Some More Greeting Cards

I don't know if I've told you this, but I've recently started going to get-togethers of a local collage group.  A friend of mine invited me, and I really enjoy it.

Most of the other people are working on collages, and I've recently started a collage, but generally I use my time there to make cards.  They have a ton of collected "goodies" that are wonderful for collaging or making cards.  

old books to cut into

old sheet music

old photos and postcards

tons of rubber stamps

different types of papers

trims

markers

old calendars

old art books

etc, etc

Last time I took in some hexie templates, and cut some out of paper for the card in the upper left.  I thought if I could sew with hexies, maybe I could make cards with paper hexies.

For the card below I put a piece of pink fabric behind the two butterfly pictures.

Below is a really nice piece of handmade paper that I took to make into a card.  The shadows in the photo really show the texture nicely.

Here's another batch of cards I made.

I used washi tape to make this card.

Below are some examples of the beautiful old papers that are available at the collage group. 

(Some of the things are mine, too!)

This "reedy" thing looks like it is a piece of sushi roller.

I also used some laces and sewing pattern pieces.

It's a fun group, with great people, and I get lots of different ideas when I'm there.

A Logical Progression

As I showed you in a previous post, I added some lace fabric to flowered fabric to make two scarves for myself.  And as there was still lace left when I was done, I think the logical progression is:

A scarf made from the two colors of laces sewn together.

Again, it was a little "futzy" sewing the lace.  I needed to pin carefully (and it's hard to pin fabric that is full of holes!) and again, I used tissue paper underneath for a stabilizer.

I thought of using my little red clips instead of the pins, but then decided against, and toughed it out with the pins.

Lacy Scarf

I've had a piece of fabric in my stash for quite a while, maybe about twenty years--seriously!  I am so glad that I kept it, because it has now become two separate scarves.

 

I thought it would be nice to add some lace as part of the scarf.  Both to be decorative, as well as to make the fabric go a little farther.  I had seen this done on Pinterest, so thats partly where the idea originated.

Below is a close-up of the fabric, which is a very delicate little floral pattern.  It also has that really fine feel of some Italian cottons, or Liberty cottons.  It is not, however, a Liberty fabric.  It really is quite old, and was once a full skirt for myself.  (MisterStitches even remembers the skirt!)   I think I added a lace trim to the bottom of the skirt, and might have involved some lace at the waistband.  I loved that skirt!

So here are the two scarves, one made with pink lace and one made with white lace, because I just could not decide.  I did have some trouble sewing the lace.  With my first attempt it gathered terribly.  So I put out a plea to my quilt guild, asking for help.  Right away I had several responses, several of which suggested using a stabilizer of some kind.  (Really, I should have thought of that!  Rookie mistake!)  Using the paper stabilizer fixed my problem and made the scarves turn out well.

As soon as I moved the chair to take these photos, KittyStitches had to jump up on the chair to get in the picture, too!

There is actually a little bit of cat tail on the left side of the photo below!

Blue Jeans and Lace

Pinterest can either be a blessing or a curse, I guess, depending on how much time you spend waste there!  I use pinterest to keep track of patterns I find and ideas that I want to try.  They send me many emails of ideas that they think I will like.  While I often ignore those emails, sometimes I look at them.

And that's how I found this idea for decorating blue jeans with lace.  It was from a blog that you can visit here.

I have a bag full of lace pieces and trimmings, so I went to it and pulled out this piece.  First it needed to be ironed.  You can see that it is about 2 1/2 inches wide.

On the inside of the pants hem, I pinned, then sewed the edge of the lace onto the pants.

Then I folded the remaining part up onto the right side of the pant leg and sewed around the edge of it.

Very easy.  Hardly took any time at all!

And here is the finished product.

Now I'm thinking that I should add some lace edging to the pockets maybe, or somewhere else on the jeans.  Maybe on a different pair of jeans.  Who knows what I'll come up with!