Fabric ATC tutorial

Here is step 1. I fused fabric bits to make the little people. These cards are for the Zetti stle swap i joined on www.atcards.com.

Step 2. Make the quilt “sandwich”

Step 3. Quilt away! I quilt my cards heavily, in this case with varigated thread.

Here are the quilted cards with the back of one shown.

Step 4. Trim the cards to size. Here I taped off my ruler to the ATC size and use the clear ruler to center my design. Remember that the edges are going to be sewn, so leave room!

Step 5. I made some embellished words to go on the cards. They needed something colorful to make them pop. I stamped words onto small scraps.

Here are the cards cut down, with the word embellishments ready to go and a small pile of scraps from cutting.
Step 6. Here are the words being sewn on.

Step 7. Here is the edging going on. I make 2 passes around. My machine is set on a 5 point width and a .80 distance on a zig zag stitch. I am using an overcast foot in order to get the zig zag to go over the edge nicely.

Here are the cards after finishing the edges.

Step 8. I am finishing off the front of the cards wth some embellishments. This is black perle cotton for the critter’s arms and legs.

I embellished further with beads and a few sequins.
Step 9. The way I finish my cards is to fuse a sticky backing onto stamped fabric, and them fuse the stamped portion to the card. Here I have stamped plain muslin with the ATC stamp, and fused “Wonder Under” onto the back. It comes with a paper backing you peel away to stick it to the back of the ATC.
Here I am fusing it on with my mini craft iron.

Finished card with fused back. It makes the card a bit stiffer than just writing on the backs.

Step 9 (option 2): some fiber ATC-er’s use a paper backing. Here I stamped the ATC stamp to a piece of card that was cut to ATC size, and I am zig-zag stitching it to card. Use a wider stitch length or you will just perforate the card completely and your back won’t stick on! (I don’t use this method because I don’t like cleaning paper dots out of the guts of my machine!)

I hope this helped you make fabric ATCs!