A Few More Postcards and a Sunflower House

Yesterday the weather was so beautiful that I spent most of the day outside working in the yard. My big project was planting a "Sunflower House" for my grandbabies. I decided to locate it along the back of my deck, which is high off the ground and has brick columns. I figured that if the sunflowers grew tall enough, I could support them with string attached to the deck. Ulterior motive: the sunflowers will hide the space under the deck, since we have never put up the lattice screening that we "always intended to." Since the grandchildren are small (3 and 1), I only made the space about 5' x 6'. Also- I pulled out my trusty Mantis tiller, and discovered the start switch was missing/broken, so double digging with a shovel limited the size of the space! Then I washed the dog- dog kennel- and Sweet Sue, my trusty Suburu, all of whom were very dusty and dirty after their weekend in the mountains. After that- I was too tired to deal with the Gammill, so I went upstairs and finished up a few more fabric postcards. Here they are:


Desert Jewels

This one is probably the most vivid. The yellow and orange fabric is silk. The sun design was stamped, then outlined with red glitter paint and outlined in black marker. The red things on the side are beads pressed into dots of the red glitter paint. I quilted the card with a gold rayon thread and added a ribbon for the edge. I found out that you cannot stitch over the globs of paint with beads- the presser foot won't clear them!


Great Balls of Fire

Okay, I was not too sure what these gold blobby things were. The centers are fused Angelina fibers. The background is created with Shiva Paintstiks over a rubbing. I fooled around with a gold cording that I had, just couching it down. Then I quilted with gold metallic thread, using some of the special stitches on my trusty Bernina 1260. I think they look kind of organic- maybe some kind of mutant jellyfish? The fiber edge is silk sari ribbon with a silver center. Shiny!


Twilight Rose

This one is really pretty! The background is another one of my blot sheets from Tsukineko ink painting. I stamped it with ink and added some fused Angelina fibers. The three-dimensional flower is created with Bella Nonna petals that I machine stitched to secure. The center of the rose is just some ribbon trim that I balled up and stitched down. I love the fiber border- what do you call this stuff? Eyelash yarn? I have lots of fun fibers that I hang on hooks on the door of my sewing room. It's pretty to look at and easy to grab when the mood hits!