Monday, August 31, 2015

Heart fabric postcard


On my TFPC group I have joined a no theme postcard swap for August. I have Traci Bautista's Collage Unleashed book out of the library and saw that she had created one of her backgrounds using little strips of fabric.  Having seen a bag of fabric strips at the second hand store a while back I went back to see if it was still there.  Yes, it was!!  I brought it home, ironed all the little strips and choose several that coordinated to create my first background.  I have no idea what these would have been cut up for but they were perfect for this technique.

I started with a scrap piece of fabric.  It doesn't matter what it looks like because it will all be covered up.  I adhered my strips to my base fabric using "no sew hem tape" which is just heat and bond fusible web in a strip which worked perfectly!!  I cut a strip of no sew tape for each strip and layered them onto my base fabric then passed the iron over it which fused it in place. Repeated until the whole surface had been covered.  Next, I added a 4"x 6"piece of batting to the back and used red thread in my sewing machine to randomly sew all over the surface which bound all the layers to each other.  I added a fabric heart which I stitched in place using several colours of thread and then added black stitching all the way around it as well.  I added a white backer, folded it to the front and stitched all the way around to finish it off.  It still needed a bit of something so I ironed on a little strip of label tape on which I had written "Love is kind".  Perfect!!  I added postcard details to the white back using a black sharpie and it is ready to be mailed off to my partner.
I am really enjoying making these little fabric projects!!  This one is a little more textured because the edges are left just cut but that is the way it is with love and life - it is always beautiful but a little more textured in some cases.

Therese