Fabric Postcards & a yarn or 2

Today I've been making fabric postcards. These are so easy to make & so much fun-little mini quilts. The one of the cupcake is for my friend, Marge's birthday-she'll be 82 next week- she'd shoot me for saying her age, but I know she'll never read this blog!

Marge & I used to work together some 30+ years ago- I was a newly finished RN & she'd been working for a long time-she has been a wonderful friend over the years. I have decided to make her a bag similar to the one I made Sandie & fill it with Crabtree & Evelyn products as I know she loves nice, pretty, smelly things!

Marge also appreciates what I make & with any crafty person- show some appreciation & you'll get more handmade things than you know what to do with.

In the swap I am participating in, I had to make 4 postcards to send-there are lots of tutorials & blogs on the Internet on how to do them, in an in depth way, so I'm not repeating instructions here.

A quick explanation of how I go about making them-I just play with fabrics, trims, threads, whatever grabs my fancy at the time- place them on some fabric a little bigger than 4x6 & play until I'm happy-then stitch it down with whatever stitches & threads I feel like. Some of my sewing friends say they never know if what they are doing is right, or what to do- I think these get over thought a lot of the time- unless you are doing some really arty swap & have a theme.

I use a postcard back that I downloaded years ago, & add all the details for posting- I also always give my work a name. Marge's is "Eat dessert first, Life's short!" I put the back through the printer & use June tailor's Quick Fuse-these are the perfect size to make postcards from. Sandwich it all together & satin stitch or serge around the edges to hold it all together & they go in the mail as is-never had any problems with them being posted 'naked'.

The Aussie $ certainly took a dive this week & as such I have curtailed my spending on US sites- I'm not even buying from Aussie sites that sell in US$'s- boy has it made a difference.

Pay pal is giving a shocking exchange rate, so I'll be avoiding them as well. Looks like my bank account will benefit from all this upheaval. I'm sure a lot of ebay sellers will notice a difference & those that sell in US$'s here in Aus.

Thankfully I ordered fabric & a book a couple of weeks back when the exchange rate was reasonable-now just waiting for them to arrive.

The book I ordered is by John Deere and although there are times I'd really like to know how to digitize for the embroidery machine, I bought the book to have a better understanding of how its done. One day I may start to do my own designs but at this stage I want to edit in a better way & understand all the software a bit better.

My knitting is progressing-slow but sure. I'm at the stage where I'd like to start a new project but I prefer to only do one at a time, that way I don't have UFOs all over the place.

Socks are calling me.....I really enjoy knitting them & have a few patterns saved to try over the hotter weather. Ravelry has certainly re-sparked my interest in knitting and on the downside has given me access to more patterns than I could knit in 10 lifetimes!LOL

In my yarn stash I have some beautiful silk lace weight yarn to knit up (bought while the $ was still up, thankfully!) Not sure what pattern I'll do with it- but it has to be something special. One is Schaeffer Andrea pure silk in Virginia Apgar colour & the other is Handmaiden lace silk-I think the colour was lily pond or water lily- something along those lines. Both are beautiful & feel wonderful.

Did you know its only 11 weeks to Christmas this Thursday- time to start thinking about a few handmade gifts. These days I make everyone in the family something-I never used to- it started when I did them all monogrammed towels one year. Now each year I try to think of something useful that I can make for them all-just a fun gift more than anything.

DD has told me they need some more bath towels, so they'll get a set with their names on them-easy peasy-not so sure about the boys they did mention that they did not need more towels!

DGS- I found the most adorable pattern in a get creative magazine for a tee pee-what fun for a 4 year old! Hopefully I'll find enough fabric in stash- if not I will just have to go to the fabric store! More on this as it progresses.