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Fiber Artist Trading Cards RevisitedRissa Peace Root © 2006 |
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I wrote my first article about
Fiber Artist Trading Cards
for CQMagOnline two years ago.
I really like the concept of the Artist Trading Card (ATC), but I especially
like it when Fiber Artists make them. Fiber ATCs are fun and
challenging little projects and I have
made many of them over the past few years. I belong to the
CyberStitchers Chapter of the EGA, and this year Kelly issued her
President's Challenge; I was thrilled that she chose Artist Trading Cards. Of course I
offered to coordinate an exchange at the end of the year, but since I really
wanted to do my best to encourage participation, I decided to make an
ATC for each person who sends one in for the exchange. I have dubbed
this "Challenge the Vice President." Every member who send
me an ATC for the
swap will get two in return, one from a member and one from me. While that is potentially
a very large commitment, I know that actual participation will be
manageable.
In preparation for my personal challenge, I have already begun to make more ATCs. I decided to make a water scene as an homage to Gracie, the first Group Correspondence Course (GCC) that I took and completed with CyberStitchers. It was a challenge to make a Stumpwork ATC that would still fit into a trading card collectors sleeve. The front leaf is a wired element, so I carefully tacked it to the base to keep it from being damaged by being put into and pulled out of a trading card sleeve.
The basic rules for an ATC have not changed since my first article. They should be:
Past that, the way you make them is completely up to you. Just remember that most people collect them as remembrances in an album. The photo above shows how I store mine. I bought the cloth binder and trading card collector pages from a chain craft store. If you are making a fabric ATC, it can be bound or finished in a variety of ways. Personally, I do not like to mount my embroidery on card stock or a playing card, so I treat mine like micro miniature quilts. I either fold over the backing fabric and stitch it down like quilt binding or I hold the pieces together and work a close blanket stitch all around the edges of the project. I have even used some of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine to bind the edges. Fiber ATCs can be a means to experiment with new techniques or to challenge yourself to create an homage to a much larger and more complicated project. The next time you need a "doodle cloth" for a project, think about making it into an ATC. For my Casalguidi and Lavender GCC, I decided to baste and mark my linen to the 2.5" by 3.5" dimensions for an ATC, so that when I am done, I will have a completed ATC. I am a little worried that the raised elements might make it too dimensional to fit into the sleeve, so before I do the hemstitching, I will pin it and see if it works. Part of the fun with these projects is figuring out just exactly what will work. Also, how cool is it that I can finish off my "doodle cloth" and trade it with a friend rather than toss it aside.
Maybe you have part of a project that did not work out or an unfinished project that you never intend to complete. Consider turning those orphaned projects into a Fiber Artist Trading Card! You may even be able to make several from one project and nothing relieves the guilt of abandoning a project better than to find a new way to call it finished! I'll leave you with the six big reasons I am so excited about CyberStitchers President's Artist Trading Card Challenge:
Please note, this particular exchange is open only to members of the CyberStitchers Chapter of the EGA. For more information about joining, please refer to the link below. However, since there is a lot of interest in Fiber Artist Trading Cards, you should be able to set up personal trades on your own. Addendum: The Casalguidi doodle cloth was too big, so I had to roll over the edge and do another row of hemstitching to make it fit.
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