New Fiber Post Card

I am so enjoying the making of post cards using fabric and fibers. The current set I am working on has the title of Beyond the Sea. To me that means something that you would like to see there, but a bit of a fantasy...hence I chose to stitch out a mermaid. Not just any ol' mermaid, mind you...not the comic type that we see drawn , but rather an almost human looking being, with a fish tail! I love the mythical aspect of a mermaid, almost like a fanatsy creature as were the Unicorns, and of course Fairies. She fits into my scheme of things quite well. It was a bit of a struggle for me to locate the perfect background, they just do not print fabrics that have the appeal of the undersea to my mind's eye. Everything I had envisioned using for a backdrop for her just did not hold that punch.

However, there is no limit to the imagination of the batik fabrics available, and even when confronted with the miriad of fabrics available in that department of the fabric store, I still had choices to make. Would it be a green, perhaps a blue, maybe a blue-green, and finally as I rounded yet another corner in the shop, there it was! The perfect background fabric for my vision. The fabric is difficult to describe, it has the blues, the appearance of movement that was necessary for my internal vision of this card, greens, a bit of turquoise, and most important part was purple to allow me to not have to create shadows on the finished card. I really think this card is a great card! With a few additions of some stitchery to create a few pieces of seaweed, the addition of other fibers and of course the star fish and the sand dollar, and I believe that she is about done. I also added some cellophane to it, as one of the challenges for the month is to use some paper in one of our creations...I found a nice cellophane with an iridescent quality to it that shines in the blue of the paper as well as picks up a bit of pink and gold. I do believe I have succeeded with what was in my mind's eye!

The design is not my own creation, although I did change the color of the fish portion of the body. I never did believe a mermaid would have a yellow and green body, so have made mine a subtle blue and green. The artist and digitizer of this design is Susan Mackinlaw, who owns a fantastic site for embroidery designs called BFC Creations. Not only is she a wonderful artist, but does an outstanding job on her digitizing.