Spring Colours

I went to visit my family over the Easter weekend, and although I was busy I did have time for a little hand sewing. When I first started quilting a few years ago I ordered a swatch pack via mail order. Although I never did place a big order I kept the swatches and figured some day I would find a use. I came across them the other day while sorting out and figured it was time to find something to do with some of these little squares.
So a handful have now been used and have become a set of postcards for a 'Spring Colours' swap. It was nice to get back and do something a little more akin to traditional patchwork. Just a few squares, some simple running stitch and a few button embellishments.
I like how these turned out, something a bit prettier than the usual bright colours I like to work with.

And before I sign off for the day, I wanted to share a link to Vicki's blog. Vicki made a beautiful colour palette from one of my Brownsea photos, check it out here. :)

Garden Postcards

Yippee!, I can cross the first thing of that huge to do list I set myself this month. Here is one of the postcards I made for a swap with 'A Garden' theme. As it was just a small swap group of three I figured I could spend a bit more time making each card, so here is my 'Daisy Lawn'. The techniques used were adapted from an article in Stitch Magazine (I was going to tell you which one and who by but I've tidied the magazine away somewhere so safe I can't find it just at the moment!) They were great fun to make.

Medusa

I signed up for a postcard swap with a 'Faces' theme a little while back. I try not to sign up for a swap unless several ideas come to me when looking at the theme. I'm sure I must have had lots of ideas when I joined but when it actually came to the making my mind went blank and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do. The other day I was rifling through my fabric boxes looking for something totally unrelated and all of a sudden it just came to me. So I grabbed some fabrics, started cutting and Medusa was born.

I cut face motifs and snakes from a couple of different fabrics and fused them to a background.

I added random stitching to a few of the snakes with some lovely silk thread which has a beautiful sheen to it when caught in the light.

And lastly stamped out the Medusa label on some scrap fabric, and voila all done. Here are all the cards laid out together. The one at the bottom on the lighter background fabric was the first one I made, I decided that I wanted the background to have a bit more drama than that first fabric provided so the rest of the backgrounds I cut from some of the fabric I dyed a few weeks back.

Happiness

I've actually managed to finish something. A postcard for a 'What makes you Happy' themed swap.The colours of the sunset always bring me a smile, so I decided to go with an abstract interpretation along that theme. The background is a piece of the fabric that I dyed the other week. I needle felted some silk fibres in to the fabric then added a few embellishments.

Haven't really done any beading for a while, forgotten how long it takes!