A fabric postcard embellished with rick rack, stitching and an appliqued sunflower!!

On my fabric postcard group, Trading Fabric Postcards, I have joined the birthday swap where we make postcards for each participant for their birthday - just over a dozen postcards for the year!! You can make the postcards any time provided you send them in time to arrive for everyone's birthdays.  I like that I can choose any theme or technique for the postcards which allows me to learn along the way!!  For this postcard I started with a section of this fabric collage which I made a while back.  It had a transition from dark horizontal strips to brighter vertical strips so I stitched on a piece of red rick rack to help visually divide my postcard into two areas.  I found the sunflower in my stash and fussy cut it out of the fabric after applying fusible webbing to the back.  I found a little strip of green and a small piece of dotted green from which I cut two leaves.  They didn't coordinate as well as I would have liked so I watercoloured the leaves of the sunflower, the stem and the two leaves until I was happy with how they looked together.  I added two layers to the bottom edge on the right to create "ground" on which to situate the flower.   Once the flower pieces were dry I fused them to the collage above the ground starting with the stem, then the flower and finishing off with the leaves.  I used dark green thread to add stitching to the leaves, the stem and around the center of the sunflower.  It gives them more texture and a bit more definition.  I added stitching to the ground as well while I was at it.  I cut a piece of batting and a white backer, layered them and stitched all the way around the edge in dark green and added lines of stitching in the dark area as well.  I changed the thread to a light purple and stitched all the way around the sunflower going up and down between the different pieces.  I auditioned several fabrics before I found this red one with tiny white polka dots which worked with the colour scheme of the postcard.  I applied two strips of fusible web to the back of the fabric trimming them out in between then cut out the pieces I needed to bind all four edges.  I positioned a strip on the front of the long left hand edge and fused it in place.  I flipped the whole postcard over and fused the remain piece to the back.  I did the same three more times with the pieces I had trimmed out.  I used white thread to add two rows of stitching all the way around to finish off my binding.  I added a little quote which was inkjet printed on white fusible fabric tucking it just below the rick rack at the top.  Very happy with how it turned out and now it will be mailed off to my partner in time for it to arrive for her birthday.     Therese

Fabric postcard with a butterfly embellishment

This is my second January postcard for the birthday club on my Fabric Postcard group.  We need to have our postcards out to our partners for them to arrive for their birthdays so I needed to get them made as early in December as possible to avoid the Christmas rush both here at home and in the postal system.  I started with small precut scraps and stitched them together to get two rows.  Last time, I did not measure right away and found later that I was short just a bit so I measured and again needed just a bit so I added a strip of brown between the the rows.  I like this option much better.  I decided to use this butterfly applique so I cut out a scallop circle using my Nestibilities out of mottled yellow fabric to which I had already added fusible webbing.  It did not cut as neatly as I had hoped but that was probably because I had not lined up my cutting plate quite right.  I applied my adhesive backed applique to the circle using my iron over some release paper because I had already applied the fusible webbing to the circle.  Before  applying it to the front of the postcard I decided to see what I might want to add as embellishment.  I added a layer of interfacing and then some batting to the back before I stitched down both sides of the middle strip and adding some free motion stitching to the pieces on both sides.  I thought the strip needed a bit more embellishment so I added a piece of orange rick rack and hand stitched it in place with green thread.  It still needed a bit of something but I thought maybe I would work on that after I had added my focal element.  I positioned my scallop circle and applied heat with my iron until it fused to the postcard front.  Next, I added red seed beads to each scallop using yellow thread.  It still needed a bit of something so I added faux stitching with a fine tip permanent marker using a Nestie circle as a guide.  That was much better.  Next, I revisited my rick rack and decided to add red seed beads to each dip and then three french knots above each one.  I am really happy with how that worked out.  I have seen all sorts of wonderful stitching combined with rick rack to create wonderful embellishments on projects.  I should have stamped on my light square before applying my focal element but I forgot.  So I decided to stamp "celebrate" several times and then added the "life" lower.  I used green permanent ink and I am happy with how it turned out.  I added a white backing fabric which I fused to the batting.  Unfortunately, the dark bobbin thread shows through the white but it was fused in place and I was not able to undo it.  I will have to remember to change my bobbin thread to coordinate with the batting next time.  It is a learning curve!!  I trimmed all the layers to 4" x 6" and then added an off white bias tape to the edge.  I am looking forward to learning more about these little art projects and trying some new techniques as I work on birthday postcards this year.