Cards

 Six years ago when I was in Florida for the winter I went to a Farmer's Market where there was a woman selling handmade cards. They were beautiful and I was intrigued. She told me that she gave workshops if I was interested, and I was. We made three cards using her stamps, inks and papers. I thought it was a lot of fun, so ordered a couple of stamp sets and a couple of packages of papers and a few inks. I was hooked!

And that was just the beginning. It has gone on to be a major hobby. I had to buy more storage units in my studio, which was already full of fabric and quilting supplies. I now have about 40 stamp sets, reams of papers, so many inks, a Big Shot machine for cutting dies, many embossing folders and an embossing machine, ribbons, Distress inks, etc. etc. 

I find it to be creative and fun. I make Birthday cards, Get Well cards, Sympathy cards, Thinking of You cards and Thank You cards. I try not to repeat myself. I really should get rid of some of my older sets because I rarely use them. BTW, the stamp sets come with no instructions or suggestions. You can use them in any way you like. You can get ideas on Pinterest to see how some other people have used them.

But this post is about Christmas cards. I send about 45 each year. I know, I know! Not that many people send Christmas cards anymore, but  do. I love to send them and love to receive them. And I love to make them.

I saw a very cute set of Tom Holtz dies last year on sale after Christmas and couldn't wait to use it for this year's cards. It turned out to be very labor intensive. I used seven different dies for each card. Some of them had to be cranked thru the Big Shot machine over and over, especially the Merry Christmas one because the gold paper was very thick.  They are bordered in navy. The other blue is my ironing board cover.

Each of the tiny windows on the buildings, the inner parts of Merry Christmas, the inner parts of Santa and his sled, the holes around the edge of the oval, and the inner parts of the earth circle had to be poked out with a pin and often then pulled away with tweezers. Yuck. Too much work!

I like the Santa and am trying to come up with a different idea for the remaining 40 cards without so many die cuts.. These cards are 5" x 7".

Lasr year's cards were so much easier, no dies, just watercolors, layered papers and a little bow. They were also smaller, 4" x 6". They had three layers for the front, white, red and white again. I like borders.

I do somethling different each year, sometimes several different designs. I can't believe I don't have pictures, but I don't.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

SAQA Aucton quilt and others

 I received an email yesterday telling me that my SAQA Auction quilt had sold. Happy to hear. Radically Red, made using my hand dyed cotton and Dupioni silk and a lot of free motion machne quilting. I'm glad it went to a good home.

Other news. I finally fnished puting together the 30 blocks I received from the Toward 2025 Project in the Pheonix, AZ Botanical Gardens. You can read all about it here

https://www.toward2050az.com/

The 30 blocks I received  were of various techniques and skills and it was challenging to sew them together, but not nearly as challenging as quilting it. When I volunteered to make a quilt I thought it would be be lapquilt size not bed size. I have often quilted very large quilts, but they were quilted in segments and then the quilted sections were sewn together. I have done this many times with great success, but there was no way to do it for this quilt.

Each block quilted down to 9" with two inch borders and sashing. I lugged my Bernina downstairs to the dining room table to give it more room to spread out. I still found it very difficult to do. I chose to sash it with this limey green fabric, hoping to give it some cohesiveness. 

When I received the blocks, the labels were sewn onto the back of each block. I had to pick them off and sew them onto the backing of the quilt, before the quilting, another challenge to get them in the right places, so that they corresponded to the blocks in the front.

I had a large piece of Micki Lawler Skydye fabric and with the addition of my ice dyed fabric down the middle there was enought for the backing.

These quilts will be given to victims of Climate Change......hurricane, flood, etc. I hope someone will enjoy snuggling under it.

Other news, not so happy, I fell in my studio this week and broke two ribs. Ouch! Very painful, but there is nothing to be done. I spent a whole day in the ER so I could get a cat scan, The X-ray taken at Urgent Care did not show any breaks but the doctor wanted me to get a Cat scan because it was close to my kidneys. Thankfully it did not affect the kidney but did show two broken ribs. They no longer tape up the ribs, you just have to be patient and let them heal. How did I fall? I'm not really sure, I was pivoting from one table at a right angle to another (something I've done a million times) and down I went hitting my side on the corner of the table. The table had a rounded corner, or it would have been much worse. Oh, how we suffer for our art! I did finish that project the next day, a cute greeting card for a friends's new house.

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday.