Another Postcard Received

Over the weekend, I received the fourth postcard from my Valentine's exchange, this gorgeous one from Debra in Virginia. According to a posting on the Bernina_Aurora Yahoo Group, Debra created this postcard using the embroidery module on her machine, digitizing the stippling in the postcard size and importing the ballon design (an online freebie!) on top of it. It looks fabulous and certainly screams "Valentine's" to me. Now if I could just figure out how to use my embroidery machine, I'd love to use it more to do fun things like this. (A more accurate description of my problem: I need to figure out how to hoop fabric so that I can embroider on it where I want the embroidery to be!)

Valentine's Postcards Received

To date, I've had the pleasure of receiving three of the postcards from my Valentine's postcard exchange. I showed you my own designs in my last post and thought you might enjoy the creative cards I received in exchange.

From Connie in North Carolina, I received this one featuring a central heart made of roses (a print) and applied on top of both a red and white lace layer over a bottom layer of red fabric. Connie bound her postcard in fabric, using fusible on the inside to iron it on. I learned this method last year in a guild workshop with Frieda Anderson and it's pretty slick.

From Karen in Colorado (the organizer of this postcard exchange), I received this card with what appears to be a hand drawn flower appliqued on top of several layers of vabric and featuring a number of heart decorative stitches and the words "be mine." Karen's satin stitch around the edge is amazing and way more perfect than mine was.

The third card I received is from Margaret in Virginia. Margaret paper pieced a heart in red and browns and put it on a lovely romantic floral background.

All three ladies downloaded a template and printed their postcard backs onto fabric through their printers. That was probably a wise move - I struggled to write on mine using Pigma pens.
In the future, I'll definitely be borrowing this idea from them.

I can't wait to see what else I get in the mail and I'll be sure to share them with you.

Valentine's Postcards

I don't participate very actively in the Bernina_Aurora Yahoo group to which I belong, but it did come in handy when I was having issues with my embroidery machine and all kinds of useful tips do come through, when I have time to read them (along with a lot of chaff). In the fall, I'd seen various postings about a postcard exchange that one of the members organized. Unfortunately, I was too busy at the time to give it much thought.

When I saw a posting about a month ago for a Valentine's postcard exchange, I decided to sign up. I thought it would be a good way to challenge myself to do something new, and at the time, it seemed like I had all kinds of time until Valentine's day. Well... time does have a way of slipping away. Tonight I finished my five postcards to mail out to women across the country - one each in Colorado, Texas and North Carolina, and two in Virginia.

I ended up creating three designs using whatever fabric I already had in my stash. The base is fast2fuse interfacing, a double-sided stiff fusible interfacing, and I am SO glad that I didn't accidentally fuse this to my iron or ironing board. Thank goodness for the inventor of the applique pressing sheet! The satin-stitched edge could use some work, but hey, I've never tried that edge finish before. I am getting marginally better with the satin-stitched applique, but my overall design skill evidenced in these is rather simplistic. I'd hoped for something artsy-ier. I guess you gotta start somewhere.

I'm looking forward to receiving my postcards in the mail and will share photos with you when I receive them. Hopefully the recipients - and you - will enjoy these.