Postcards from pre-printed fabric panels

Today's set of postcards started with a purchased panel.  Actually it was a width of fabric strip that I purchased for about $3.00. It was badly printed, skewed and printed right into the selvedge.  It was also much smaller than a standard postcard size.  |A bit of improvising would be needed.

There were also pieces for the back, but again, they were too small, so I set them aside for a future project. 

 

One of the pieces shown on top of a 4 x 6 inche piece of thick interfacing.

 

Simply set with a strip of fabric on each side.  I purposely set the panel off square so it would be obviously skewed. A little bit off square would make a viewer think I made a mistake, where as being off square by a larger margin looks as though it was done on purpose.

 

Really set off square.

 

To me, the words slanting downward is more pleasing, but I wonder if a right handed person would consider the words slanting upward more pleasing.

 

 

This time, I moved the panel to the top of the interfacing and added fabric to three sides.  The bottom strip was trimmed from and earlier postcard.

 

 

A little more play, moved this panel to the upper right corner requiring only strips on two sides.  Unfortunately when this one was designed, the paint for the working was a pale pink that hardly showed up.  I used a Pigma pen and coloured it a darker pink. Very effective.  Check the first photo in this post and you'll see the difference.

 

As part of  "A Month of Letters", I'll be sending one of these cards to a quilting friend.

Popular English Art

 
 

Popular English Art is a 1945, by Noel Carrington and Clarke Hutton. Used copies of this book are still available.    This lovely card is from the  box of 100 cards from Penguin books. 

I have sent this postcard to Peggy who introduced me to the Month of Letter Writing Challenge.

You can read my review of Postcards from Penguin at my other blog.

http://www.lettermo.com

Letter # 1

A Month of Letters

One of my online acquaintances has introduced me to A Month of Letters.  The objective is to send a real physical letter every day for the month of February.  (Sundays not included) Think of the joy you will bring to your family and friends by having a real letter/postcard land in their mailbox.

That is one of the reasons that my sister and I started this blog.  We wanted the joy of sending real mail to people.

I'm getting my postcards ready, and I have some stamps at hand.

If you decide to join this fun event as a result of reading this blog, let me know and I'll send you a letter or postcard in February.

Four in One cards

 This is my first postcards for the 350 Postcard Challenge.  These were started last year, but for some reason got pushed to the side.  Unfortunately I didn't take photos of the process, but I will repeat it at some point this year and document the entire thing.  Using scraps, I made four pieced units, each larger than 4 x 6 inches.  After pressing, I layered and pinned them on top of each other.

Using a rotary cutter, I then cut them into 4 sections.  I resorted everything, so that I had a different colour combination showing in each section.  These were then fused to the heavy interfacing.  For these two cards I used a machine embroidery thread for the stitching.  I completed two of the set earlier, and for the embroidery I used regular sewing thread and the result was a much heavier look.

 

The original two cards are shown on the left, and the ones I recently completed are on the right.

Fabric Postcard Challenge. for 2014

Every now and then I have to shake things up and break out of my normal routine.  This year I have challenged myself to stitch 350 fabric postcards.  I have no idea if I'll be able to accomplish this lofty goal, but I am going to try.

For those who don't know what a fabric post card it, well, it's a post card made from fabric.  It has fabric on the front, plainer fabric on the back where you write and place the stamp and a really stiff layer in the middle to keep it rigid in the mail.  Yes, you put a regular postage stamp on it and send it through the mail.  It's barely noticeable, but at the bottom of the first two postcards, are the bar code that the sorting machine prints .

 

This next photos is the back of a card that went through the mail as well.

 

I hope that you'll join with me to view my journey through the rest of the year as I explore the making of all sorts of fabric postcards.  And to keep you coming back, I'm letting you know that I'll be holding the occasional contest  to have one of them mailed to you. 

What Happens in Vegas, gets mailed home

What happens in Vegas, gets mailed home, that is, if it happens to be written on a postcard.

 

My sister, who is my too long silent partner in this blog, sent me this glittery postcard from Las Vegas.  She was there for her first time during the holidays in December. 

 

I have some exciting news coming to this blog in the next few days.  I hope you'll return to find out what's happening.  If you aren't a follower, you will want to click to follow so you don't miss out on this big announcement as well as the fun to follow.

Stuck on Canada Contest winners

I have been very remiss in closing this contest and drawing a winner.  I used Random.org to help me. 
The winner of the Stuck on Canada card is Beth Niquette.
Since I was so slow, I chose a second winner of an as of yet unknown card, Violet Sky.

I'll be sending emails to both winners.
Thanks all for entering.  Stay tuned for a Nancy Drew postcard contest.