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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Paper Quilts

Good Morning Everyone!
I have always admired and loved handmade quilts. I love their vibrant colors and their bold geometries. I love learning the names of the patterns and the stories behind the quilts. I love the idea of quilting bees. Of women (and men) sitting together talking as they stitch.
I’ve never made a real quilt and I probably never will. I am not a seamstress. My mother was a seamstress and my sister, Jeanne, inherited the patience and talent for that skill. That doesn’t stop me from reading about quilts and sometimes purchasing quilting magazines just so I can "ooh" and "aah" over their beauty.

When I was a Kindergarten teacher I made paper quilts with my students at least once a month. When I present a 5 hour teacher training we often make a paper quilt related to the theme of the training.

As I searched for books for my papercrafting passion I was thrilled to discover that Sandra Lounsbury Foose (author of Card Shop and Paper for All Seasons that I wrote about a few blogs ago) wrote a book called Paper Quilts. That is now one of the dog-eared books in my collection as I have torn the patterns out from the back of it to make them easier to photocopy and I have studied the photographs of the quilted cards over and over again.

After Robbie and I had taken our walk yesterday we went to the Concord Bookshop which has become a tradition after we have walked in the Concord area. Need to give that store a plug as their staff is incredibly friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic. In addition to their wonderful collection of books, the store also carries an awesome collection of note pads, bookmarks, postcards, and note cards. I picked up and ended up purchasing a bound collection of postcards called "Amish Quilts". Had to buy it. The photographs of those quilts will inspire many a card for me. It turns out that the patterns for some of the quilts on the postcards happen to be in Paper Quilts book.
So late last night and early this morning I created some quilted cards. The paper I used is once again from the "Citronella" collection for K&Company. This particular pattern has limes and strawberries all over it. I would love to have a tablecloth that looks like that paper. I would love to own an outfit like that paper or a purse or beach bag. Had to make an Around Town Tote from PaperTrey Ink with 2 sheets of it. I think those totes have become my fantasy purses!

I papercraft with Toni more than I do anyone else. As we craft we talk and I remember one of our conversations being that sometimes when we make a card we put patterns together that you’d never think about wearing together, but they look great on a card. That was the case with these cards. One side of the paper (I’ll call it "Side A") has limes and strawberries on it. The strawberries are bright red. The other side of the paper ("Side B") is red with tiny white dots on it. That red is a darker red and I wasn’t sure that the two reds worked well together. I quickly searched for some red paper with white dots that I thought I had in my collection, but I must have used it up. So I decided that if K&Company thought the 2 shades of red worked well together that was good enough for me.

Tips for today’s cards.
If you like quilts, buy the Paper Quilts book. Pull the patterns from the back of the book out of the book and make an extra copy of each page just in case you lose one of the original pages. Store the pattern pages in the back of the book. Store the copies someplace else.

Use a paper trimmer to cut your paper. It’s the easiest way to do it. Some of the squares that you will be cutting are 4.25" or 3.75" and a paper trimmer is marked with those measurements.
When I created this card I put strips of ScorPal tape across the card and then laid the small squares on the tape. It was easier than putting tape on the back of each square.

These cards are smaller than an A2 card. Most of them are 4.25" square cards. They fit in an A2 envelope.

If all of your pieces don’t fit together perfectly, get over it. Your card will still look great and no one will study it as much as you do. (Talking to myself here!)

That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment!
Carol

1 comment:

Peggy Burns said...

You need to work with Angela, she does the bags, you do the cards.