Fabric Postcards are fascinating to me, maybe because they’re a bit more unusual than DIY postcards made from regular paper? I love the idea of fabric as a collage material. And I love the texture of fabrics. Some of the fabric postcards I’ve seen online are really cool, and I don’t think they need to be complicated to make either. Just because it’s fabric we think: labor intensive, right? But not entirely true though.

Recently I’ve been looking through YouTube to find the best tutorials on how to quilt fabric postcards, or how to use a sewing machine to make them anyway. The quality of the videos vary a lot (some of them are a few years old), but I found some that are inspiring in one way or other. I made a tutorial list that I’m sharing with you below. Let me know if you find it inspiring. YouTube can be such a jungle of content, but once you find something that inspires you it’s fun to share it…

I think I’ll try to sew or quilt fabric postcards in the next DIY Postcard Swap (for now I’ve already started with the collage ones as you know), just to get to use some of my pretty scraps and exercise my sewing machine a bit. Today though I’m sharing two handsewn postcards I made a while back. The first one is a message of love, sent to my mom:

Love you.

I appliqued all the blue fabric scraps by hand to a postcard sized piece of fabric, that I then sewed the finished and embroidered piece to a cardboard backside. The jean tag that I embroiered on was originally a label on some clothes I bought. It’s been in my stash for a while, saved to be used “somewhere”…

I was very inspired by the new book Textile Collage by one of my favorite textile artists, Mandy Pattullo. It’s super lovely and so inspirational. I’ve already reviewed it in two magazines, but I can write a bit about it in English if you’re interested?

The second postcards was made for an embroidery postcard swap I participated in this autumn:

Video tutorials on how to quilt Fabric Postcards

Now let’s sit back and be inspired to quilt some postcards, shall we?

1. My favorite video is this by fiber artist Mary Beth Larsen. She makes my kind of postcards (even though these are purple which is not my favorite color even though I made a purple postcard because I wanted to use some of those scraps). I love the peek into her studio that you get when she’s fetching new material for her postcards:

Purple Heart Fabric Postcards with Mary Beth Larsen.

2. This one, from Sharon Benton’s studio, is edited a bit snappier, and she is making a heart postcard (I ♥ hearts):

Sharon Benton on That’s Clever – Fabric Postcard from HGTV.

3. In a slower pace and with great explanations, here’s a video showing you how you can use an adhisive material like Peltex to make a fabric postcard:

Simple Fabric Postcard Tutorial by Jessica.

4. This guy, Rob Appell of Man Sewing, is using a material called Timtex as his canvas layer. He is demonstrating how to make a simple yet colorful postcard:

Fabric Postcards: Easy Sewing Tutorial with Rob Appell.

5. Vanessa, also known as the Crafty Gemini on YouTube, has loads of sewing and crafting tutorials on her channel. In this video she is demonstrating another easy way to make a quilted postcard.

How to Make Easy Quilted Fabric Postcards, another video tutorial by The Crafty Gemini

6. Here’s a even more quilted look, but done first using a glue stick on fabric (!), which is not for purists. :

Faux Quilted Fabric Postcard Tutorial by Jessica again.

7. A video with pretty poor quality but I find it inspirational anyways, because it features Helen Howes, a designer and maker textile and mixed media art, and we get a glimpse into her stash and studio. Oh yum!

Making a Fabric Post Card with Helen Howes.

Thanks to all great content creators for these videos. My postcards videos can be found here and here. Subscribe to my Youtube channel here.

The possibilities are endless. You might want to make your own fabric postcards copying one of these videos, or all of them (if you want to learn all these techniques). Then probably you’ll keep going and experiment on your own. Also there’s my version: sewing by hand, if you don’t have a sewing machine (or even if you have one sewing by hand is lovely). Then you can bring your fabric scraps outside, or sit by the TV and hand sew everything together.

I’d love to see what you make, so let me know if this inspired some new ideas for you. Sign up for the DIY Postcard Swap if you want to get handmade postcards in your inbox too.

More Fabric Postcard Inspiration

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