Materials:
1. Fabric for the front; light, plain fabric for the back; and white or cream flannel for the batting
2. the ususal quilting supplies: rotary cutter, mat, quilting ruler
3. postcard stamp and ink pad (or permanent, fine-type Sharpie or a gel pen for fabric)
4. sewing machine and iron
Press all of the fabrics well. Cut out the 3 fabrics 4" x 6". Stamp the front of the plain fabric OR fill in the usual information (see the preceding post).
[If you want to do a bit of quilting, you can put the front fabric on top of the flannel and quilt "as desired." I usually skip this step!]
Put the front and back fabrics right sides together, with the flannel on the other side. Thus you will have a quilt sandwich at this point that is back fabric, front fabric (right sides together), and then the flannel.
Sew around the edges in a 1/4" seam, leaving an opening for turning. Take out of the machine and clip the corners at an angle. Turn the little "pillow case" inside out through the opening. That will put the flannel in the middle for the batting.
At this point I usually pin the opening edges together and top-stitch all around the them, securing the section I left open for turning. Press again. Voila! You've made a sewn-together fabric postcard!
I for convenience just use a regular 1st class stamp on the postcards. Be sure to adhere it firmly! I have a little brayer that I use for this purpose, but the side of you thumbnail also does the trick. When you take them to the post office, ask them to hand cancel them. At first, my "post lady" looked at me strangely, but now she is used to my asking her that. She was also skeptical about whether they would "go through," but all (so far) have been delivered!
Here are two I just made. One finished and one "in process":
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| The pink one is the finished one. These two I DID lightly quilt before sewing the edges together. The one at the top--school print and light green--have not yet been sewn together. |
Wonderful description, Alice - nice fabrics for the postcards, too. My only question concerns the batting. What do you mean by "the other side"?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful fabrics and nice to have details. I always iron before the final 1/8" stitch around. I want to find the time to get back to quilting the tops...makes such a difference. Brava!
ReplyDeleteSherron, if you've quilted the front side to the flannel, which is the batting, then you put the right sides of the front and the back together, making the flannel then be on the back side of the focus fabric. BUT if you don't quilt the front, you simply put the front and back fabrics right sides together and then the flannel can be either behind the focus or behind the back. What you need to be careful about is not to put the flannel BETWEEN the front and back, else when you turn it right sides out, the flannel will end up being on the outside, rather than on the inside. I, too, like Linda press again before the top-stitching. Should have added that!
ReplyDeleteOhhhhh...this is much more complicated than I thought. You don't use any postcard or cardboard as a base? So the fabric postcad is floppy?
ReplyDeleteThese really, truly, are NOT complicated! They take a bit more time than the no-sew type, but anyone with a sewing machine could make them. They aren't rigid like cardboard, but not really "floppy"--rather, I'd say, flexible, bendable, soft! I have made the sewn type with a filler or batting other than flannel--it's a rigid product called Pelex, made by Pellon. This does make the cards "hard" rather than soft. I really like the flannel as batting; that makes it easy to use this pillow case method and then turn them right side out. Another way is to bind them along the edges; friend LCMH figured out a way to make a fusible binding you just iron on. But this is my all-time favorite method!
ReplyDelete