Do You Make Your Own Christmas or Holiday Cards?

     Should I make my Christmas cards this year or should I just buy a set and send them out? That's the question I pose each year. If I make them, I like to do it in the summer when I'm less busy and then they are ready to go. But I forgot to do it this summer. And I'm not one of those artists that can just slap a collage together. I take a long time to make design decisions. I'm getting quicker about it than I used to be. This week, I decided that I would give myself two days to put together a design and finish a small art quilt for a card cover. If I didn't accomplish that, then I would purchase cards.
     I began by choosing a previously monoprinted fabric for a background. I thought I wanted it to be zen-like. So I chose another previously monoprinted fabric in a complimentary color and cut out a sun shape and hand embroidered it onto the background which I had placed onto batting.

in progress

     Then I got the idea to put a bird and a saying on it. For inspiration, I browsed through my book Inspired to Quilt by Melanie Testa, which has helped me often. And I reviewed my notes from a class called Spirit Cloth 101 which I took from Jude Hill. That class not only showed me many marvelous techniques in hand stitching, but it also passed on the art of story telling in cloth. And the great news is that the class is now open to all for free. Here is a link to it.
     So I finished it up by thread stitching a bird with my sewing machine onto commercial fabric, cutting it out close to the stitching, and hand sewing it onto the background. Then I embroidered branches using two colors of embroidery floss (3 strands) in a wrapped back stitch. I printed out text onto white cotton muslin, cut them out and hand stitched them on. Next, I cut out a piece of commercial fabric an hand sewed it on with embroidery floss. To finish it up, I added a piece of fabric on the back, and then I used two colors of embroidery floss and whip stitched around the edges (6 strands of the dark teal and 3 strands of the rust).

Joy and Peace

     I plan to scan the image in the computer and add a frame. I'll use that for the cover of the card. I'll put some text for inside the card and take it to a printing company and have them print the cards for me. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see how it looks as a printed card. Of course, the watermark won't be on it.  If it doesn't look good, then this year will be about store-bought cards. At least I tried and I ended up with a small art quilt. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.