A wonderful two days

What a great two days I have just had at Frances Pickering's 'Books to Cherish' course at Art Van Go (That's the links over and done). I am totally pooped, even though I have been sitting down most of the day! So this post is just a quick over view, with some very poor photos I'm afraid. Several people on the course said they were going to visit my blog this evening so I want to give they them something to look at. First I must say that  being able to handle Frances' books was a terrific opportunity. They were all delicious and over the two days my favourite changed, you need to look at her web page to see them. I was totally hooked and bought all the necessary materials. I will be going through the process in the next few days to cement it in my brain, so I will share it with you. Where to start?

Well here is Frances demonstrating how tactile our books should feel - perhaps not a very flattering photo, but showing her passion for her art.

This is the cover of my book - painted onto cheap copy paper with transfer dyes and ironed onto pelmet vilene  then waxed with acrylic wax to stabilize the colours. It is now ready for some stitched embellishments.

Here Frances  is showing us how to  shape the edge of the vilene with a soldering iron. You can also use it to make holes in the cover.

Next we tore some heavy duty lining paper into pagers and left them to 'marinade' in Brusho water colour wrapped up in polythene.

After they had been wrapped up for an hour or so, we dried them off with a hair dryer and gave them a quick iron. 

You are then ready to stitch your book together and start filling it.

This is the finished outside with a button and cord fastening.

and here a couple of pages - not finished by any means - it is a long term project.

Here are some of the other member of the group's work-