Christmas Postcards

I've been making Christmas postcards for several years and I finished the ones for this year already! It's still November, I'm rarely this on top of things. I make them in an assembly line so the process goes quite fast. First is to decide what to do and this year I got my inspiration from Better Homes and Gardens magazine. There was an article on home made decorations photographed against a background of pine boughs from a linocut. I drew my own sized to fit a 4" x 6" postcard, added Happy Holidays and then made it into a thermofax screen. For fabric I chose a very pale hand dyed golden brown cotton damask, put Misty Fuse on the back, cut it up into postcard sized squares and printed.

When the paint was dry the fabric was fused to Timtex, cut into 4"x 6" pieces. I cut small red circles from a discarded shiny red coffee bean bag.

Stacked them by the sewing machine, stitched around the red circle and added more stitching to create a bow so the ball was hanging from a branch.

Muslin was then fused to the back side of the Timtex, taken back to the machine and the edges were zig zagged.

The backs were signed and dated. I've been to the post office and purchased stamps, now all I have to do is address them, write a message and mail them.

The two pieces of fabric that I showed last week on my design wall have now become one piece. Nothing has been sewn together yet - but it will be.

Today marks the last day of the third year of my daily photo blog

Daily Stitching #256 - #261 This post is now linked to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Published in Quilting Arts

Last August I wrote an article about using masks with deconstructive screen printing for Quilting Arts magazine, today my copy arrived. They did a wonderful job editing what I wrote and photographing my fabrics. So if you get the opportunity, check out the Dec/Jan issue of Quilting Arts pages 36-40.

Also today I had lunch with some good friends and our hostess has a large tablecloth that her guests sign, then she embroiders the signature. She started doing this in 1991, I signed it last year and got to see my name in red stitches today. Here's a photo of a small part of it.

Donna signed the cloth today.

I love this idea.

A nonproductive week

Well, not totally nonproductive, but I don't have much to show. I did do the quilting and the binding on a quilt for a non quilting friend. I've made a small stuffed dinosaur for another friends first grandchild.

I threw some fabrics up on the wall while trying to get inspired to make the queen size commissioned quilt. They won't be used in that quilt, but they do have possibilities on their own.

My daily stitching was done everyday. Here are #248 - #255.

Quilt done, funky fabric and daily stitching

I finished quilting the top that I showed last week, it even has a label! So now it's ready to be picked up for the silent auction at the end of the month.

The hexagons that have been on my design wall for several weeks have been taken down, put in a bag and are resting until I'm interested in them again. I think that sometimes it's best to just put things away when they're not working for you. An artist friend has commissioned me to do a queen size, usable art quilt. The only parameters were the size, jewel like colors with possibly some turquoise and dark red. Not much to work with! So I've started by dyeing some fabric with the red, turquoise and some gold and hope that gives me some inspiration for a design. When I mix dyes I always put a rag that has been soaked in a soda ash solution on my work surface. Normally when I finish I put the rag in a plastic bag so that it stays damp for the next time. This time I forgot and left it on the counter and it dried causing the soda ash to form some very interesting patterns. This is how it looked.

Of course it brushes off, or when I get it wet again the pattern goes away - but I took some cool pictures and one of them will be my daily picture tomorrow. Daily stitching #242 - #247

#247 gave me enough to do another row, so there are now 13 rows.

This post has been linked to Off The Wall Friday.

New quilt

Last Friday morning as I was getting ready to leave town for the weekend I took the following picture of Studio A, my sewing studio.

When I went in to the studio Monday morning it looked the same, almost as if the cat had slept there the whole time. I know he didn't because he had spent the night curled up next to my back. On the walls were two of my works in progress, the hexagons which haven't changed at all, and parts for a mystery quilt designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr that had been in the AQS newsletter. I don't normally follow patterns, but made an exception just because I needed to do something to get back into a creative mode. I finished the top this week and will get it layered and quilted soon because I'm donating it to a local fundraiser. That makes 25 quilts I've made and donated this year.

Daily stitching #229 - #234

#235 -#241

p.s.I've linked this post to Off The Wall Fridays . Go check out some other great projects.