all be surprised I don't already own a copy of Surfaces for Stitch - I can hardly believe it myself :) But anyway, now I do own one, and this book on Shibori, which I don't know anything about, but it should be fun to have a look through.

I want this...

Check out Sara's Matrioshka over on Fabric of Meditation. I love her work, and in particular, like this very much. Also her St Francis stuff. Someday when I am feeling rich I am going to buy something...

And finally, today...

Here's today's stuff. The card on the left is from the Triangles swap, from Jenny. On the right are my own finished Green & Brown cards, which will go out in the mail today - nope, tomorrow - too late to get to the PO now. I also did some quilting on the postcard holder - only a few more days work on that, I hope - and helped Sarah put the binding on her quilt. Productive day, all told. And the kids are back to school tomorrow, so more time to work, hurrah!

What I did while I was away...

Well, here they are, the fruits of my labours - I sewed down two of the purple fan units for the nesting robin quilt (would have done more, but forgot they were in my bag until the last night I was there), played around with some Hardanger stitches (practicing for an upcoming postcard swap - H is for...), beaded some geese (can't really see from the photo), finished off the hand stitches and French Knots on the green & brown postcards (no photo of those, because I'm shortly going to post a photo of the finished product and the colour is much better in that photo, and they don't look much different, just the edging is on). And also, a photo of some bits I bought in the market in Loughborough. There were lots of elaborate trims which I resisted, as I had no idea what I'd do with them, and just bought some ribbon I can use - narrow ribbon is always useful for stuff and the sheer ribbon is for an upcoming technique swap on my surface embellishment group (theme: sheers). I am planning to do some melting, among other things, and thought the ribbon would be a fun thing to use...

Big stack o' post

The fun part of being away is coming home to a big pile of fun stuff from the post. In this case, a big handful of cards and a few other goodies. Here they are, not counting anything which might arrive later today!



The card on the left is not a tree card, which is what I thought when I first saw it, but actually a belated card from the Circles swap, from Margaret. The butterfly is from a one-to-one swap I did privately with Janice, who is going to get one of my London cards when they are finished.


These two, you can probably tell, are from the Turtle Day swap - I almost didn't join this one, but I'm really glad I did as the cards I am getting are really fun. Vicki's card is on the left and Ellen's is on the right - and the card on the left below is another turtle, that one from Tara.



The pinwheel star card is from another private swap - Helen admired my flying geese cards so I offered to send her one - this is the card she has sent me in exchange. It's lovely, despite going through the franking machine the wrong way around and being franked on the front!





These two are both to the theme Under the Sea - one is a private swap with Ann in France (the left one) and one is from Anna in Spain for the Fiber PC swap with that theme. Ann's card doesn't show very well as it has a layer of sheer fabric over the top of it, but in person the card works beautifully.






And finally, my own trees card came home safe and sound. And that's the cards - what a good assortment. Now I have to rearrange the kitchen cards to take some old ones down and put the new ones up - I really must finish my postcard hanger soon so I can get more of them on display...

Also in the post were this book, which I ordered from Amazon and look forward to reading and the washers above, which are from Anna as part of her washer challenge - I plan to use them in a series of postcards, each card featuring objects which have something in common with the washers in a different way. So far I have thought of: round things, metal things, things with holes, shiny things, things which people have given me for free (either offered on blogs, or whatever), and at least two other themes which I can't remember now but which are written down upstairs in my sewing room. Oh and I just thought of things which start with "w", must add that to the list. If you have any other ideas, leave me a comment and maybe I'll do a postcard to that theme! OK, off to help DD1 finish her quilting, and then a quick foray to the grocery store as there is very little food in the house... Will post more later with pics of what I did while away and so forth.

Back and ready to upload tons of pics - tomorrow.

So, I'm back. If you're reading this, you no doubt figured that out... Lots of photos tomorrow, of all the post I got while away (a big stack of postcards and some other stuff), some ribbon I bought in the market in Loughborough, and what handwork I did while gone - not a lot, but enough not to feel like I'm too behind now. Too tired to photograph and so forth tonight.

One thing I did that was textile related when we were away was to visit the Charnwood Museum in Loughborough, which happened to have not one but TWO temporary exhibits about textile related things while we were in the area. This is a small local museum, free, with good displays for a small local museum, but nothing earthshattering. The first exhibit was about lacemaking, which isn't surprising, as parts of the midlands are well known for lacemaking. Interesting, though lacemaking isn't the highest thing on my list of textile interests. The other exhibit, though, was of more interest to me personally. It was called Tantalising Textiles and was put on by the Second Turning Textile Group, a midlands group of textile artists who work in a variety of media. It was a small display, just a single room, but lots of interesting stuff. One quilt, but many smaller pieces, including 3D work like dolls, bags and brooches. I enjoyed all of it (unfortunately (but understandably), no photography allowed) and in particular a felted piece with alliums (allia?) - can't remember the artist's name - which was really lovely and makes me really want to try some nuno felting. Another thing for The List.

Anyway, a proper update (or more likely, two or three) tomorrow. Nice to be back - I missed my computer, probably in a seriously unhealthy way. Though I did manage to read three books!