As I travel around teaching so often I receive these wonderful thank you cards. And I guess
I should be writing the thank you card myself. But check this out. This is actually a machine
paper pieced little sewing machine in a thank you card. And I’ve got a bunch of awesome
ways that you can make your very own cards. Let’s get started.
Thanks again Judy for this awesome card. I told you I loved it and I really meant it.
And you really inspired me here. So I went over to MSQC and I got myself a package of
these ready made card plates that are from CT Publishing and Carol Doak who is awesome
paper piecer teacher. And when you get your package you get four different colors of the
cards and their envelopes. There’s also a little mini pattern right so you could use
that and have some fun. A couple of ideas and I’ve got a bunch I want to share with
you. So I’m going to kind of go quick at the beginning. Also you know my dear friend
Violet Craft came over and she paper pieced the gnarly needle and we have a tutorial on
that with a free printable. So if you want to download that and how to do it. Of course
you’ll need to reduce it for the size you’re using because your card blank is going to
have this window in it. So this window you may want to use for your eye spy glass to
make sure you have what you want inside of the area. So that’s something we’re going
to be thinking about as we talk about these card blanks. That being said as a matter of
fact, another thing I really, really wanted to try to do, something that I love is the
applique and I thought this would be a really fun little one where I could take and make
a basically a little beach scene with the palm tree. But I was thinking about how can
I use up my scraps. How can I go back to that binful of stuff laying around the studio.
So I did a tutorial on a folded fabric yoga mat was what this was from. So these fabric
strips are actually those fabric strips there in the background, right? And then I just
simply took a piece of black fabric and a little bit of the fusible web. And I just
drew a little palm tree on there, cut it out, and appliqued it down. Now while we have these
open inside you can kind of start to see what the background is going to look like. We can
pretty much leave these unfinished although you could always leave a note on the outside
of your card to let your receiver know that there was a block that could be reused, recycled
in there. But let me show you this way. You could see on the card blanks there’s actually
some removable tape. There’s some double sided tape in there. So that’s why I’ve
started doing it here with a block. I want to make sure the block fits in my window correctly.
And so you do need to consider orientation because the cards will work like this horizontally
or they can work vertically there for you, right? So this was a real fun, easy way to
work through some of my scraps.
And I also, there was thinking about wouldn’t free piecing be super fun to try. And I haven’t
done much with mini piecing but just standard style quilt construction. But what I wanted
to think about is how do we get down to a place where we don’t have so much bulk in
our seam allowance. What does that mean Rob? You are going a little caffeinated today.
So look at this little micro checkerboard I’m working on, right? So this thing is
small. It started with three ¼ inch strips of fabric. And that was one of the keys was
actually to use my fabrics in much longer, longer strips so they were easier to hold
in these manly fingers, right? . So what I did is I cut little strip sets like this.
And also when I pressed them I tried to press them so that one fabric would lay flat and
the other ones would fold in. So that when I’m doing my checkerboard it’s going to
make life a little bit easier later. Let me see if I can show you the back of that as
I’m starting to press it out. So there’s all kinds of little fun strips you can do.
But one of the things when you’re going to do this accurate piecing within your cards
you really want your lines of your patchwork to line up to your card. So I want to take
a moment here and add a little extra fabric around my block. Even though it already fit
in my window because I’m going to add some fabric here to help you square this into the
card so that I can mount it from the back without having to look at it from the front.
So mini piecing techniques, a couple things we want to talk about. Let’s use a finer
needle. Maybe like a 70 size needle. That’s smaller than the 80s we’re used to. We can
use a finer thread although I’m just using my aurofill cotton right now. But that’s
one of the tricks we can do. And then the other thing is is I often sew big and trim
down. So I, right now, am just adding in barrier meaning that this already fits in my window.
I’m just adding in extra so I do not need to trim this down right now. However if I
was still adding on parts that were going to fit in the window. Once I get this sewn
in place I’m going to come back in here with my ruler and I’m going to line things
up with like my half inch now. And I’m going to cut that, trim that down so when I put
on that quarter inch seam allowance everything is going to be a little bit less bulky. And
actually I said quarter inch seam allowance but that’s not altogether true. Because
I want to use the smallest seam allowance possible too. So I’m kind of just sewing
right on the inside edge of my foot. And I’m just going to go ahead and treat this like
a, kind of like a log cabin meaning I’m sewing over the seams I just created. And
I’m right on the very edge of my foot there. And I like to backstitch and I’ve shortened
my stitch length up a little bit too. I’m down to about a 2.0. And I’m just going
to take that real quick. And this part doesn’t need to be all that accurate so I can cut
it wide for the moment like that. And then I’m just going to bring it over here. And
I only need to do two sides because I’m just trying to match into that card blank
itself. But you certainly could do four sides if you wanted to, especially if you really
wanted to go ahead and utilize this for a gift that someone would reuse as a card itself.
Or reuse the quilt square is what I’m trying to say, ok? Let me make sure my iron is good
and hot right now down there, ok? We’re going to need that in a second. Let’s get
these parts out of our way.
Now while the iron is heating up let me grab my lapel stick because we’re also going
to need that, right? Because this thing, oh and by the way I’m sorry about the misspelling.
It’s supposed to be La Appell stick on there. I’m talking to the marketing team about
that. I think we need to make it look, you know, a little bit more official for our Man
Sewing fans. Oh good I stalled long enough the old Panasonic is nice and warm. And I’m
going to press this now and trim it square as I’m working because remember we’re
thinking about micro piecing, micro seams. We want it to look really nice and really
small, ok? A little steam if I need. Let’s bring this back over. And I’m just going
to go ahead and trim this down. Again I want the blue to fit in that seam allowance and
in that card window. Ok so now what I was trying to show you is I wanted to use that
extra fabric to fit right in here like this because there’s a couple ways to finish
our cards off. As I said earlier this is a self adhesive tape. And what I’m going to
do is I’m going to pull off one side, maybe, ok?
Now I’m going to come over here and I’m kind of visually centering this in at the
moment but I am setting and pressing. And what I’m looking at is the edge here and
the edge here to try to make sure it runs parallel over to the other side. Pull off
this card blank this way there. And I’m going to flatten my card and give a little
bit of a stretch like that. Now before I seal it of course I want to flip it over and make
sure it looks beautifully square. But I also, again remember if you want to reuse it we
probably could put these parts right back on so that they could open it up easily. I
don’t want somebody to get back in there. I don’t want somebody to be able to use
this. And I wanted to show you how to use your glue stick. So I’m going to glue here.
I’m gluing over the fabric so that fabric now bonds on the paper on the other side as
well. Take it easy Rob you’re getting a little rowdy there. Ok and I can even go to
the outside edge there. Now the C & T logo is designed to go on the back of the card.
One piece of the paper side is a little bit bigger than the other. So I’m going to put
the non logo side down here like that so that when the card is finished the C & T logo is
on the outside because this piece is made a little bit smaller to fit on the interior
like that, ok?
Now I have to admit one of my very, very favorite ways to make the cards though is when I just
find something in the fabric itself that that is so easy to use, right? So look at this.
These are parts that were left from my Tutti Frutti tutorial. And these were really fun
color works if I remember the brand of fabric that came out. And just awesome patchwork,
right? So now what I want to do is kind of come in here and think to myself, what can
I do. What can I eye spy to find in that window that would look pretty cool. I like that,
that looks pretty modern if you ask me. I’m thinking about the size of this window. I’m
looking at that little pinwheel point right there. Now let’s be good quilters. We need
to have half of an inch, at least a quarter of an inch all the way around on our seam
allowance so I’m getting in the habit now with these kinds of parts. I’m going to
add at least a half there. I still don’t know what size the window was so I can easily
come back here and measure. It’s a three inch window on this card. So now I’m going
to come over here 3 ½ or four inches even if I wanted to. Let’s cut big. We’re going
to trim down after we quilt it, ok? Thinking about that line down there. And I’m looking
up here where I’m going to be at. Now what I’m going to do, get rid of that stuff.
I’m going to take just a basic piece of batting. I’m going to take it right here.
And I’m going to sew across these lines onto the batting. So we don’t need our edge
guide in our way. We can just rotate it. I’m just going to drop this down. And I’m just
going to sew right off the edges thinking about the longest seams first. I’m not worrying
about pulling thread up or anything like that. And let’s respect it as if it was really
patchwork so I’m starting in the middle because that’s where that seam was. So I
need to lock that stitch in. Ok let’s get a couple of these diagonals. And we will literally
be done. Let’s stop at that corner because that’s where the print work stopped there.
So I’m not sure if you can see. I might have matched my threads a little bit too nice.
Like a turquoise thread would have been pretty cool there too I think. We’re going to get
the rest of that batting out of the way. Easy. Don’t go so fast you get hurt though.
And then I guess we should be thinking about and talking about one last time in here is
just a little bit about that reminder about the bulk. Bulk management in our fabric pieces.
Or even if you’re doing embroidery, whatever you’re putting into your card window, you
don’t want it to get real thick. So even on those little checkerboards I was building
I didn’t go back and add the batting because of the seam allowance . There’s no seam
allowance in this so it’s ok to add the batting. I’m hoping that makes some sense.
So we’re going to go ahead and look at this like this. And I like to just get myself a
little quick reveal first to see what it looks like. Flop it over. And that’s going to
be a pretty terrific design if you ask me.
So at any rate I want to thank you all for tuning in. Thank you all for following along
on the tutorials. But thank you so much for being thoughtful folks out there and sending
these great cards and teaching me what you want me to teach all of you right here at
Man Sewing.
Thanks for being a Man Sewing fan. It’s great to have you out there encouraging me
to create fantastic new content. If you’ve missed any of the videos we’ve got links
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