Deep For Someone Who Uses The Term "Duh" So Often

 Remember this?  

 

It's that learning swatch that I started for no apparent reason and had no goal for.  

It was fun to work on, though.

Once I started quilting this really big quilt together using meandering lines of embroidery thread, the urge to work on the smaller, more pointless piece with meandering lines of embroidery thread vanished. 

The swatch sat neglected and was increasingly getting in the way.  Getting in the way because I've been making so much mail art that I am running out of room for other projects.  

The answer to my dilemma has become wildly obvious to you already, isn't it.  

It smacked me right in the face yesterday morning.

This was destined to become postcards!

DUH!

So I cut it up into nine pieces - the first cut was really scary.  But once you start, the committment is made and there's nothing to do but move forward.  Deep, huh?  Well, deep for someone who uses the term "duh" so often.

Last gratuitous macro shot of the stitches.

 So, let's call this a tutorial, shall we?  After cutting up the fabric, I cut up some light cardboard to match the size of the fabric square.  I used a little bit of glue just to keep the cardboard from slipping around while sewing.

I sewed them together, using the longest and widest zig zag stitch settings on my machine.  I shortened the stitch later when I felt more comfortable.  The key is too keep the stitches long and wide enough to avoid perforating the cardboard.  If the holes from the needle are too close together, it all just falls apart.

     

I sewed with the cardboard side up first because it was easier to control.

Then I flipped it over and sewed around the edge of the fabric side.  I followed  the edge of the cardboard the first time around and then the edge of the fabric after I flipped it.  That way I was sure to keep it all lined up and minimize the fraying.  They didn't always line up exactly, which I really enjoyed the look of and didn't want to lose.
   

 Ta-da! 

Repeat nine times.  If you biggify the picture you'll see more variety in the stitching than I described here.  I became more experimental as I became more comfortable working on this.  One postcard became totally biased and I think that's my favorite one.

 

Then you just need to address and send them.  I added a pretty stamp and used some pink poster board for one, again, it's that variety I love.  

OK, this is the last gratuitous macro shot.  I loved photographing this piece up close!

 The only downside is that they were so expensive to send.  The lady at the post office loved them and was very friendly and smilingly charged me $1.95 each because they aren't paper.
  

Oddly, the one I sent to Germany was only $1.75.

Attention Span Issues

.  

We got another hole in the denim couch.  

 Again, a reminder:  

Denim wears out whether the ass is inside or outside of the pants.  

I patched the last hole with a denim square that I embroidered for the meandering stitched quilt:

But now I've used all those in the quilt plus I'm not very good at doing things twice - attention span issues - so this time I just darned the hole with embroidery thread.

I had a great time with it and may add some more stitches.  

I was inspired by this person, though her patching is much tidier than mine. 

I had to re-learn AGAIN, that just because I come up with an idea, doesn't make it automatically happen.  I have to actually DO something. So inconvenient.  

So, I finally started stitching together the latest quilt.  It's become my original Upstairs, Downstairs series quilt.  Do you ever do that?  Associate a project with whatever you're listening to or watching while you work on it?  I do it every time.  

Long term projects can be confusing because I'll listen to or watch so many things that this quilt might end up as the:

  Office Space/Billy Holiday/Upstairs Downstairs project.  

It's that spice of life thing again.  A reoccurring theme in my life for sure.

I won't be updating the blog as much as I'd like because my laptop died.  I have to go to work, upload my pictures, email them to myself, wait my turn for the desktop computer (I have two kids so it's a long wait) and then I can get every computer related thing done that's waiting for me to do.  

I'll aim for once a week but no promises.