Mona Lisa ATC

I have been trying to cut back on all kinds of commitments in order to concentrate on a large solo exhibition of my quilts coming up in 2011, which sounds a long time in the future but as one large quilt can take me as long as 6 months is not actually that far ahead.

However, all work and no play make for a very dull time and I think I do better work if I'm happy so I do still indulge in a few swaps and other activities here and there.

One of the things I love to do is host and participate in ATC swaps on the ATCsforAll site and I'm hosting a swap dedicated to Mona Lisa. The ATCs also have to feature fabric in some shape or other. It was about time I made my own cards and this is one of them. They are all more or less identical with only the vintage text on them slightly different on each one.

I wanted to do Mona in Black and White so that I could add a red heart that would stand out. The background is a potpourri of black/white fabrics which were ironed onto Fast2Fuse and free machine quilted with white thread. I also couched down a selection of white knitting yarns.

The background was cut to ATC size and Mona Lisa was added. I played with her a bit digitally to improve her contrast and she was printed onto a new product by Crafty Computer Paper, called Iron-On Fabric Sheets. You print as normal and then remove the backing paper. Put into position wherever you want the image to be and iron, and it's sticking down.

I added the silver moon charm with silver seed beads and sewed on the red heart button. Finally the vintage texts were sewn down as well, a fabric added to the back of the Fast2Fuse and the edges finished with silver zigzag stitching.