Repurpose bits of fabric stash into cards!

Marny here…with a suggestion for using the valuable/favorite little strips of fabric you've been saving to make a special, fast and fun three dimensional card.  The strips I used were between ¾" and 1 ½" wide and 5 inches long.  There are eight in this composition.  They were not straight, but none had major curves either.

Notice this card is made from silk and cotton cross weave fabric strips.  The warp and the weft are different colored threads in a cross weave.  This weaving process adds a slight visual texture to the fabric.  Its appearance also changes depending on the angle you see it from. (It has a nap.)   The colors here resemble those of a rainbow…red, orange, green, blue, indigo, violet.  The yellow in this "roygbiv" reinterpretation is a really yellow green.

Arranging the color strips was easy.  There are a couple of violets, blueish and reddish not seen on the right end.  They were already stitched (see below) when I decided to photograph the simple process.

Here are the two violets stacked on a foundation of yellow.  
The foundation fabric will never show.  
In this case the fabrics do not have a right and wrong side.  If I were using fabrics that did they would be stacked right sides together and stitched.

Press the stitching line first to "set the stitches", then press the end strip away from the other strip.

Rotate the piece 180 degrees and start stitching one strip at a time, pressing as before, working across the foundation fabric.

Here it is all sewn, pressed, and trimmed around the perimeter.

The reverse side.

The completed foundation pieced portion stitched all around to another layer of fabric (not shown) right sides together.

Cut an opening in the back.

Turn right side out through the slash in the back.

Push out the corners and press.  
No need to close the slash because it will be hidden once attached to the card.

One stitch in each corner attaching the little foundation pieced color story to a heavy piece of folded black construction paper.  
This is the orientation I chose for the final product.  
The interior of the card has additional paper double stick taped to it so that the stitches are hidden and there is a suitable surface to write a message on.

Another orientation…and I really like this one too.

Yet another way to look at the composition of color strips.  The dark at the top seems a bit heavy.

One final orientation for the textile "rainbow".

Till Tuesday…