I mentioned in my spring break plans that one of my assignments was to create a postcard and mail it to my instructor. We could anything we wanted (as long as the post office would take it, of course) so I immediately knew I would be sewing one.
You would think with all the waffling I did on what to do that this would have taken me a long time to create, but it didn't. Once I (finally) decided on a base image, I pulled out some scraps and went to cutting. This wavering that happened is pretty much happening with everything. I am wasting a lot of time doubting myself instead of doing anything. This needs to change and I started with that change today.
I knew I wanted to use one of the photographs I took when I was in Brail in 2005. Why? Because my heart is still there and given the opportunity, I would be on a plane headed there right now. It was hard to decide which image to sew. I may do more of these because it was that hard.
In the end, I went with this photograph of a church in Tiradentes. Tiradentes is located in the interior of Brazil, where there are mountains and they do a lot of gem mining. The scenery is to die for and while there, I had the chance to go horseback riding in the mountains. Thankfully this is was not going horseback riding in the US, where you are nose to tail in a line. We were told that if we were comfortable with it, we could just go off. So after learning the Porteguese commands that the horse knew, I was off in a flash. It was bliss and I still cannot wait to have a place to have horses of my own.
Ok, I could go on and on about my travels in this beautiful county, but will leave that for a future post. I have it in mind to do an inspiration post with my images from this trip. This photo, and all of them that I took while there, are taken with film on a Minolta SLR. I did not touch up anything after scanning this and only added the watermark. I shot 20 rolls of film while I was there.
So here's my process of sewing this together. I started with a base of duck cloth cut to 4"x6". I cut out rough shapes and fused them to the surface.
Then with the photograph by my side, I free motion stitched in the details, leaving out some because of spacing issues (my fault). This was a different experience from the free motion work I have done before. I don't know if it's a combination of the heavy weight canvas or a mix of that with the fusible layer there. It will just take practice.
Here's the back of the stitching.
Then I trimmed up the sides and fused another piece of duck cloth to the back. I zigzagged around the edges to seal it together.
And now I have a blank side for writing on.
Here's the front again, taken outside.
And the back, with my message to my instructor. I just used a Micron pen to write on it, which worked great.
Then it went into the mail. The woman at the post office was a little unsure of it, but she took it. It's only going a short distance, so I have faith it will arrive.
I had a lot of fun with it once I got going. I am definately going to make more just for fun, and maybe to send off. I wrote briefly at the end of last year about doing a swap, and this is the sort of thing I was thinking of swapping. Any interest? I could do a better tutorial on how to put these together too. I also thought that I could have sewn cardstock to the back instead of the canvas so that's another option.
I'm linking this up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.
I have other thoughts that I wanted to cover here, but have to run off to work. I will either post about that later tonight or tomorrow. Hope your weekend is starting off great!
7 comments:
That is a beautiful picture.
I think it turned out great! You would get an A+ from me ;-)
Oh, Katie, it's brilliant. How creative. I love it so much! I would totally do a sewn postcard swap, make it happen, girl!
That is just Awesome!!!! What a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Great idea! And very cute too!
Katie, this is awesome!!! Love how you've done the stitching on the edge of the roof and the cobblestones. Count me in for a swap like this... I'd find it hard, but I think it would be fun!!!
great postcard, made more special by the memories that inspired it! I'd be interested in a postcard swap, also :)
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