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Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Butterfly felted wool postcard

My newest fabric postcard!!  I am loving it!!  I created it for a swap on one of my groups, Trading Fabric Post Cards!!  I started with the beginnings of a cuff from a few months back when I created this one.  I had started with a strip of green wool felt and had begun adding beads to the outside of the felted wool butterfly die cut.  In the end, the process was taking longer than I expected and I ended up changing directions completely so this has been sitting around with thread and beads waiting to find a new life.  So, to give it a new life as a postcard, I finished off the beading and added some stitching in three different colours of embroidery thread inside the butterfly.  I added some black seed beads to form its body and I fashioned a pair of wire antenna which I also stitched on.  I was very happy with that.  To convert the cuff to a postcard I had to cut off about 2" of the length and add an inch to the width.  I rummaged through my felted wool scraps and found some warm green that coordinated very well so I cut a couple of half inch strips - one for each side and used purple embroidery thread and the sheaf stitch to bind them together.  I am enjoying learning new stitches from my "Stitch Step by Step" book which I acquired on my winter vacation.  I wanted to repeat the bright green colour so I added single stitches between the sheaf stitches.  I used white embroidery thread to add the flight path using a plain running stitch.  I created a backer for the postcard using white cotton, pinned it to the front and attached them together using blanket stitch which I executed with turquoise embroidery thread.  This was working out very well.  To integrate the front and the back I added machine stitching with white thread in the bobbin and coordinating green thread on top.  I like the way that worked out!! I took a needle and hid all of my thread ends inside the structure of the postcard.  I felt it still needed a "bit of something" on the right hand side so I dug through my sequins and found three different colours in three differetn sizes.  The medium one was originally gold but I modified it with a green Sharpie and now it is exactly the right colour!!  Gotta love it!!  I stitched them into place using green thread and added black seed beads in their centers.  I will be prepping it for mailing and send it off as soon as I receive the name of my swap partner!!

Therese