Fabric Landscapes in Winter Whites (Postcards)

Fabric Landscapes in Winter Whites (Postcards)

February 2017

Sheree McKee

sewfabsew.blogspot.com

Almost evening takes on shades of purple

The shades of winter here in the Great Lakes area, can be just as pretty as any other season.  While many people think of winter as dreary, there are other opinions of this icy time of year.

Winter can be fresh and pure, or dark and gray.  But witness a sunny winter day, and the sparkle is unbelievable!

These fabric postcards (FPC) are a swap between myself, and two members of PostCardMailArt Yahoo Group, Meena Schaldenbrand of Michigan and MaryLou Curry in Ontario, Canada.

Meena created a lovely layered scene.  The third layer is a satin jacquard, the second layer is a punched pine tree scene, the top layer is fine tulle.  All together the postcard is delicate and beautiful, as well as unique.

by Meena Schaldenbrand

MaryLou loves handwork and crewel embroidery.  She used a napped wool-like background to create her landscape in horizontal layout.  She crewel embroidered the hills and pine trees.  Then using a specialty metallic thread she added in twinkling snowflakes.

by MaryLou Curry

I decided to use a vertical layout for my landscapes below.  All of my work is by sewing machine.  I used decorative machine stitching to outline the birds and hills.  The tiny stars are glued in place (still fresh in this photo).  I also used feathers in different shades to represent pine trees.  Each feather was cut to shape.  My last layer of snow is a piece of cotton quilt batting.  Several of the fabrics have sparkle or metallic threads, but the photos do not show it well.

by Sheree McKee for MaryLou

by Sheree McKee version 2

Ideas for getting started with your fabric choices ~

Colors:  Whites and Creams, Grays and muted Blues,  shades of grayed Violets

Textures: Lofty batting, or napped fleece / wools for snow.  Sparkly organza or metallics for ice.

Prints:  Swirls can represent clouds or wind, Speckles and Dots resemble snowfall,  Striations for barren fields or tree bark

#1  Select 3-4 landscape fabrics, fuse webbing
to backsides then cut approx. 2"x7" each.
Prepare a Stabilizer sized 5"x7"

#2  Trim the non-sky fabrics on one side into hills
I added the white dot on right and eventually
eliminated the darkest purple

#3  Layout your fabrics in a test run on top
of your stabilizer.  I originally had five colors.

#4  I decided to eliminate the darkest purple,
rearranged, then used only four landscape fabric choices

#5  Cut away about half of your strips  

#6  All layers fused and stitched with different thread
colors.  I created the branches at bottom with
bobbin work, using heavy pearl cotton in my bobbin.

#7  The final postcard is trimmed to 6"wide by 4"tall.
This is the reverse side, before fusing a final
cotton backing fabric - a solid violet color.

#8  To complete, I stitched along outer edges but used
a feather stitch in bottom 2/3 and a straight stitch
along the skyline area.

Web articles on fabric landscapes:
Nancy Zieman: How to Design Winter Landscapes

Kathy McNeil: Choosing Fabrics - Landscapes (Video)


You might also like my previous blog article: 

Radius Shaped Edges on Fabric Postcards