Art Quiltie with stamped fabric

On my Fabric Postcard group we are having an art quiltie swap.  There was one in June and I missed it!!!!!  Fortunately, I am blessed to have a member of the group that volunteered to swap one for one with me so I made her this cute little quiltie!!
I started with a square of stamped fabric which I received in a swap a while back.  I love the quote so I cut the fabric piece down to 4" x 4" for the front of my quiltie.  I found and installed my free motion foot for my sewing machine.  It was not working properly so I found a YOUTube video that gave me a visual of the process and a few hints on how to best proceed with free motion stitiching.  Once reinstalled and the adjustments made it was working much better.  I layered my square over a piece of batting and started stitching.  You can see from the photo that my free motion skills are only in the beginner stages but I did manage to go around the petals on the flowers that were stamped on the fabric.  I will keep practicing!!

Next I stitched my backing fabric (4"x 4") to a scrap piece of fabric and used the same technique to embellish the swirls on it.  Next, I found some coordinating pink embroidery floss and added double sequins (iridescent white and fuchsia) to the center of the flowers and secured them in place using a ivory seed bead.  I added three more stitched flowers in the same floss and added fuchsia sequins and ivory beads to their centers. as well.  Then, I laid my front on my back and trimmed them to the same size and added a few more loops of free motion stitching to secure these two piece together.  With that much complete, I changed my foot back to the one for regular stitching and zigzagged all the way around very close to the edge to create a nice neat edge.

I have been playing with the idea of making fabric tape using fusible webbing for a while.   So, today, I decided to play and made some fabric tape to bind the edges of my quiltie.
I positioned a strip of fusible webbing (sold to fix a hem without sewing) on the edge of a coordinating solid, enclosed it in resist paper and ironed it.  The fusible webbing very nicely adhered to the edge of the fabric.  I trimmed away the piece with fusible webbing on it and I had created a length of fabric tape!  I cut a four inch length and positioned it neatly on one side of my quiltie with half the tape on the quiltie and the other half hanging off.

I place resist paper over and above and ironed it in place.  It fused very nicely to the front portion of my quiltie. Next, I turned the quiltie over and ironed the remainder to the back which very neatly bound that side of the quiltie. I cut another 4" strip and positioned it on the opposite side and repeated the steps to bind that edge.
To finish it off, I cut another two strips but made sure they were long enough to cover the strips I had already put in place, trimmed the corners into a point so that the corners would look mitered and adhered them in the same fashion as I had done the other two sides.

You can see how the binding looked in position before I ironed down the final edge to the back of my quiltie.  It worked very well and created some very nice corners on my little quiltie.   I decided to add a row of straight stitching very close to the inside edge and the outside edge of my binding to help secure it and to give the binding some texture and definition!! I am very happy with how well this technique worked and will certainly be using it again when I am making quilties!!
So my quiltie is ready to go and will be off to my partner this week!!

Therese

Journal - monthly dividers

Our journals are coming along.  Last week we pasted our decorative paper to our monthly dividers.
The dividers are black cardstock - 8.5" x 5.5" and they give such vibrancy to the decorative papers.  They look very much like the art that they are!!
I have already die cut the dividers for binding and all the pages are ready to go as well.

Therese

2012 calendar page

Here is a look at my completed calendar.  It stands on its own though I have added holes at the top of each page so it can be hung.  Yesterday, I realized that the bulk of it might prevent that from being effective so I added a cord hanger which is about 1.5" long (a loop through the holes in each page) so it can be easily hung.
These are the 12 pages of my second calendar which are not exactly the same as the previous pieces of art I have shared with you!!

A totally fun project!!  We all need calendars to help us keep track of our lives so why not create
for ourselves a calendar worthy of looking at every day because it features our best art!!

Therese

Book card!

I created this book which is really a card for a special friend on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday!!

What fun!!

I purchased the kit at the Sweet Sentiments Yard Sale a few weeks ago just intending on altering the pages to suit my needs. It was a wonderful surprise to discover that the book had DREAMS as its theme!! It included the pages, ribbon and chipboard elements in this great colour scheme of seafoam, celery green, warm red and ivory so I decided to work with it. I worked out my wording, cut letters using my Sizzix Doodle Block alphabet in coordinating cardstock, added ribbon to the chipboard pieces and laid everything out so I could see how it would all fit together!! I placed the large chipboard letters on the lower halves of the pages and added my words and accent chipboard elements - two frames and two buttons to the upper sections. With everything laid out, I glued my diecut letters in place using white glue and a fine tip applicator. The chipboard elements were glued in place using a double layer of glue dots to make sure the glue was thick enough to offset the ribbon on the back. Worked well.

Thrifty Tip: use an empty fabric paint bottle with a very fine tip for precise application of white glue.

On the backside of the book I added some envelopes in which she can store images or notes to herself and record the manifestations of her dreams as they become reality!!

As you can see on the left, I glued the outside of the envelope flap to the back of the page and added two clear photo corners to secure the right hand side of the envelope. I added colour printed circles with a message for her on the outside of the envelopes.

Once my pages were finished I bound them together using ribbon. Love the way it worked out!!

I have packaged it in the original container - a plastic box with a handle!! How cool is that!!

It looks so great!! I added my personal message on a panel I added to the inside of one of the envelopes. I hope it will be a reminder of all the life she has left to live and an inspiration for her to choose everyday to take baby steps in the directions of her dreams!!

To achieve any goal, you need only to decide where you want to go, take baby steps every day, stay focussed and never give up! How you get there will unravel in ways you could not even imagine because the Universe takes care of that part.

It is your life, chose to follow your dreams!!