Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Post card swap

I signed up to swap fabric holiday cards with some of my twitter friends. Sandi @quiltcabana arranged the swap and signed the partners. My partner was Kim, who I don't know I never talked to so it was a little hard to think of what should I make. I tried to research some ideas, but to be honest, not too many are out there that are using fabric. I was lucky Sandi linked a few websites to look up how to make them. I decided with a window look and pine trees background. I finished the edges with binding from pure lazyness. I didn't feel like taking my sewing machine out to do decorative stitching. I figured it's a lot faster and easier just make a binding and call it done. I did some free motion quilting on the fabrics to give it texture. I outlined the pine tree and did pebbles in the background. Also took the fabric as a guide to draw the pine branches that were printed on one of the fabrics.
I really enjoyed the process, got to practice my handwriting with free motion quilting. My practice piece looked really good, but when it came down quilting the real thing I guess I got sloppy. I had to pick out the first stitching line and start over. It doesn't look as good as the original one, but it'll do. That's the best I can do for now at least.
After quilting I ironed the white fabric on timtex and ironed heat'n'bond on the timtex to hold the front and back of the card together. I sewed the binding on the front and hand stitched down on the back. I used a fine line fabric marking pen to write the address and sender. The final size is 5"x7". I don't mind paying extra at the post office, but I didn't want to make such a small card. The writing would've been really difficult to do by machine.
It was a really fun project, I'll look up more designs now I know how to make it. Hope you'll try it, I enjoyed the process a lot!

Here's the card I made:


And here's the one I received from Kim just yesterday:

It's such a cute picture with Santa and the reindeer :))) I'm really glad I participated in the swap! Thank you so much Kim for taking the time and put this gorgeous postcard together!

'Til we blog again! :)

6 comments:

  1. Love your fabrics and choice of quilting.

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  2. You made a gorgeous card and got a cute one in return. Happy Holidays!

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  3. Nicely done ! Love that balsam needle fabric

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  4. Oh my gosh, both postcards are adorable!!! Thanks for participating in the swap and I hope we can all do it again next year!

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  5. Oh my gosh, both postcards are adorable!!! Thanks for participating and I hope we can all do it again next year!

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  6. I just found you blog. Your postcard wasn't sloppy at all. I love the texture of the pine needles and your writing is perfect. I'd love to do it again next year.

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