Quickie Postcard for Connor

I was over at Beading at the Beach where I read about Connor Bourke. Connor is a young man with brain cancer who likes to collect postcards. Well, I had to get up right then and there and make a postcard for him myself. This is what I made:

The fabric is a print Jason Yenter designed a couple of years ago for In The Beginning and the Western Washington Shop Hop. All I did was lay it over a piece of Peltex and then topstitch/quilt around a few of the framed images. I tried to highlight those that pertain mostly to the area in which we live. The upper right corner needed something though... there was sort of a dead spot there.

I found this charm of a bald eagle, which are native to our area. It wouldn't show up against the colors of the fabric so I scrounged a bit of leafy green print in the blue-green so common around here and voila: eagle swooping through the treetops!

Now to pop it in the mail. If you'd like to send Connor a postcard (commercial or handmade) you can find the address here (it's in the second entry dated Jan. 2).

Old & New

Ha! I finally finished my postcard for December's Take It Further challenge!

This is the one I'm keeping for myself. I wanted to use some of what Paula had sent me so I started with a piece of one of the silks for the base. Then I played around and played around with the bits of embroidery and sequin work that was also in the package. That's one reason this card has been so long in coming. In the end I only used that little gold embroidered sun. I had the bone hand buttons in my stash, along with the heart sequin and the commercial applique wings (which I believe another friend of mine gave me some years ago). So this piece is about the things I've been given and how it makes my heart feel to both give and receive. (I seed beaded the background. It took me about an hour.)

I have my very first TIF card to put a back on and then the set will be complete. A couple of them did not get the Peltex interfacing so they're much more flimsy than the others. I feel pretty good about mastering this particular format (the postcard quilt). The edges are still problematic but I'm not willing to invest much more time and effort into perfecting them.

I will miss Sharon's monthly concept challenges; I found them very stimulating. The ideas were almost more fun to explore than to execute. I wonder what that says about me?

In searching for a way to challenge myself this year I considered a lot of options. For some reason, I could not come up with a set of challenges that would carry on in the same vein as the TIF challenges. Eventually I remembered this box:

It contains textiles I've collected over the last couple of decades. There are embroidered dish towels a neighbor made and used until the embroidery is about the only part of the towel that's still intact. There are small molas, some batik panels, other vintage embroideries... Things I was intrigued by and thought would be fun to incorporate into a quilt someday. (You may be able to see that I labeled the box "Inspiration Pieces.")

Then I was downtown one day and came across these boxes on a clearance table:

They are 14" square and about 3" deep. Perfect for 12" quilt blocks! Except there were only these two boxes and I have enough blocks of various sizes to fill a stack of boxes. I bought 'em anyway, figuring I'd find a way to put them to good use. I mean, you saw how dilapidated that cardboard box was! I finally decided to use the dotted box for my inspiration pieces and the striped box for my orphan blocks. They look so cheerful and inviting on my shelf. :- )

So one of my goals for 2009 is to actually use those inspiration textiles. But I'm not going to try to do one a month. I think that would be asking too much of myself. Instead I will try to work steadily on one piece at a time until it is complete, and let it be whatever it wants to be in terms of size and style. I still wanted a project I could complete once a month though - I like the sense of accomplishment that provides. So I have decided that I will make one preemie quilt per month. And in my ongoing quest to complete old projects, those black and white and pink friendship blocks will get set into a top once and for all. (Notice I didn't say anything about getting them made into an actual quilt?!)

Happy New Year!

Once again, it's hard to believe time has passed and we're into not only a new month but a whole new year. I have some catching up to do before I embark on my new ventures for 2009. My December TIF postcard still has not been stitched, although I feel like I can take a pass because I made this card in response to someone else's generosity:

Paula was doing a clear-out and shared some bits and pieces of old saris from her stash with me. I whipped up the postcard above as a thank you. The yellow center was an orphan block from my stash, about 3" square. I chose it because the hearts on either side of the X speak to me of a generous heart on one side and a grateful heart on the other. After that it was simply a matter of bringing it up to size (4" x 6") and embellishing it. In addition to the bluebird sequin and the flower pot button with ribbon flower I used some short bugle beads to emphsize the lines of the X shape and sequined the dots in the purple polka dot print. Quick and fun :- )

Now I'm trying to incorporate at least a couple of the bits Paula sent me into a postcard that I will keep as part of my collection of TIF challenge responses. So technically I'm making two postcard quilts for the challenge this month.

This is how I've been displaying my postcard quilts:


When I began this challenge a year ago I purchased a small photo album that I thought I would use to store the postcards. Then my second card ended up being so dimensional that it wouldn't fit into the sleeve. That's when I started lining them up along the bookshelf.

A short time ago I went out to look for something to store the postcards in as I don't feel the need to have them on display all the time. I came home with this:


And the cards fit nicely inside:

I'm even thinking of making a special card to affix to the front of the tin as a label. But don't hold your breath!

Since we have DD and family here for the day I will save my plans and goals for another post. In the meantime, let me officially begin this new year by wishing everyone who reads my blog (whether you comment or not ~ hint hint!) a year full of creative energy and the time and resources to make the most of it.

November's Take It Further Challenge

The Take It Further challenge for November was to use typography as inspiration. You may recall that I had quite a bit of fun doing research for this challenge. You may also recall that I said I hoped to make this month's challenge postcard quilt do double duty as the second embroidered piece for the Sumptuous Surfaces class I'm taking. Ha! How many of you guessed that that little plan would fall by the wayside? Gold star on your forehead if you did because you're right.

I got stalled on my monochromatic piece for the Surfaces class because I needed to refresh my embroidery skills. To that end I put together a little band sampler...

but have not taken a single stitch yet. Meanwhile I was playing with design ideas for both the TIF challenge and the color assignment for the Sumptuous Surfaces class. As Thanksgiving came and went I realized that there was no way I would even come close to meeting the deadline for the TIF challenge if I were to embroider it. The plans I had for a stitched piece were far too intricate to pull off in a pieced version. So I went back to Flickr.com and had another look around. There was one photograph that stood out in my mind, one that I really wanted to interpret in fiber. One that would also be very easy to piece. After a while I realized that I could, in fact, make it work for this challenge because the shape of the composition creates an 'L'. Voila! Typographical inspiration! You can see the photo here. And here's my version of it:

I have added the address designation "L11" in simple straight stitches to reference the typographical inspiration and the month of the challenge. The stitches themselves and the color I chose to do them in are the only two elements I might change if I were to do this over again. Black was too harsh, but the natural thread is almost too light. It's a bamboo floss that I have used in my monochromatic embroidery piece so it was right at hand, easy to use.

Now Sharon has posted the challenge for December: "For the final challenge of the year and since it is the gift giving season and many of us run ourselves ragged either making gifts or buying them I want to ask what is the idea of generosity to you. That is the theme for this month. So just take a few moments and think about what it is to give and how would you represent that visually." Oi vay!

The Magpie's Nest

I have finally completed my postcard for October's Take It Further challenge.

The challenge itself was straightforward enough... it just took me a couple of weeks to realize that the answer - the design - was right in front of my face! (Which is where it usually is. When am I going to save myself some time and start by looking there?)

Sharon's challenge for October was to think about our textile workspace and how we feel about it or what role it plays in our lives. I mentioned in an earlier post that I spend nearly all day, every day, in my studio. It's the best-lit room in the house and I need lots of light. It wasn't until I journaled about the topic one morning that it became clear to me that I feel about my studio the way I think a bird would feel about its' nest. It is a place of safety and refuge. I go elsewhere to get food (which may or may not be consumed in my nest/studio), and like a magpie I keep (nearly) all my treasures there. (When I settled on a name for this blog of mine I didn't realize quite how accurate it was! At the time I was thinking about the stories I'd heard of magpies collecting sparkly things and decorating their nests with them.)

Once I decided to give in and just make a nest all sorts of other design issues cropped up. Realistic or no? Try to fit in some of the things you'd find in my studio? How to construct it, how to embellish it, what colors to use? Finally I got into my scrap bags and pulled out some colors I wanted to work with. I thought it was going to be bright pure hues but that didn't happen. Instead I found myself trying to achieve a sense of depth by manipulating the values of the colors in the nest. Not sure I succeeded on that point. But using the leaf print to indicate a tree and finding the scrap of the 1930's reproduction print of the scottie dogs were serendipity. Because the scotties are so small it gives the illusion of distance between the nest and the dogs. And it was appropriate to use because I always have a dog or two running around the tree my nest is in!

I have tried to load this so you'll be able to click on the picture of the whole postcard and see it larger. I also did a detail shot of the nest so you can see the short little 'sticks' of yarn that I used to try to make the log cabin piecing look more nest-like.

Those were yarn color samples I collected back when I was making dolls. I was pleased to have finally found a use for some of them. I used another yarn to soften the seamlines of the leaf print and to try to give a stronger impression of leaves or a tree. Magpies always have to have their sparkle so I used as many beads as I could get away with too :- )

Now I can turn my attention to November's challenge, which is to use typography as inspiration. That means using the shape of letters or numbers as design elements rather than interpreting any particular text. Should be interesting. GuzzieSue has already done a 3-D piece based on the letter 'S'. Since I am also a Sue the letter 'S' would be a logical place for me to start as well. But that would be obvious, right in front of my face, and we can't have that!!!

About That List...

It was a rough week, but I think I'm back. In fact, I couldn't believe how much I got done yesterday. I pin basted three quilts and made my postcard quilt for this month's Take It Further challenge!

You may recall that the concept challenge for this month was lists. Not being one to go for the obvious, I have a list 5 pages long of potential ideas ;- ) I even went so far as to toy with the idea of 'enlisting' Shakespeare's help with this challenge. The ghost of King Hamlet appears to his son (also named Hamlet) and says, "List, list, O list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love..." It would have been fun to portray the ghost and Hamlet on the parapet of the castle. A bit much for a 4" x 6" postcard quilt though.

Finally, the day before yesterday, I asked myself what Reilly's To Do list would look like.

I concluded that it would be pretty short, and fairly easy to illustrate:

1. Eat

2. Sleep

3. Play

Of course, 'play' includes things like barking at the neighbor kids, telling me it's time for a treat, snatching a dirty sock from the laundry basket and running off with it, and generally being a nuisance when I have other things to do. I figured dogs aren't into detailed lists, though, so this would suffice. This postcard was pieced from four different prints, then I did some hand embroidery to highlight certain elements and added the letter beads and the blue "ball" bead in the lower right corner. Now I can begin putting the ties in my Fungly quilt or tackle one of the other things on my To Do list!

Playing Around

It doesn't seem like four days since my last post! At least I have something to show for my absence...

I've had a bunch of junvenile prints in my stash for a long time that are cute as heck but I could never seem work them into anything. Finally I decided to just bite the bullet and cut them up into strips a la Bonnie over at Quiltville. I cut those prints and some others I wanted to get rid of into mostly 1.5," 2.5," and 3.5" strips. Then I picked up a couple of strips, sewed the short ends together, and before long I had this:

It's not quite up to preemie size yet. It needs another 3" in width and obviously needs to be trimmed across the top. I expect to add a narrow strip to each side to get the necessary width. The rows (columns) are not sewn together yet because when I got to this point I received a tiny little box in the mail. Probably the smallest size the Post Office will let you get away with mailing anymore! Inside the box was a set of salt dough medallions made by Sara S. If I were a better photographer I would have taken their picture for you. Because they are white and kind of shiny there's no way I'll be able to get a decent group shot of them. However, I was inspired to use one of them right away. In fact, I was inspired to try several things I'd been wanting to play with for a while now...

The medallion I chose to use features an impression of a set of long skinny leaves. I put that on a Color Catcher sheet that had been dyed this lovely color by going through the wash with one or more things that bled. I've been saving some of my more colorful used sheets for just this purpose. The bulky (boucle?) yarn is couched down with a variety of beads. I tacked silk roving under and around the nest charm. I also finally got to use a few of the vintage rectangular sequins I've had in my stash for a long time. The one problem I ran into was that I'd stitched the Color Catcher sheet to a piece of Peltex before I added all the other embellishments. So now I have a finished top but all the threads are exposed on the back. I will not use fusible products because of my chemical issues. I think what I'm going to do is use double-sided tape to adhere a piece of watercolor paper to the back to finish that side.

The one thing I would like to do is figure out a way to enhance the background somehow. It's too late for this particular effort, I think, but there have been a couple of other pieces where I've felt the background lacked something. My first reaction is to seed stitch the background with floss. Sometimes that's just too much effort! I guess what I'm looking for is a way to make marks on the background that will be subtle and not time consuming. And not harmful to my delicate system ;- )

What's the Story?

This particular story is about my postcard quilt for June's Take It Further challenge.

The challenge was to "think about stories that are and stories that are possible." That really threw me for a loop because there seemed to be so much to choose from. Sharon came up with the challenge based on her ruminations about our stashes. My stash includes everything from vintage fabrics to new prints and a variety of embellishments to boot.

I thought I was going to use an assortment of fabrics, even some vintage ones perhaps. But in the end I used only one print, and I used it because one tiny image in the print sparked a question in my own mind.


Do you see the little sign in front of the farmhouse? It says "Farm for Sale." I saw that and wondered what the story might be behind that sign. Why is the farm for sale? It looks to me like the print was designed to represent the Great Depression of the 1930's but I didn't really want to focus on that specifically. Besides, the farmhouse in the print wouldn't fit in my 4" x 6" format. So I cut and pieced bits of the print until I felt I had a cohesive whole. There are actually seven patches in this little postcard quilt.


Once I had it pieced I did some embroidery to highlight specific features.


I would have preferred to have had the farmhouse in the picture, but I did the best I could with what I had. Overall I'm pleased with it, and I used some embroidery stitches I haven't used in a long time, thereby taking it further!

Take It Further for May

So after I finished piecing the journal quilt page for April I decided I would tackle my Take It Further challenge piece for May. My most recent decision had been to use this postcard top I pieced in May, specifically for the challenge:

Just for kicks I went back through my tiny stash of previously pieced postcard tops. Look what I found:


Clear, bright colors... a witch sort of overlooking it all (Halloween is my favorite holiday)... sewn intuitively from scraps... this could work! It certainly shows how I'm working at the moment, in the hues I naturally gravitate to.

I started auditioning beads and buttons and before I knew it I had this:

Ta daa!

The challenge was "What do you call yourself and why?" I may not make 'fine art' but I do consider myself an artist first and foremost. When pressed I use the term textile artist because everything I do begins with a textile of some kind. This card demonstrates how I use my medium of choice.

I guess the way I see it, I'm an artist because I do notice the small details (March's TIF challenge) and it matters to me that they be arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way. I may see things a little differently from other people or I may notice things that others might miss. I definitely enjoy creating a little story or vignette. I have practiced my craft and sought out skills and knowledge that enhance the creative decisions I make and allow me to express myself in a unique way.

Now I'm thinking that the postcard I pieced for May might actually work for June's challenge...!

Take It Further for May

Technically I have two more days in which to finish my postcard quilt for May's TIF challenge. I might make it. I pieced two potential tops today. It remains to be seen which one I'll end up using. Or whether I piece yet another one!

My original idea for this month's challenge (in terms of your artistic endeavors, "What do you call yourself and why?") involved intuitive piecing and reverse applique. In the last week or so it dawned on me that perhaps the reason I'd been avoiding work on this challenge was that reverse applique is not in my usual bag of tricks. I've done a minimal amount of it, and on this small scale what I'd planned was certainly do-able, but I wasn't looking forward to it. So then I thought, "Why am I not using the techniques I normally use?" I consider myself an artist; the way I execute my postcard quilt will demonstrate the kind of artist I am. Duh.

Postcard number one:



Postcard number two:

All I have to do is embellish one of them in a way that I feel gives the viewer a good idea of the kind of art I'm making nowadays!

Here's a shot of what part of my design wall looks like at the moment:

This picture shows only about half of the design space I have available. But you can see the postcards and my unfinished BJP journal quilts lined up across the bottom. After the postcards I started piecing a top for that blank bit of batting in the middle. That will become my journal page for April. I'm going to get that pieced and then concentrate on embellishing this lot (six of the seven pieces you see on the wall; the single heart on a purple ground is still an orphan block). I only have one place where I can either sit and bead or sit and use the sewing machine. There have been times when I've had both a piecing project and a beading project going at the same time but I've since learned that it works better to focus on one or the other at any given time. I lose fewer beads that way ;- )

By the way, in case you hadn't read about it elsewhere, Sharon B of In A Minute Ago has started a new community site for those who have any interest at all in things related to stitching or fiberwork. It's called Stitchin' Fingers. She set it up in part for those who don't maintain a blog of their own as a place to share their efforts with others and to interact with like-minded individuals. Subsets within the larger community are being formed for specific interests or activities like swaps and round robins. You can check it out here.

April's Take It Further Challenge

The challenge Sharon posed for the month of April was, "How do you see change?" She gave examples from her own life of times when she felt change was good and other times when it was not so welcome. I think all of us have had those experiences! And then there are various degrees to which we look forward to or dread change. How to depict this visually?I finally settled on a door. I figured how quickly one opens that door would indicate how welcome - or not- that change is in your life.

That was early in the month. Since then I've been working on a swap quilt and little else. But when I finished the swap quilt a few days ago I started thinking about this challenge again. I went online to find images of doors I might be able to use as inspiration. That search generated a couple of new ideas, one of which was to use a pair of doors rather than just one. I especially liked this picture of a pair of doors in Dublin, Ireland, taken by Luka Gentili. One door could represent happy, welcome, changes and the other could represent those changes we're sometimes forced to make whether we want to or not. And thus this 4" x 6" postcard quilt was born:


The photograph makes it look a little wonkier than it really is. The top is machine pieced (not paper pieced). The red trim around the doors is only a quarter of an inch wide. The hinges are created with bugle beads. One door knob is a glass bead, the other a pearl. I've discovered the blanket stitch on my sewing machine is a nice way to finish off the edges of these little quilts. I'm not using the stiff interfacing (Timtex or Peltex) in these postcard quilts. They're just a top, cotton batting, and watercolor paper for the back. They're a little less stout than postcard quilts made with the interfacing but I like the paper for the back because it makes it easy for me to label the work. For this application it's working fine.

And now, just for fun, a recent studio picture:

Happy Spring!

Back in Business - Yippee!

So let's see... where was I?

Oh yes; remember that preemie quilt I made out of the orphan crazy patch blocks? (If not, it's at the bottom of this post.) Well, I saved one of the patches from the block I took completely apart because it was so cool I wanted to play with it myself! I slapped it down on a 4 x 6" piece of Warm & Natural and then went looking for some other fabrics that would complement it. Since the starter patch featured a parrot on a purple background I went with a sort of jungle theme. Once it was pieced I had to add some beads and sequins ;- ) I also added a bit of embroidery to give the parrot something to perch on. Anyway, it's done now, except for applying a back and finishing the edges.


This was a lot of fun to do. You can understand my frustration at not being able to share it with you!

I lost another day yesterday. Can't say exactly what the problem was but I have my suspicions. Today I have been hand sewing on a secret project. It's made entirely of batiks, including this one:

I have a teaching gig this weekend. Hold a good thought for me will you? I'm down to two teaching opportunities a year and last month I all but bailed out because of my health issues. Fortunately the ladies were able to carry on without me once I got them started but I need to be present this time. I also need to pull a palette of fabrics to use for my demo so maybe I should get busy with that...

No Pictures Today :- (

Apparently Blogger is having issues again and can't or won't load pictures. Let's see if I can even do a post...

I had a couple of 'lost' days this week, recovering from exposures to chemicals. One day I knowingly exposed myself (that sounds more provocative than it was, I assure you!) and the next was unavoidable. Such is my life. So it seems like there is very little progress to report. But! Yesterday I surprised myself by doing some unexpected sewing.

You remember those orphan crazy-patch blocks I made into this preemie quilt? Well, in the block that I took apart was this cool purple patch with a parrot on it. I saved that patch for my own selfish purposes ;- ) And yesterday, in my mindless state, I put that patch on a postcard-size piece of batting and started adding to it. I even got it halfway embellished before I had to quit for the day. I may be able to finish embellishing it today before the rugrats return from their adventures - if I don't spend too much time on this computer! Maybe I'll be able to show you pictures tomorrow when the Blogger people are done partyin' in Austin. ('Course then they'll all be hungover but maybe they'll at least be able to plug the server back in.)

TIF - March - Done!

I have been working on a project that I'm not ready to show you yet. But when I reached a point where I needed a break I started thinking about the Take It Further challenge for this month:

This month's challenge is to pay attention to the tiny details.

You can read about my initial response to this challenge here. I thought about doing a postcard quilt that would convey an impression of sunlight shining through a glass window/door like this:

Apparently that required too much mental effort on my part. Or it just wasn't interesting enough to me to follow through on it.

I got to thinking about the details in my life.

Too many details can become chaos...

But some details are essential:

Thread, a knot, stitches. Buttons can be a decorative detail. Guess the only thing I left out was the needle!

Cyber Fyber Swap and Exhibit

Recently when I was blog browsing I found out about Susan Lenz's Cyber Fyber postcard and ATC swap. (I forget how I got there.) There were only a few postcards up for grabs, but I got one!


To quote Susan: This postcard was made from a background of black linen with heavily painted Wonder Under (Bond-a-Web). It was created shortly after my first machine embroidery class (under Valerie Campbell-Harding). To it was stitched a scrap from an old cross stitch based on the 6th century mosaics in Ravenna's Sna Vitale church. The reverse is a Japanese postcard brought back by my elder son Mathias after his first trip. It is signed and dated in ink. (You can't see it very well in my photograph but she has done some decorative stitching in metallic threads in the background areas.)

In return, of course, I had to make and send her a postcard.

I dug around in my scrap bits and pieces and found something that almost measured the required 4" x 6". All I had to do was add a corner and then quilt/embellish it. Susan was asking for predominantly fiber cards. I took that to mean a minimum of 3-D embellishments, which posed something of a challenge for me since I've been so busy sewing beads on quilts lately! I did some machine stitching first, then broke out the embroidery floss to add some accent lines and dots. In the end I couldn't resist adding a few sequins and beads.

I did all my stitching through the top and a layer of Warm & Natural batting. To finish the raw edges I applied narrow strips of black fabric to the front, wrapped them to the backside, then stitched in the ditch to hold them in place. I was nervous about stitching through a postcard so I used a piece of watercolor paper instead. It's stouter than regular paper and acid free but not quite as heavy as the postcard Susan's artwork is mounted on. I used a zig-zag stitch to secure the watercolor paper to the quilted piece, keeping my stitches within the black border created by my 'binding.' All in all I was satisfied with the way it turned out.

Lady Bird's Vision

Sorry it's been so long since I last checked in. I meant to post yesterday but I got so distracted by reading everyone else's blogs that I ran out of time!

I have finished the beading on my postcard quilt for the Take It Further challenge. You may recall that the concept for this month was "What are you old enough to remember?" What stood out in my mind from my childhood was the news about Lady Bird Johnson's vision for the national highways to be planted with native flowers. In doing my research for this project I learned that her vision extended beyond that to "clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas." Well, since I'm only making postcard size quilts for this series I had to keep my focus pretty narrow!

I lived in Texas for about 14 years and had opportunities to see the wildflowers in bloom along the roadsides there. My postcard may be a little more densely beaded than I originally intended but honestly, when the wildflowers are in bloom it's solid flowers on both sides of the road!

Here's a side view of the quilt just to give you some idea of the dimensionality of the beads. It's a full quarter inch from the table to the top of the orange bead stacks.

I still have to back the quilt and finish the edges. I've never been thrilled with the look of zig-zagged raw edges, at least when I do it. I don't enjoy the process either. I don't have the patience required to get a nice smooth finish! So I'm playing around with ideas for alternative edge finishes. I also still have to back and bind my Gemini journal quilt but right now I'm not in the mood to do either. I think it might be time to start a new project...

4x6 Lives

I've been wanting to do another 4" x 6" quilt so yesterday I wandered around the studio trying to find something that felt good to work on. Played in my silks a bit, considered the novelty prints (Tonya at Lazy Gal Quilting is showing her Halloween quilts and had me thinking along those lines myself), and then dug into my bright scraps bag. Nothing really spoke to me until I happened upon some leftovers from a fabric challenge I participated in a few years ago. The theme was Jamaican Getaway. The quilt was auctioned off to raise funds for our local Hospice organization. I don't believe I have any pictures of it anywhere or I would show it to you. (I'm really bad about that. I don't have pictures of most of the things I've made.) I was quite pleased with that quilt.

Anyway, I found one pieced bit that was already 4" x 6" so I just slapped it on a piece of batting and basted them together. Then I found a couple more bits, sewed them together, and I had a second 4x6 top! The second one I made is the one on top in this picture:



It's also the one that spoke to me the loudest. I have a pair of whimsical fish earrings that I picked up at the thrift shop; one of those fits perfectly in the big blue shape in the middle of the quilt. But that will go on last because it's so dimensional. Last night I beaded the leaf/feather shape in the upper half of the quilt and then echo quilted in a single strand of rayon thread around it. I tried not to feak myself out by thinking of it as echo quilting though. In my mind I was just seed stitching in a pattern around the shape. If I'd been "quilting" it I would have been trying to have perfectly even stitches, blah blah blah. I'm working very hard to overcome those perfectionistic tendencies! (That's why I'm not even thinking of these as "postcard" quilts. If I thought there was any chance I'd be mailing them I would automatically restrict the embellishments I would allow myself to use. Honestly, Perfectionism is a disease.)

I would like very much to pick this back up and stitch some more on it but DH has a major garage-organizing project underway and requires my assistance...

Playtime!

Let me just start off by saying that our temps have dropped and the sky is an all-too-familiar gray. I am not complaining however. I've heard about the heat and the humidity the rest of you (in the US) are suffering. I know what that kind of weather is like and will contentedly sit back and enjoy what looks like November here in August!

A couple of posts back I showed a picture of two stacks of batting pieces: one for journal quilts, the other for postcard-size quilts. I have not yet begun my journal quilt for this month (hanging my head in shame) but I did allow myself the pleasure of making a postcard quilt today just for the fun of it. This is something of an accomplishment for me. In the past I've always felt that any project I undertook had to have a purpose, even if I wasn't exactly sure what that purpose would be. Granted, this postcard quilt could be sent to someone someday, but the point is that I made it just to give myself the opportunity to have fun with needle and thread. To play. So I got into my scraps and found this print of a Jim Shore cat who turned out to be almost exactly the right size. And then I embellished it/her:

First I seed stitched (or chicken scratched, depending on who you learn it from) around the cat. The background right around the cat was a slightly different color than the area closer to the edges so I used two strands of rayon floss, one blue and one purple, close to the cat and two strands of blue only around the perimeter. Then I did giant cross stitches in yellow - freehand - at the top and the bottom. There are just-barely-green plastic flower beads along the top border. The giant hot pink and lime green flower appliques along the bottom are held on with a sprinkling of seed beads in their centers. (If I eventually decided to mail this I will have to go back in and stitch those flowers down more securely.)

There's no back on the postcard yet, just the fabric and the batting with my stitches going through those two layers. I'll figure out how I want to finish the edges and cover the back if and when I decide to do something more with it. But, as far as I'm concerned, this is not a UFO. The state it's in now is precisely what I was aiming for when I began work on it so it is finished. Anything beyond this is gravy. My intention is to do one of these once a week or twice a month, depending on my health and other projects, and just sort of let them pile up so I can observe my progress overall at some point down the road. This is a learning experience for me, nothing more. I have to say that I'm really pleased with how this one turned out though! ;- )

By the way, Reilly sends his regards:

(Got any treats?)