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.