Birthday Greetings in 2011

I've been busy with fabric post cards lately, and have put together a design for 2011 to send to my friends on their birthdays.

This fabric, "Cherie" by Clothworks, is one of my favorites, and this figure is just one of eleven different motifs on the fabric. Just a small amount of embroidery and a little embellishment, and voila! a wonderful birthday surprise.

2010 Holiday Cards

I don't always manage to get around to sending holiday cards every year - but I did this year! These fabric post cards are made with Alexander Henry Fabrics' design "cherubim" by Nicole De Leon. The cherub motifs were cut from the fabric and placed on new backgrounds -- being heavily decorated with glitz and free motion quilting.

Where Does the Time Go?

My 'baby' brother Barry turns 45 this week! WOW, blow my hair back. I remember when mom brought him home from the hospital. He closely resembled a drowned rat. However, he improved greatly over the years, and is now a very buff, 6'5", Elvis-drawling, basketball-playing all around good guy and father of three.

A picture of his birthday fabric postcard is included in this post (click on it for a larger view). This totally buff toolman pictured reminds me of Barry. You will note that he has a bloodied gauze bandage on his left arm. This represents a recent scare that he had when working at his electrician's job. While cutting an overhead wire he managed to accidentally slash an artery in his arm and could have bled to death were it not for a seemingly random series of tiny miracles that got him to the hospital in time for a micro-surgeon to save his life. We're all glad he's still with us. Happy Birthday Barry!

Anniversary Post Card

My sister Jody and her husband Gary went on an Alaskan cruise in 2007. Jody hates to fly. (I secretly think she's waiting for them to build a bridge to Hawaii, so she can drive there.) So, it was with great amazement that she got on a !! helicopter !! to go see the glacier while in port in Alaska. This is a fabric replication of a photo of her and Gary standing on said glacier. I used landscape quilting techniques along with printing photos on fabric, lots of thread painting, Angelina fibers, glitter and other embellishments. I felt it was necessary to also commemorate the helicopter ride, so note the back side of the FPC.

European Village

I partially created this European Village fabric postcard using some items from a kit purchased from Bonnie Sabel (author, Positively Postcards), which I then proceded to change up a bit, by adding a wonderful pastoral button from my button stash and lots of thread painting. All of the trees and shrubbery have been done by "painting" them in with thread using my sewing machine, as well as some shadowing on the buildings. The foliage just leaps out at you when viewing the card in person. Click on the photo for a closer view.

Sultry Sensibilities - An FPC Triptych

The Fabric Postcards shown above are part of a triptych that I'm doing as a limited release of 25 sets. The lady didn't fit on one card, but I thought she looked pretty neat lounging over two cards. The third part of the triptych is the lady with the red flower bonnet below this post. One tryptic is being donated to this year's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show for the Wendy's Wish Project.

Read all about it at: 

http://www.sistersoutdoorquiltshow.org/events.htm#wishcard

As always, click on the pictures to get a larger view - look for the jewels on her fingers and toes.

Happy Holidays everyone!

I've finally sent off my 2007 Holiday Postcards; it ended up being quite a project, but loads of fun. I created a few special cards for some special friends (not shown) plus a limited edition of 24 cards of the Santa Elf card shown on the left. I embellished the card with gold rick rack and a gold star and was afraid they'd get lost in the shuffle during the post office processing. So, they each got a fabric envelope too! I hope everyone enjoys getting them as much as I enjoyed making them.

More Fabric Postcards

I recently returned from a weekend visit to the Northern Oregon coastal city of Wheeler. I attended a fabric postcard class taught by Bonnie Sabel, author of the book, Positively Postcards. You can view her work at http://www.quilted-postcards.com/. I've included a couple of pictures of two of my postcard creations; one is called Lady on a Leaf, the other is called Romance Novel. Both of these used a portion of kits that I purchased from Bonnie, but they are changed up a bit.

I stayed at a The Old Wheeler Hotel, a recently renovated old building that had been a flourishing hotel in the 1920s in support of the railroad and timber industries. During the depression, its business fell off and the building became an arthritis clinic in the 1940s. It is now a simply lovely B&B that I highly recommend should you e'er travel this way some day. Check out the hotel at http://www.oldwheelerhotel.com/index.htm

The hotel is on Highway 101, literally. For those of us who have lived in California, we watched 101 become a ever-widening series of lanes full of bumper to bumper traffic traveling at speeds in excess of 70 MPH. By the time 101 reaches the northern Oregon coastal area, however, it is a quietly traveled 2-lane road where speed limits slow to 25 MPH for those driving through the scattered coastal towns. In Wheeler, I walked outside the hotel and then sauntered across 101 - no cars were in sight! It's a bit like being in the Twilight Zone - in a very nice way.

Fabric Postcards

Recently my cousin, Karin, and I attended the Sisters Quilt Show Week in Sisters, OR. We were delighted to meet Bonnie Sabel and Louis-Philippe O'Donnell who are the authors of "Positively Postcards", a book on making fabric postcards. It is a truly terrific book on the subject. Bonnie is delightful and gracious; she has put together some great kits to make some of the postcards featured in her book. I've included two pictures with this post to show one of my own designs - a birthday postcard for my sister Jody who has a special fascination with angels. This postcard was created with Flavia fabric using a gold sparkle tulle overlay, free-motion quilting, some gold leaves and fresh water pearls. The message side even has a fabric stamp and an original poem by moi!