Birds of Paradise

Birds of Paradise

Saturday 7 April 2018

Elm Street Quilts Postcard Blog Hop

I am participating in a blog hop for people who participated in Elm Street Quilts' postcard exchange.  This was a one-on-one exchange.  Each person made one card to send to one person.  Swappers could sign up a second time to send and receive from a second person.

I have participated in a number of postcard exchanges, and have taught classes and given lectures on postcard making.  It is fun creating these small fabric pieces, and even more exciting to receive one in the post.  I have found that one-on-on swaps tend to generate better quality cards, than swaps where a large number of cards have to be made.

As almost everyone loves ice cream, I created an ice cream card for my recipient in Texas, and I had fun adding the sprinkles on top!  Her word clue to me was shimmering.  (There is a bit of blank space below the card as I could not get cropping to work! )


The beautiful card that I received was made by Nina in England. I had given the word music, and her white fabric included musical notes!  I am not sure if she realized that I am originally from London, so that getting a Union Jack card was especially exciting.


I made another card for a wildflower swap.  I chose the California Poppy as my flower and created it with free motion quilting and Inktense pencils.  This was made for a lady in England.


People often ask how I do the outside edges.  I use a very close together zigzag stitch on my Bernina 440 or 830, 12 weight cotton thread when I can find the correct colours such as Wonderfil Frutti or Spaghetti.  When I cannot find a suitable 12 weight cotton thread, I use a finer thread and do two rounds.  I usually have my stitch set at a length of about 0.3mm and a width of around 4mm.  If I have to do two rounds, the first round is slightly narrower than the second.  I prefer to use cotton threads as I have found that they "fill" the space and round out unlike polyester thread.

I hope that you will visit the other participants in this blog hop.


Denise @ DottieDoodle


Karen @ Run Sew Fun


Laura @ LC's Cottage



Michelle @ Creative Blonde



Sandra @ mmm! quilts