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.

The following 4-minute video shows what it is like to stitch details into this work in progress. And, in case you're wondering, no, I did not sew through my fingers.

Here's what my version of the USS Floyd B. Parks looks like as of Sunday. I've made some major progress and it is really starting to look like a ship. Below are some closeup views of the details.

This day's progress on the USS Floyd B. Parks consisted of a few shapes and several lines. The gif below shows the progress.  There were quite a few detail lines such as the antenna and the railings. I had to carefully draw the lines in and then even more carefully stitch them. I often joke that I can't draw a straight line. I think I am now going to have to amend that statement to include that I CAN draw a straight line with my sewing machine.

Here's a close up view of today's efforts. And yes, all of those lines were done freehand.

There is so much going on in this image, especially at the stern of the ship. Much of my time working on this piece right now is spent staring at the image trying to figure out what goes where and what is in front and what is behind. Below is a rundown of this day's progress.

Here's what the ship looks like at this point. It still looks kinda weird. But it is starting to come together. The images below shows the progress.

The tiny details are the most difficult part of the process. Each bit of color is made up of a piece of fabric that I cut out and then stitch down. Some of these pieces are minuscule. One of the problems with using this particular image is that the details in the stern of the ship are off in the distance and therefore much smaller. For this kind of art, smaller means more difficult.

In the 3 1/2 minute video below you can see a little of the process, including the mistake. (I made the hatch about 1/16" too wide.) This is what I have to do for each tiny piece of fabric (preferably without any mistakes). The video ended about 3 seconds too early. All it's missing is me ironing down the piece shown in the above image. Next the piece is stitched with an appropriate thread color or colors.

It doesn't look like much right now, but this is the beginnings of several days of detail work. That little piece of gray fabric that doesn't have any thread on it yet is the deck. It will be covered by lots of things after I stitch it down.

Here's the first two objects to be added to the deck. I don't know their purpose and so far my research has not provided any information. It seems that much of the time spent on the piece is going to be searching the internet to find information about the section I am working on. That, and staring at the photo to figure out the technical issues with creating this piece.

And speaking of technical issues... We had a couple of very humid days. Humidity can wreak havoc on fabrics and especially the rayon thread that I like to use. The humidity warped the piece. To remedy the situation I poured some water on the back and ironed it as I stretched it out. That got rid of most of the puckers. The rest will either come out as I add more stitching or it will get worse. Maybe I need to invest in a carpet stretcher.

Here's the hull laid and ready to stitch. Right now the hull looks like a bunch of separate pieces of fabric. I'll use the thread to blend the colors.

Here is my palette of thread colors. I may or may not use all of them. We'll see what the piece needs. I'll be using light to medium gray's for the hull. The video below shows the beginning of stitching the hull with a medium gray thread. Unfortunately, this thread tends to break as happens as the end of the video.

And here is the hull all stitched.