Mail Art

The Introduction to Art on Coursera is fun so far.  Mail art speaks to this quilters heart, we’ve been sending postcards and making artist trading cards for ages.

I’m titling the mail art “Treasured Memories”

Part of the fun of any project is figuring out what will work and working with what I have on hand.  After reading the guidelines I decided to make a party invitation.  I like all the background work of the party, making the invitation, planning the food and decorations, giving thought to what the party is about.  Then I’m done.  Y’all can party, let me start cleaning up. Okay it’s not quite like that I do enjoy my friends.

side note: I’m going to need more lutradur, just sayin’.

To give the envelope some body without using quilt batting I fused fabric to lutradur with Mistyfuse.  Around the edge of the card and the envelope I used Wonderfil 50 wt cotton thread to do a zigzag stitch all the way around.  (Love the BERNINA 780 for this!)  Keeping with the “what I have on hand” theme I used bits and pieces to decorate the back of the envelope, evoking memories of letter writing marathons I’d have with a few friends in my early teens.  This was our only way to chat with each other as we lived in different states.

When we first started letter writing I was a novice.  It took a little while to get the hang of answering, writing back took more than a simple, “yes” or “no” to her questions.  I can imagine the perplexed look as she read my pithy missives.

Once the pieces were stitched together I used a gel pen to address the envelope and make the “place stamp here” in the upper right hand corner.

If you were to take the invitation out of the envelope this is what you’d see.  The inside is more of the Paula Nadelstern Fabrique-Istan collection that I used in “Name” and “Woman”.

I need to get a slightly better shot of the invitation as it is right now.  The yellow from the inside showing at the bottom is intentional, in the right light the words “Let’s have a party”.  On the inside of the invitation I broke out the Derwent Inktense pencils and played just as I did when I would write letters.  Just a little something to make the paper interesting.

I think one day I’d like to have this party. Make all of the invitations.
Each unique and fitting the person being invited to the celebration.
 

Mariner’s Compass Quilt Shop

Tilde and Feather Zone are headed for Ohio for the National Quilt Associations Quilt show.  I forgot that Feather Zone needs a regular sleeve again as it had been mounted on fabric for hanging at Quilt Festival in Houston. So this morning I took a quick trip to Mariner’s Compass in Bath.  This shop is 3 blocks from Halcyon Yarn.  I was |   | close and didn’t get there before today.

When I walked in both Amanda Campbell and Deb Boucher (Tea Rose Quilting).  It’s a delightful shop that just became a Brother dealership!  Congratulations!!!  I now have a BadAss Quitlers Society Pin thanks Deb.  We wore them to pose for a photo that one of the customers took for us.

I picked up the purple for the sleeve, stork scissors, a Nancy Drew book panel and a spool of Wonderfil, another good thread to use quilters!

Happy Quilting!

Teri