Quilted Postcards

This is the third postcard that I created. With much help from friends!!! I will have links to their blogs also to help with the construction of your very own postcards!!!

Materials cut and gathered for the postcard shown above.
From L to R starting at the top: top quilt fabric, batting, backing of quilt, Heat-n-bond lite, Peltex, Heat -n-bond lite, backing of postcard.

This is what gives the postcard the stiffness and strength.

The fusible I am using. I read somewhere that this is horrible and don't use it, but I haven't had any problems with it!!??

The batting I am using!!

The finished size of my postcards are 4" X 6"

I cut my pieces larger than needed for safety reasons and any mistakes in the final cutting. It gives me a little room for errors :)

This is how I do it:

Cut quilt top 6" X 8"

Cut batting and quilt back 8" X 10"

Cut Heat-N-Bond 4/18" X 6 1/8"

Cut Peltex and Postcard back 4 1/4" X 6 1/4"

Place your batting on to the quilt back and the quilt fabric on top of that. You can pin the edges if needed. You can also just hold the little sandwich down and begin quilting. Wear your quilting gloves for this!!

I did not pin this little quilt and had no problems.

Quilting done!

Fuse the Heat-N-Bond to each side of the Peltex, leaving the paper backing on!!

Now, remove the paper from one side only.

Fuse the back of the postcard to one side.

Remove the paper backing from the other side.

Fuse to the back side of your little quilt. This takes a little more time because of the thickness you are working with.

I press on both sides at this point using a presser cloth to protect my fabrics!!

Trim your fused piece to 4" X 6". You can see that I cut this one a little off kilter!!

All trimmed!!!

Now to round out the corners.

I used a nickel to trace around to get that perfect rounded edge look.

All traced and ready to cut with a good pair of scissors.

Done and ready for the last bit of stitching!!!

First a row of regular, wide, zigzag.

Then a satin stitch around the whole postcard!!!

Using a Micron pen, I put the typical lines you find on a postcard on the back and write POSTCARD in the center top. If you are going to mail it to other countries, you need to have the marking placed in certain areas!!

My first Postcard!!

Postcard #2

And Postcard #3.

This has been a lot of fun to do and I am planning on making more!!! I know that these can be mailed, but you want to bring them to the post office to mail them!!!

Here are a couple other blogs to learn more about making quilted postcards!!!
http://www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com/2013/04/2013-free-motion-quilting-challenge-4.html
And check out Janets blog on her tutorials!!! http://janslittlebitextra.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/postcard-tutorial-part-one.html and http://janslittlebitextra.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/postcard-tutorial-part-two.html

Have fun on this project, I sure did!!!

Happy Quilting everyone, Take care and keep those scissors sharp!!! Martha