Leftovers from Leftover UFO's

In my previous post, I described a Tablet cover I made, using an old UFO. I was looking for ideas on how I could use the rest of this UFO, knowing I would never use it for any wallhanging. I was inspired by the work of many artists in the Art Quilt World, to make ATC's, or Artist Trading Cards. These are postcard sized quilted items, painted, beaded, or otherwise embellished to suit the artist.

Out came my cutting board, ruler, and rotary cutter. I cut as many 4x6" cards as I could get from my leftover piece, and cut the rest into Inchies, which are tiny versions of the ATC's. Mine are a little bigger, almost 2x2", but I still call them Inchies. Then I set about finishing them up.

The first step was to do a quick zigzag stitch around the edges. Nothing fancy here. Just getting the edges closed. Then I trimmed all the loose threads with scissors. Just cleaning up the edges.

Step two was to complete the finishing on the edges. On one card, I used a close zigzag with rayon thread. I've never liked this method. I can never get it to look as beautiful as I want, so I moved on to my favourite method, which is to zigzag yarns around

the edge. I thread matched the yarn, and used a grooved foot in

my machine to control the yarn along the edges. I found a better foot in my box of accessories, with more grooves, and an open toe, worked like a charm. I finished the Inchies the same way.

Then I used this same foot, and other yarn to race across the cards, adding dimension. Beads followed soon after, and the cards were nearly complete. My favourite card turned out to be the one for which I added three Inchies, shown at left.