Scrappy card

Last year I was part of a Christmas card exchange with a group of quilters from all over the US and Australia. I wanted to do something related to quilting for my Christmas card. I do not know how to make the cards where you cut out the center and sew the fabric onto the cardstock. This was the method that I came up with for making a fabric card.

I use lots of different fabric scraps and snippets. First thing to do is iron all the little pieces.


Take all the pieces to the sewing machine.


Start sewing pieces and strips together. You can use as many different ones as you like. This is a great way to use up some of those little pieces of fabric that you just can't throw away.

It's sometimes easier to use my little wooden presser, or just the iron, whichever is handy. I do sometimes try to press the seams open, but there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rule that I apply.


I keep sewing pieces until I have a fairly nice size to work with.

Next I draw my pattern. I really like how the heart turns out.

It was easy to find a nice shape heart in one of my quilting books, but you could make your own by folding a piece of paper in half and drawing 1/2 of a heart. You can also do a funky heart, or a star, or wherever your imagination takes you. Copy or trace your pattern onto HeatnBond (I like the ultrahold) on the smooth side. It is easy to copy several patterns and then cut them out. Seems to save time and materials.

I position my shape on the sewn piece of fabric.

It is VERY important that you position your pattern to the wrong side of the fabric.

Press the pattern onto the fabric following the instructions from HeatnBond.

Here you see two different heart patterns that have been pressed.

Now cut them out and turn them over. Voila! Patchwork hearts!


As this post is getting long, I will continue tomorrow and show you how I finish my fabric card.