Sewing Fabric Postcards with ShereeSews: Surface Dimension for your Fiber Postcards

February 2017
Sheree McKee
sewfabsew.blogspot.com

Do you appreciate texture and dimension in your textile projects? I do, and I often think about methods to add surface design to my postcard creations. These Fabric Postcards (FPC) were fun to make using an Origami technique for folding and manipulating cotton fabric into flowers.

Image 1 Valentine Purple
Petals are in 12-3-6-9 o'clock positions
and flattened then secured into the binding seams.
Folded Flower block was set at top half of postcard
allowing a bottom black band

Image 2 Coffee Canisters
Petals were left free in this example

While the construction looks like four individual flower petals, similar to Kanshashi.... they aren't. Instead, I used a single 9" square of fabric folded down to create the flower medallion. These are constructed into the fabric postcard, not simply added on top.

My inspiration came from a blog called Sewn Up by TeresaDownUnder. She has a tutorial section on her blog called "41 Fabric Manipulations" and it is enjoyable! Her site is full of dimensional quilt blocks and tutorials on folding, pressing and stitching methods. I used her Block #20: Origami Flower.

I don't want to re-invent the wheel so I suggest you review and practice by watching her tutorial video a couple times. Then come back for methods to turn your Origami flower into a FPC. Here is the helpful You-Tube Video on Block #20 by Teresa.

TeresaDownUnder starts with a 10.5" fabric square in her tutorial, but it is too large for our postcards. After testing, I eventually reduced my starting fabric square down to 8 1/2" for the sake of fitting onto a standard 4"x6" postcard. However, I suggest that you learn the technique, by starting with a folded sample made from the demonstrated 10.5" size. Perfect it first, then move down to the more challenging 8 1/2" fabric square.

Image 3
Left is made from 10.5" starting fabric square which yields a 5x7" postcard
Right is made from a 9" starting fabric square which yields a 4 1/4" x 6 1/4" postcard
These petals were rolled under and stitched to secure in place

Image 4 - Side profile shows dimension

Several different flower petal styles depend on whether you:

Leave the petal edges free (see Image 2)
Roll the petals under and secure stitch (see Image 6)
Flatten and secure into edge bindings (see Image 1)

Rotate the folded Origami square so the petals lay either:

Square to the postcard edges (see Image 1)
Diagonal to the poscard edges (see Image 5)

Image 5 Valentine Red
Petals in the 1-5-7-11 o'clock position by rotating the
flower block and the petal tips are kept free.
Flower block centered on FPC with two rows
of grosgrain ribbon on each side of it

Image 6 Valentine Black
I rolled each petal edge under then secure stitched in place

Changes I made that differ from the video:

I reduced starting fabric square to 8.5" in order to yield a 4"x6" finished size
I fused tiny pieces of webbing inside each petal point (see image 6)
Sometimes I tear my squares to keep on grain, but you could use a rotary cutter

Image 7
Fuse down eight points with small
amount of fusible webbing to secure points

Construction Steps:

1. Press and make a folded flower from 8 1/2" fabric square
2. Fuse webbing inside eight petal points (4 points x 2 sides)
3. Open flaps and secure middle of flower with a sewn button

Step 1

4. Cut a 4 x 6 piece of stiff stabilizer - I use Peltex 70
5. Decide where you want your flower located on stabilizer (centered vs. top or bottom)
6. Pin it in place