Trying the fancy Post ahead feature – hope it works! I’m actually up in Canada at the moment at a music festival. If everything works as planned this posted on Friday at 5:00pm.

I managed to get my head and my bobbin assembly both on straight this week (bobbin assembly thanks to Paul’s help-he speaks sewing machine diagram, I apparently do not). Since I needed to practice free-form quilting and I have the 11^th Annual International Encaustic Conference coming soon (which just happens to include a Postcard Show/Sale to benefit a scholarship fund for future attendees) I thought this would be a perfect way to practice so I spent my studio time this week making some postcards.

What I did was make a sandwich (an actual quilt term = interfacing, batting, topping – in my case the topping is an encaustic print on paper). With free form quilting you have to train yourself to move the fabric (paper) under the sewing apparatus rather than letting it advance on it’s own. You can move it in any direction you wish and any amount you wish. It takes getting used to. It takes a lot of getting used to. I’m finding I like the freedom of it and the frenetic look of the line it makes. It’s rather hard to control so far. But it makes a really cool sound, kind of like a very stressed out typist.

Here is how my first attempts have come out:

Postcards: Encaustic monotypes, interfacing, batting, thread; each 4″ x 6″

I’m going to whipstitch the edges down. I have much more practice to go before I try this out on the pieces for Elizabeth’s quilt. I keep going too fast and I’ve found when I go too fast the paper can tear quite easily.