Trading Cards and scrap use

Well, here's what I've been doing this week! I gathered all my scraps from the Liberty quilt, even the teeny ones, and started stitching them all together. Now I've got a chunk about the size of a FQ. Tomorrow, I'll put some batting and a backing with it, and use it for more free motion practice. I think it'll be the right size for a basket liner, you know, the kind you put in before the dinner rolls, fill it with rolls, then flip over the corners to keep the rolls warm.

I've also joined an art quilt group, here in Memphis. Not because I particularly feel like I'm an art quilter, but I want to expand my horizons, learn new techniques. Our first project is to make artist trading cards.

The easiest way to make a bunch of them is to measure out a chunk of material big enough to make the number of cards you plan to swap... embellish it, then chop into the right size sections. The true color of these is probably somewhere between these two pictures - off-white satin with pink ribbons and white lace.


My cards will be 2½ x 3½, and I needed 8 of them. I also plan to send one to an old friend whose daughter is about to get married in August.

My friend has a wedding dress that her grandmother wore in the late 1930's, then her Mom wore it in the early 60's, then she wore it when she got married in the mid 80's. Of course, she really wants her daughter to wear it, but her daughter says NO WAY, Mom! It's a very yellowed ivory, long sleeve, high neck, with a huge skirt and lots of trimmings. At first her DD said she was going to wear a white bikini and get married on a beach in the Bahamas instead of wear the dress, but now, I think they've compromised on a simple off the shoulder white satin style, very close fitting. The daughter wanted her colors to be silver and pink for the 2 bridesmaids, and pink would NOT have gone with the yellowish ivory.

So the trading card I'll send to my friend will have some bits of off-white satin and lace, pink trim, AND a section of some yellowed satin I found at a garage sale. Sort of a tying-it-all-together kind of trading card. :)

I also plan to add some beads to these before I sew them onto the cardstock to trade with the group. The satin and lace bits are actually from my own wedding dress. I've been divorced so long, I can't believe I've still got scraps around... :)