Fabric postcard with a geometric pattern and hand stitching

 I am part of a birthday swap on my fabric postcard group - Trading Fabric Post Cards.  I have seen cards where the shapes of the images in the fabric have been hand embroidered so I decided I would try that on this one.  The fabric has geometric patterns and elements and a wonderful colour combination of red, purple, sienna and turquoise with a bit of blue and black!!  You can see below a before shot of the fabric - the strip is printed and part of the fabric. I wanted it to be highlighted so I added an extra layer of batting just behind the strip and stitched it into place before stitching the same size piece of batting to the front of my postcard.

With the batting in place I started adding hand stitching - first around all the elements in the areas above and below the strip.  I took same colour embroidery floss and did running stitch around all of the elements doing all one colour at the time starting with the black, then the purple, turquoise, blue and finally the yellow.  I wanted to highlight the red area as well so I just added short tiny stitches randomly in all of those areas.  I like the texture that the hand stitching provides!!  Next, I added hand stitching to the squares in the strip.  In this area I added hand stitching in a different colour than the printing. For example on the black center elements I used red and purple to highlight them.  I used the those same colours on the outside borders and in the black corner elements as well.  Lastly, I added yellow to the corners of all the squares.  Wanting to bling it up a bit I added sequins in the center of the squares which I just stitched in place using large french knots.  As I was stitching I was thinking of a theme regarding having special days.  I was inspired to make one of the squares a gift by stitching a gold ribbon to the top to simulate a bow and to add the quote which reads" today - the present".  The squares reminded me that often every day looks very much like the one that came before with a few changes.  We get to choose to see it as "the present" that it is and certainly when we celebrate a birthday we get to make it special by adding to it activities, people and things that have meaning for us.   The quote is hand written on iron on fabric label tape, coloured with watercolour and ironed into place below the gift.  To make the bow, I simply folded gold ribbon to make a V and stitched it into place above the square that became the gift.  I added a white backer to which I had stitched some pellon and stitched my front and back together very close to the edge all the way around.  I braided three lengths of black fiber and used black thread in a zig zag stitch to finish off my post card.  I am pretty happy with it!!  Very different that some of the others I have created.  You can check them out here. This one is off to my partner to arrive before her March birthday.      Therese