Sewing a Greetings Card

Having lots of fabric scraps that seem to pretty to just throw away I decided to experiment sewing on card. I am not naturally artistic so I spend lots of time sorting and resorting colours.  Which colours do you think go well together?

Well I soon found that though I have a lot of scraps, it is hard to find any that match the ideas in my head. My first attempt reminds me of a windmill on a giraffe's neck. 

I made a template for the design. Sizing it to the front of the folded card.

Then I drew each part of the design on to the back of the fusible web. The flower petals are symmetrical  so there was nothing extra to remember  but the stem and leaf are not. I had to reverse my templates for the stem and leaf so that they wiould be facing the correct way when they were placed on the final card.

I cut out the pieces, peeled off their paper backings  and arranged the pieces on the card one by one to iron in place. I abandoned the idea of a leaf when I decided the stem looked so black and spotty. Sigh.

I increased the stitch length on my sewing machine and threaded up with a reel of black for the top stitching and a bobbin wound with white so that the stitching inside the card would not stand out too much. I did not worry too much about keeping straight lines of stitching as I had the theory that rougher stitching would look more "crafty".

If I decide to make more following this experiment I will need to put a kit together for instance 

• paper scissors  
• fabric scissors
• needle kept only for sewing on card/paper
• paper back fusible web
• pen
• fabric
• card
• buttons (optional- I would not add buttons to cars that are going to be posted.)

I have read that scissors and needles that have been use for paper should never be used again on fabric as paper quickly makes scissors and needles blunt. I will be careful but I am pleased to say that until I heard about this rule I regularly used a pair of Fiskars for everything and that pair of scissors are still sharp. Just lucky? Do you keep your fabric scissors separate?

Four cards, an abandoned bear and a day later:

Something I have learned - keep the design as simple as possible.

I spent some considerable time on this poor bear before I abandoned him.

Looking at my final five I think I prefer my first attempt - the windmill on a giraffe's neck.