Every year I create a special Christmas card with a new design. Most years I have been so busy selling at shows that I didn't have time to do anything fancy. This year was different. I haven't been able to do any shows this year due to the stroke I had in May. So, this presented me with the opportunity to take my time with the cards.

So, for your enjoyment, here is my process for this year's fiber art Christmas tree cards.

First I lay out the sky. These are tiny little pieces of fabric. I have attached a heat activated glue (Wonder Under) to the back of the fabric before cutting. Then I use my mini iron to attach the pieces to some heavy interfacing.

After stitching the sky, I lay out the snow fabrics. The sky is stitched with a lot of thread with a long stitch. The stitching blends the different color fabrics together much like a painter blends paints on a canvas.

The snow is stitched using the free motion foot. That means I can more easily control the placement of the stitches to follow the curves of the snow banks.

Next is the tree. First the tree trunk is stitched down. Then I iron the green fabric for the basic tree shape.

For the tree I use a green thread and free motion work to get the look of pine needles.

Here's what the back looks like so you can see all the stitching.

Lastly I glue the artwork onto card stock, trim off the excess, add my label, and sign and number the cards. And now they're ready to go out in the mail.

In case you hadn't heard, I suffered a stroke back in May.  I have gone from being barely able to get out of bed to being able to hobble around with a cane. I am definitely getting better as the days go by.

I have been to lots of physical therapy sessions. They gave me lots of exercises to do. But one of the most important things they told me was to do familiar things around the house. And what is more familiar to me than sewing?!?!? I have been doing lots of sewing in the last couple of months. It has really helped with my rehabilitation. And it's been a change from my usual sewing where I am trying to make enough items to sell at shows. Since I am physically unable to do shows, I can take my time and enjoy the sewing process.

I started out with smaller projects like the crossbody bags and eyeglass cases. Then I moved on to a more difficult bag project, a padded laptop/music bag. Then it was on to the quilts. Those ended up being a real upper body workout. You don't really realize how much effort it takes to push around several pounds of fabric. It was great exercise!

With all that rehab work I was finally ready to tackle some artwork. But I thought I would start small and do Christmas cards. More on that in the next post.