Try-Out Tuesday

I wonder if you've been around long enough to remember when I started trying out a new recipe each Tuesday and posting it here, because I'd got in a rut with my daily cooking?  Anyway, it didn't last long - first I kept trying out recipes that didn't seem worth sharing, unspectacular as they were, and then I gave up trying-out and slunk back off into my cookery rut...

Anyway, I have a different sort of try-out to share today.  

I signed up for a swap (something I've never done before) with Very Berry Handmade.   It's a textile, artist trading card swap  - I thought it would be fun to try 'something new', which incidentally is also the theme for the cards. 

So I have been trying-out.  

I hadn't realised how small ATCs usually are - I was thinking postcard size, but then read the instructions and found out I should be making something 2.5" by 3.5", roughly playing card size.  

But as I like small, this suited me fine.  

First I seized some tiny Liberty scraps.  I have a sugar bowl full of teeny-tiny bits right next to my sewing machine - can't bear to chuck 'em!  Ali, who is organising the swap has a Folksy shop full of small pieces of Liberty Tana lawn, so it seemed appropriate to start with these.

Eloise for the sky

Claire-Aude for the garden

Betsy for the windows

Wiltshire for the door

One whose name I've forgotten for the roof!

A piece of French vintage mattress cover for the house itself

Machine- and hand-stitching were added, plus a tiny shell button for part of the flowerhead.

Hmmmm...Not sure.

Let's try something else...

This time I printed a little saying about new things onto a scrap of linen, then hand-stitched it on to a bigger piece of old linen, before embellishing with some rainbow embroidery.  I think the amazing double rainbow I had seen a few days before had seeped into my brain...

Hmmmm again.  Began to wonder if I should have joined in with this!  Decided to have a look at the Flickr group to see if I was vaguely on the right lines.  Worried some more...

Had one more go - a celebration of fabric selvedges!

Still at the Hmmmm stage...

I have got to be ready to get one in the post by next Monday, so would be trying-out for the rest of the week, except that I am going away for a few days on Thursday. So I have this evening and little bits of tomorrow to have a dazzling, light-bulb moment and come up with an amazing idea.   Why does inspiration disappear when you most need it?