Newsletter September 09
How to make fabric cards

They say that time passes more quickly as you get older, and it is certainly flying by for me.  Every month I promise myself that I will get the newsletter out earlier in the month, and every month I fail.

Earlier this month Ludlow held its annual Food and Drink Festival, as amazing and tasty as ever, and I had a houseful of guests all wanting to take part in the Sausage Trail (or the Ale Trail in the case of the younger ones).  I ended up sleeping on a chair when I ran out of bedrooms, but it was a wonderful weekend.

I know Christmas is ages away but quilting and sewing takes time so I have been working on some ideas for Christmas gifts to make.  That will be the September Featured Pattern when I get there.  However, with my mind full of Christmas ideas it made real sense to look at some ideas for fabric cards in this newsletter.

These fabric cards don't have to be for Christmas.  They can be for birthdays, special occasions, or just to let someone know that you are thinking of them.  They provide a great way to use up fabric scraps and  make your cards really personal.




The simplest and easiest fabric cards to make are those where the fabric is just sewn on to a piece of card.  In these examples I took an A4 sheet of card, bent it in half and sewed a panel of fabric to the front of the card.  You can trim the edges to make it regular as in the photo above, or scallop the edges and have them go beyond the card as in the photo on the left.  In the photo on the right I think you can just see the stitching line on the inside of the cards.  Plenty of room still left for writing your message.




If I have made a quilt as a gift, it is a lovely idea to use snippets of the same fabric for a fabric card to go with the gift.  For this card I didn't use a panel of fabric.  I just took small strips of the fabric that I had used in the quilt and sewed them onto the card.  The strip across the top and bottom was doubled over to avoid raw edges on the fabric card.






For this fabric card I made a small patchwork panel using 2.1/2" squares cut across the diagonal to make triangles.  I used 4 squares each of the 2 different fabrics which made 8 squares made up of 2 triangles each.  That was enough for this fabric card and the next one - and it was all fabric that I had taken from my scrap bag!  I sewed the squares together in 2 rows of 2 to make 1 big square and then sewed a 1" strip of blue on as a border.




I usually use calico as a backing for these cards - not only because it is cheap, but also because the writing on the back shows up well. 
Cut a square of calico the same size as the patchwork panel and a square of fast2fuse slightly smaller.  Iron the 3 layers and they will stick together.  Satin stitch all round the edge.  That's a full zigzag with a small stitch length.  Stitch length just under number 1 works with my machine.  For best results, go round the edge twice.  In the photo I think you can just see the difference between the top edge which has 2 layers of satin stitch and the right hand edge which has only 1.  You are more likely to see the gaps between the stitches with only 1 layer of satin stitch.



This fabric card is even easier to make.  I took the remaining 4 squares left over from above and arranged them with 4 squares of blue.  It is best to sew them together across each row and then sew the rows together.
Cut a square of calico the same size and put the patchwork panel on it right side down.  Sew round 3 edges (1/4" seam) and turn right side out.  Then you can either turn in the edges of the 4th side and slipstich together or do as I did and insert a piece of card before stitching the 4th side closed.  This makes the fabric card a bit more rigid.


And finally ....  You can make a mini quilt.  Make a patchwork panel of any design you like.  Make a sandwich of calico, wadding and patchwork panel, pin carefully and bind.  The panel in the photo is about 12" by 4".  It's a nice size if several people want to sign the card - for example at work.  Don't make your panel too small or it becomes more difficult to bind. 





All these fabric cards can be signed on the back using normal ballpoint pen.  They can be made from scraps of fabric so don't need to cost much and you can personalise them completely for the person and for the occasion.

Happy sewing!






Best Wishes

Rose



rose@ludlowquiltandsew.co.uk


www.ludlowquiltandsew.co.uk