Quilted Valentines Cards

Hey Readers,

I did not get to do to much in the quilting room this week.  I did create a couple of quilted post cards.

I had intended to make about 4 or 5, but only got 2 done.  My dog, Bogie cut his foot playing in the yard and needed a fair amount of attention.  I had seen this tutorial on postcard by Rob Appell, but I had made them before, so I just watched it to see if he did anything different.  He does!  I have not been putting in the temtex so I tried that this time and it went well.  Rob uses fabric on both sides tho, and I like using watercolor paper for the card side, so I am not sure it was necessary, but I used it anyway.  If you click on the small things tab, you will see my postcards and art trading cards and some very small quilted things.

So, anyway I made one for Celeste, my daughter, and one for Will, my son.

On the Celeste's I just quilted the hearts and letters down.  Decided to leave it like that for a clean minimalist look.  

On Will's I went around each heart, then did straight line quilting across the card.  I did not go around each letter but felt the straight line stitching would be enough...it is just a post card and won't be subject to washing, etc.

The layers are a piece of cotton, a piece of batting, a stiff piece of stabilizer, like peltex, or temtex.  I also used some heat and bond to put the hearts and letters on.  I also used it to put the layers together.  Then I quilt around each letter and heart.   Once it is quilted I put the quilted layers together with the water color paper and sew through the card and all to put the binding on.  The binding also has heat and bond on the back of it as it will keep it from raveling and I don't fold it under.  It is just single  layered.  So I iron it on first then sew around the edge with a specialty stitch on the machine.

These are fun to make. So make some postcards and make someone's day!

Sew long,

Terry

More Quilted Postcards

Dear Readers,

I have been working on my Magnolia Quilt for the challenge but am not quite ready to write about that yet.  I have to quilt the border, block it, bind it put an hanging sleeve on it, and then I will be done.  Unfortunately, I have not been feeling great so I have been having a hard time getting myself to work on it.  I hope I finish.  I am not happy with my quilting. But I will preserve.  I just hope, no one looks at the back.  There are 13 fractured magnolias on the front and I have quilted on all the white part, I really think the leaves need it to, but not sure there will be time for that.

I did a couple of post cards to help practice my free motion quilting, since I was using my small machine instead of the one I usually use and I wanted to make some for some friends of Celeste, that were having birthdays or just needed a little pick me up.  First I made one for Luke, the guy she has been seeing, for his birthday.  Hope his birthday was all he hopes for and for many more in the future. He works for Upslope.

Then I made one for Jenna, a friend of Celeste's from work, that I met during Thanksgiving and I learned she is a huge Bears fan.  She and I really hit it off.  She is very much like Celeste, and is smart, fun loving and so cute.

I want to do some writing on the magnolia quilt around on the black inner border, but I am scared.  Maybe tomorrow.

Sew long for tonight.

Post cards

Hey all,

I haven't posted in a year or so.  Spring of 2013 I decided to turn my somewhat orderly life upside down and move about 80 miles West.  I was feeling somewhat burned out at work and needed a change.  I applied for  a new job in a small town that my mother grew up in and the location of my grandmother's farm.  I got the job and started living a two city life.  I bought a house in my "new" hometown.  It is a really nice house, with a great floor plan and yard, but the former owners loved wall paper and it looked like I was going back in time to 1978.  Even with hiring a fair amount of help, it is very slow going.  I have one bedroom done the kitchen is almost done...but enough about that.  I still haven't sold my home in the other city, but praying it will sell soon.

In the quilt world, I have not done too much, but I will be putting up a few posts with my very limited progress.  I may write some posts about my renovation projects too...but we will see.

I did not get to go see my daughter this summer, and I was really missing her, so I made her some quilted postcards.  She is an art director and drew her logo out a few years ago, so I decided that would be a good subject.

This is the first one I did.  I had made a bunch of quilted cards for my IB students a few years ago and apparently have forgotten all the techniques!!  What is up with that?  Once I have quilted up the design I use a glue stick and it to a piece of heavy weight watercolor paper and then put the binding on.

I did not fuse the binding on and it looked ravelly.  (I know that is not a real word) But that is not the point.  It doesn't show in the photo, but  it just didn't look as good as I wanted.  I sent it anyway and then remembered how I used to do them.

So I did another one, taking the logo and changing the colors up and sending the logo to the football game in honor of the success of my daughter's alma mater.  If you follow college football, here in Mississippi the local universities are having the best season ever!!!

Anyway on this one I quilted the background, fused the binding on before sewing it down and I think it came out better.

Well, back to the boring sewing of making drapes for the bedroom.

As my friend Su says, "Live the day well."

Postcards

Hey,

The group, random acts of culture deadline for turning in postcards for their next show is tomorrow.  So of course I did not do mine till the last minutes.  Here are my entries.

The theme is postcards to Columbus. Columbus used to be called Possum Town, so I did a possum.  The postcards are going to be displayed at the Renee Reedy Gallery, located below Main Street Cafe in Columbus.  There is a grand opening of the show at 5:30 on Thursday, May 3.  Refreshments are provided.

The next card is supposed to be landscape and looks that way in the computer, so why is it switching to portrait??  Anyway it is supposed to be the old railroad bridge.  Tilt your head to the left..like you are looking at this :-).

Here is a link to my friend Julia's submissions...http://juliagraber.blogspot.com/ .  The AP and IB art classes at Columbus High are also participating, so there are lots of very creative cards to be seen.