Spring fabric postcard swap

Several weeks ago Sandi (@quiltcabana) who can be found at  quiltcabanapatterns.com/blog announced on her podcast that She's organizing a fabric postcard swap again, this time to celebrate Spring. As we all know that most of the country got a lot more snow this winter than we are normally used to, and I have to say, where I live we're still dealing with below freezing high temperatures during the day. I happily signed up since I really enjoyed the swap we had for Christmas. 

My swap partner was Sandy (@sandyquiltz) who is blogging and podcasting at http://quiltingfortherestofus.com/ 

She sent me this fabulous card which I loved!

As some of you may know orange is my all time favorite color so I was so happy to see that She used so much of it in the card :) The texture is really cool, the center of the flower has some really sparkly stuff, which always make me smile :) She has a tutorial of how She made it on her blog. Check it out, it's a REALLY nice technique!

I know She's really artsy, and I wanted to make a card for Her from one of my photos which I took either last year, or the year before, of a daffodil that just opened it's petals. Needless to say, I didn't find the picture on my hard drive, and decided to go for a less original method of looking for drawings in EQ7. I printed the pattern and wanted to try out Beth Ferrier's machine applique method using freezer paper. I modified my technique a little bit, as I didn't have to take the freezer paper out at the end, so I appliqued the tulips on a background fused to timtex to give the postcard some stiffness. It was fairly easy to make after I decided which pattern I wanted to do. Next I just glued all the tulips and leaves on the background (which I picked out thinking about blue skies) and stitched it down with somewhat matching thread I could find in my thread "collection" :)  Last, I wanted to satin stitch around the edges with yellow thread to represent sunshine, which Sandy very rarely have where She lives.

Here is the card:

I wrote the message on the back, took some photos,  and sent it in an envelope through the post office. I didn't want to risk sending it "bare" because I was afraid it'll get wet and the writing will run on the back. She really liked it which makes me happy. The little joys of life, right?

I am looking forward to the Summer swap which is coming up next, are you signing up? You better! You can go to Sandi's website to email her, or She's @quiltcabana on Twitter. Hope you will join us!

'Til we blog again! :)