Colorways by Vicki Welsh

There’s no more making going on around here. We are in full trip preparation mode. We had a big storm Sunday night so I started yesterday morning picking up tons of sticks and limbs from the yard and I’m not done. It was so hot outside that I had to quilt after I started sweating in my eyeballs. Today I have to do the monthly pest treatment here and at Mom’s and then get on with packing the kitchen stuff. Tomorrow I’ll pack the clothes and my sewing and crochet.

But for today, I have some postcards to share. I made these earlier this month for Mom’s birthday and I intended to share them on her birthday, the 22nd. But she still hasn’t received her card! I’m hand delivering a replacement today. Lately, when I have sent her cards they seem to be taking about 2 weeks. She lives 15 minutes away! I sent a package to Chesapeake and it arrived in 2 days. Go figure.

I love how these turned out. I think they are very happy and I love that it all came from scraps and leftovers.

I start many of my postcards by finding something random to use for the background. For these, I pulled this scrappy piece that I probably made about 10 years ago.

It’s made with a fused base layers of scraps from quilts I made ages ago and the bits are held down with a fused layer of tulle. I made a bunch of these a log time ago and I’m down to just a couple of them.

Next, I got out my bin of pre-fused scraps and cut out a bunch of circles free-hand. They are stitched free-motion. If you look close you can see that I’m pretty terrible at free-motion, but I think that if you make a couple of passes around you can cover up for wayward lines. I even added stems.

I made these cards before Ella decimated my ribbon collection making puppy hair bows! If I need ribbon effects on future cards I can just cut strips of fabric. I don’t intend to restock ribbons that I rarely use.

I made 6 of these so I have an extra to take to Mom today.