One to Send, One to Keep

I really liked the postcard I made and sent to our relatives in Hawaii so decided to make one for us as a memory keeper of our trip.  As a reminder, here is the one I made to send.

One thing I did not tell you was that when I make postcards to send I make them to fit inside a computer card envelope….you know those computer cards printed on a piece of copy paper that is folded in half both ways.  This envelope is 4 3/8” x 5 3/4”  but make your card to fit what ever size envelope you have, minus a little to make sure it easily slides in and out of the envelope.  The cards stay clean when they are mailed inside an envelope and you won’t take a chance that all your hard work gets ripped up or ruined in the machinery that sorts the mail. 

To make this second card I used the same design, same fabrics for the leaves and flowers but did choose different light blue fabric for the background.  Since it doesn’t have to fit in an envelope I made it a little larger – finished size 5” x 6”.  Here it is all fused onto the Peltex/Timtex (don’t remember which it is) all ready to quilt.  It will be trimmed to size after the quilting. I used the same threads to quilt the card as the smaller one….YLI Silk thread.  I just love it as it is so beautiful and the colors are so luscious!
I chose to quilt this card differently than the first card.  I quilted a leaf like the fused leaves then quilted bubbles in the background.  I do like to quilt around all the edges of the applique shapes and also like to echo quilt around all the shapes.
I did finish the edges differently on this piece and like it better than the zig-zag edge.  It just looks more finished and neater.  Using a wave blade on my rotary cutter I cut a 1” strip of my background fabric that had fusible on the back.  The top and bottom strips were fused on the front first and were cut about 1/2” longer on each end.  I wrapped the ends around the side edges of the card then fused the binding to the back of the card.  This finishes the corners of the card.  The side pieces were fused to the front and cut the width of the card then fused to the back.  The last step was to straight stitch around the card catching the fused binding.  A very neat and tidy edge to be sure.

I do love this little card quilt and it will help us remember a great vacation.

Lynn

PS Check out the previous post for more hints and tips on how I made this postcard at the following address  http://nebraskaviews.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-happened.html