Postcard swap: “Recycle”

Mend and Make-do

The Virginia Consortium of Quilters fabric post card swap is in full flight!  Next month I’ll show you some of the variations on our theme of “Recycle.”  Meanwhile, here’re a few of what I sent out, based on a British slogan from WWII – Mend and Make-do To Avoid Buying New. 

The photos are miscellaneous cabinet card flea market finds. The base of the cards is a large piece of canvas sealed with gesso, then a couple Collage Podge layers, topped with stitched strips of fabric. The photos were transferred to vintage hankerchiefs using Transfer Artist Paper by Lesley Riley (http://www.transferartist.com/).

Quilters’ Tea Party

Nature Teacup

Blue Bottles and Zinnias

Last night our local quilt chapter had our annual tea party!  We all brought dainty nibbles and our tea cups, and some of us even wore dresses and hats!  Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos during the meeting, but I did take a pix of my teacup, which was very well received.  Daughter Debra made it for me one summer in pottery class at Tech.  I love the catepillar handle.

Our program was cancelled at the last minute due to hospitalization of a family member, so we went ‘green’ and shared various recycling tips. Our program chair showed the shopping bag she’s made, lined with a vinyl table cloth, and tiny tooth fairy pillows made from the top/batting/backing leftovers of machine quilting.  (If you’ve ever had a quilt machine quilted, you’re familiar with the requirement to have an extra four inches all the way around so that the quilt can be securely fastened in the quilt frame.)

I showed my blue bottle photo-to-quilt project, and modeled the source of the dark and light blues: a sheer shaded blue blouse from ‘the other fabric store’ (Good Will), minus a few squares of material!