Black and White

Just come back from a few days away in Edinburgh and David has taken lots, lots of photos and I've taken one or two.  A nice break away, even if it was cold, windy and rainy but what could we expect for November.

Before going away I posted off my Black and White postcards which I made back in September thinking I would be returning to paid work but that hasn't happened yet.  This I decided would be a bargello technique, joining strips of black and white fabrics and recutting and rejoining again.  Here's the orginal piece that I made and I cut the 6" x 4" pieces on the diagonal which produced 5 cards then had to make up a 6th with joining up 2 diagonally cut pieces that sort of matched.

This was the original Bargello piece

Cut on the diagonal into postcard sized pieces

One of the completed cards

As you can see from above I added some white flower sequins which just about show up and I used some black ricrac to edge the card.  This was the only card I had left as I posted off the other 5 without having taken a photo of them all before they wended their way to their recipients.

Another postcard that I've made has been a birthday one for Jacquie in the BQL birthday swap group and her birthday was at the end of October, as it was a pot luck request I decided to make her a card with autumn leaves on.  Based on what I'd seen in John Lewis store where some cushions with leaves and contrasting stitches were sold like this one here.  I used rusty/orangey scraps of fabric and embroidery thread to achieve the effect.

I've also been getting on with the big Christmas swap which will be posted in December.  They are all ready bar the stamps.  These ones will go in cellophane bags (which I haven't done before) and here they are waiting to go...

And for postcards that I've received from the Black and White swap these are some I got from Avril (Boo! in luminous paint) and Benta

 And below from Carole and Annette.

 I liked Annette printing on the reverse of the card (I've blanked out the address here)

As today is David's birthday (he's just a year older than me for a fortnight!) he received a surprise of his own in the post.

Pictures of Leo and Freddie!