3 Year's Worth of Swapping!

 

As I put away the December 2024 Stitchscape cards into my little Papermania ATC folder, I realised that the folder was full! It has enough slots to take exactly 3 years worth of Stitchscape swap cards, how fantastic is that?

Of course, then I wanted to get them all out to have a play with them and see what they looked like together as a big collection. I'm fairly sure that I did get all 72 cards out on my board at once but I don't seem to have actually taken a photo of that amazing moment which is rather frustrating.

These photos are of all of the cards I've received from other people in the swap. You can see the breadth of styles, techniques, fabrics, colours, ideas used. I find it absolutely fascinating looking at how all of the different themes have been interpreted. I wonder if you can guess what all of the themes were (assuming you didn't already know) for each card. 

These are my cards from the last three years. I feel like you can tell that they've all been made by me, the techniques are often quite similar, stitches repeated, using felt for motifs, the way they are all stitched onto the backing card. And I seem to use those flat clear/pinkish sequins a lot! (I do have rather a large pot of them so that's probably why.)

Some ideas have been a bit random; using paper cut holes as sequins for tree leaves, creating sort-of-stumpwork butterflies using magazine pages and fabric for wings, cutting out strawberry punnet plastic to make a 'glass' greenhouse.... They're probably the ones that stand out to me as being slightly different.

The nicest thing is actually to be able to look back and see how I interpreted the themes. I've got folders and folders of cards made by other people from when I belonged to a Mixed Media ATC swap group, and they're all lovely - usually three cards on a set theme - but I haven't the foggiest what my cards looked like and how I interpreted the same theme. You can't see how you might have grown or changed in your style. 

Three piles for three years! And here were are, one theme into the fourth year. I had no expectation that the swap would be popular enough to go on for four years, how thrilling!

Below is what my folder looks like, fat and full of hours worth of stitching, creating and joyful mindfulness. Newly learned techniques, tried and tested methods, recycled materials or purposefully bought fabrics. It's a happy little folder!