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Archive for the ‘Postcards’ Category

A Little Postcard Diversion

Monday, June 16th, 2014

finishedbegoniapostcard

One of our friends from Trinity, who lives in the South tower of The Westover hosted a cocktail party in our honor on Friday evening. I decided to make a little postcard thank you for her. She loves flowers and has a lot of begonias on her deck.

I had some rainbow dyed silk scraps and first cut little petals for the flower and fused them.

begoniapetals

 

Then I made leaves and a background and fused everything in place.

fusedbegonia

 

I hadn’t done free motion quilting for a while so it was fun to do some on this little piece.

stitchedbegonia

 

I had to make a run to the studio to find my postcard backs. After gluing the stitched piece to the postcard back and zig zag stitching the edge. I put a stamp on it an mailed it. I always like to have the recipients have the surprise of getting this delivered in the mail.

Making the postcard and catching up on my SDA work have filled my day.

Beautiful Day

Friday, October 18th, 2013

sunshineandfallcolor

We are having glorious fall weather. After several days of unending rain, we have been having unending days of delightful sunny weather.

I got my pet postcards in the mail today and whipped up this one to send to someone as a thank you. Can’t say who just yet. The background looks bluer than it is.

wenpostcard

I had a piece of gray silk organza on which I have been doing test printing.

graffititestprint

It seemed too good to just discard so I used it as the background for the postcard. I think I will use the rest for another collage with graffiti.

I pulled fabrics and sorted them by season as I have a piece planned where I want to have a wash of color in the background showing the Portland seasonal colors.

seasonalfabricsorting

I am trying to decide whether I want to mix in some batiks for variety.

I now am under a gag order regarding Lisa’s situation. I can say that two more companies have withdrawn goods from this company on their shelves and website. If there is good press, I can share it. This has gotten big, very quickly.

I am going to my Oregon critique group tomorrow. I am looking forward to that. Have a great week-end!

Pet Postcards in the Mail

Thursday, October 17th, 2013

I have been going to meetings and working on the guild newsletter, but I did finish the pet postcards. The look so much better when they are quilted, trimmed and edged. I printed custom backs for them.

custompostcardbacks

Here is a sampling of the cards which will be off to Houston tomorrow.

petpostcard2

petpostcard3

petpostcard1

petpostcard4

petpostcard5petpostcard6

It is late and I need to get to bed. I hope to get started on some new work tomorrow. It is going to be warm so I may do a little dyeing.

 

Seventy-five , but Who is Counting?

Saturday, October 12th, 2013

75birdycake

Here is my cake – a delicious gluten and diary free Irish oatmeal spice cake. Steph made little flags out of silk shibori that we dyed together.

It was a nice, uneventful day. We are beginning to get some fall color. Makes our daily walks very enjoyable.

2013fallcolorI saw this pile of pumpkins on my shopping trip yesterday.

variouspumpkins

My present to myslef was a clean-up from the recent creativy and bobbin hunt. I got my Janome back yesterday and this afternoon, I got the pet postcards ready for their backing.

bluedownwarddog

These two are on some deconstructed print fabric.

whitedownwarddog

These are done on whitish fabrics – I think the Scooter motif shows up better.

Here are my Maggie cards.

 

maggiepostcards

The yellow and green ones are from a print I did with a masking paper resist on a silk screen. I used green paint on yellow fabric. I am glad I finally found a use for it.

yellowgreenmaggie

Tonight we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant that specializes in tasty small plates. It was very yummy. Miles dressed very nicely for the event. I love that he likes to get dressed up.

dappermiles

As we left the restaurant, we saw this tree illuminated by red lights from the restaurant and the moon. Awesome sight.

redtreewithmoon

So that was my birthday. We are extending it a few days with a trip to Camp Sherman in the mountains of Central Oregon on the Metolius. We have a cabin for two nights and can take Scooter with us. I will try to post some photos from there.

 

My Sewing Machine Saga

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

machinequiltfail

I wanted to get my pet postcards finished because I have to get busy on my quilt for the SAQA Oregon show. I need to have it done by the end of the month.  So, I decided to resurrect my Bernina 170 which I have been using as a felting machine for over a year. To use the felting attachment, I had to remove the bobbin case and hook race. Dummy that I am, I forgot about the hook race. I thought I had misplaced just the bobbin case. I looked high and low and could not find it. I finally found one at a Bernina dealer near me. When I started to attach it, I realized I was also missing the hook race. I knew then that both had to be some place in my studio. There is no way that both could have been thrown out or disappeared. I had to find the bobbin hook race because it is really expensive to replace.

I finally found them safe and sound in the Bernina accessory case, under some fabric in the bins behind my sewing machine.

berninaaccessorycase

The problem was that I had a storage case from my former Janome that looked similar so I thought they were not where they belonged. There were in fact two bobbin cases. So, now I have 3 – I can play with tension to my heart’s delight.

bobbincasesandhookrace

So I got it all assembled and had to do some futzing around because I have been using a Janome for so long, I couldn’t remember how to do anything. I had to get out my manual.

Once I started working, I realized how much I love quilting with the Janome. This Bernina is several years old.

terrierquilted

I am not happy with the one up at the top because the script gets lost in the quilting. I went over it with a pen and it did not help.  So, I decided to experiment with the monogram feature on the Bernina. I think this will work better, especially if I use a contrasting color.

berninaterrierstitch

On another note, I am having the ultrasound tomorrow. I will be glad to get that over with.