Last night as I was looking through some new papers, I ran across the Basic Grey's Ambrosia pad. Now I must confess that I don't usually have an affinity for orange. And when paired with yellows, grays, and blacks, orange normally shouts "Halloween" to me; but for some reason I was drawn to these patterns and colors. I could see in my mind's eye my grandmother's lap quilts made from her sewing scraps--some of them even polyester double knit! (I can't be the only one who remembers these. . .)
While I am not a great seamstress like my mother and grandmother, I love sewing on cards; and I've made many sewn or quilted cards in the past few years. Today I thought I'd share with you a simple way to piece a card background in case you haven't tried it yet. First, it isn't necessary, but a square punch is definitely helpful. Your squares need to be perfectly square. If you cut them on a paper cutter, take time to get them right. Here I used a 1-3/8" square punch; you'll have to adjust your background size to the size of your squares. With three sets of three 1-3/8" squares, I knew that I would need a background that was 4-1/8" square. I cut my cardstock base 4-1/4" square so that I would have a bit of room to trim and even up the edges if I needed to do so later. I didn't just randomly punch the squares either; I looked at the bottom of the punch to see what my options were and to try to get a consistent pattern. Notice that the butterfly is centered in all three butterfly squares, and the yellow pattern is pretty well centered too.
After punching my papers and deciding how to arrange them, I dotted a dab of adhesive in nine places on my background. I didn't want a lot of adhesive because I meant to sew them down, and sewing machine needles and adhesive are not a great combination. After getting the pattern laid out on the adhesive, I was ready to sew. I chose a zig-zag stitch to contribute to the casual, homespun feel and sewed the middle four lines first. I used to spend a lot of time pulling threads through to the back of the card to keep from having any loose thread tails. Lately (unless it is on something formal), I've simply clipped them close to the edge. Hey, no one's wearing it! After sewing the four center seams, I stitched around the outside of the base, letting my needle barely run off of the outer edge to create almost a serged effect.
When it came to finishing the card, I didn't want to cover up the butterflies or a significant amount of stitching. So I chose a short sentiment from Mona Lisa'a Friend Centers stamp set, framed in a Ribbon Slider Tag die cut. (We are hoping that our shipment of these long awaited tags will arrive later this week, you can check this general tags link for when it goes live.) I found a snippet of gray ribbon, then used some of the Basic Grey Ambrosia buttons to add visual interest to the left side of the tag. I tied a bow rather than a knot this time because it repeated the butterfly shape. The card front is mounted on gray cardstock, with the inside verse (also from Friend Centers) embossed in detail white embossing powder.
So, save those patterned paper scraps! You probably won't have enough for a lap quilt, but you can certainly make a warm, friendly card front!
