Designing a Business Card Holder - something practical for a change

Voila! My new sewing machine.

So this is what purchasing a sewing machine does to you.  I've suddenly started to think of practical things to sew.   Actually someone in our fibre arts group gave us each a collaged business card holder a couple of months ago.   I thought of it when I was trying to decide what to give a friend for her birthday.  She has been getting work done on her house recently and I thought this might be useful when collecting cards from designers, paint stores, painters, carpenters etc...  I started by embroidering leaves on a white background again using Laura's beautiful threads.

If you look closely you will see my inspiration - a plastic place mat that I placed on the table to have a smooth surface to work on happened to have a leaf design.   I ended up doodling leaves onto my fabric but making them more colourful, loose and flowing than the rigid design on place mat.

Using my new sewing machine I was able to machine stitch the lining to the cover but I decided to do the final assembly by hand because I am just learning to manage this beast (although I had fun trying out stitches and even alphabet letters a few days ago).  So the finished product is a little wonky but it works.    I gave it to my friend along with some exercise DVDs for when the weather is bad and a new journal.  I think she liked it.

lining

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