Take a leaf from my book

Here some pictures of my leaf book I have made - I think it has turned out quite well.

the front

the back

the inside

another view

Despite being rather fond of it I have put it up for sale on Etsy as I am not sure when I shall have time to fill it up. But if no one wants it, I am sure I shall be able to use it. However if you saw my previous post you may guess that there are some more in production.

Today I have been sewing patchwork for some new paperback book covers. I have bonded the pieces to the felt wadding and machine stitched them down. Now I can spend a few evenings doing some hand stitching which I enjoy. 

Wednesday

My give away draw will stop this evening - there is still room for one more! Meanwhile I will share with you my hand made books I made at the Frances Pickering workshop. They are nearly full now.

First J is for ....

Now 'Come into my garden'...

I have a lot of Euphorbia wulfenni, it fills in lots of spaces and always looks elegant. 

The darling buds of May were inspired by ...

clematis montana 'Elizabeth'  that fills the garden with perfume.

You may recognise the pink campion from the previous post.

Can there be any gardens without dandelions?

And finally the daisy, one of my favourite pages, at the moment.

Come into My Garden

I thought I'd show you what I had been doing in the "Come into my Garden" book I had started at the Frances Pickering workshop, just to show I am not a total flipperty-jibbert and can see an idea through (that is my image of myself, not yours, by-the-way. Well it might be, but you are too polite to say so) .

This double page spread with the little half page, uses one of the vintage  flower labels my sister gave me.

I have been collecting garden and flower quotations.

The flowers are all mine, but the butterflies are customised scanned images from a chart.

I was a bit disappointed with the book to begin with, but it is beginning to take on some character now. I may well add a bit more to some of the pages.

The sun was out this morning so I managed to cut the grass and do a bit of tidying up in the garden, so much nicer than housework!

Hope your week is going well, Jill

In the Pink

Here is my latest book, all ready to fill. I love making them, I guess I can just take my time filling the pages

This is the cover and the lining before sticking them together with bond-a-web. The lining (top) is the original transfer dye painting enhanced with colour pencils and given a couple of coats of acrylic wax. The cover (bottom and below) has been stitched on all week.

A button and cord were stitched on as a fastener, the lining bonded on and the pages stitched in.

Front

Back

Open

That is three I have to work on now, and I have promised myself that I shall give myself time to work on some of my other projects.

Hi John and Trish

Today's blog is dedicated to our dear friends John and Trish who hosted our New Year celebrations. They are stuck in Kuala Lumpur with not much prospect of a flight home. They have got WiFi connection so I hope they are able to keep in contact.

I have had a great day - so I ignored the dust so deep I could grow potatoes on the bookshelf, the kitchen floor which could feed a family of four (and a cat) and the filter of my dishwasher which could be used for a nourishing soup and went to a local car boot sale this morning inspired by lala's post. I am not really an early bird or a car boot person, but after dropping Mr T off I headed to the Olde Water Mill garden centre. There were only about 25 cars and as it was about 10.30 I didn't think I would have much luck. But look at this -

All this for about £8 - My best buy, the iron for £2, just what I need  for my craft work. The FW acrylic inks are labelled £2.25 each, but are now over £4 a bottle. (all for £3 including the some cheap brushes - just right for glue and gels and some beads. In the Water Mill I was also able to but embroidery threads and some fabric scraps from the quilting shop! What a happy bunny I am. By the way Lesley and tried the FW ink on the vilene - it soaked in rather a lot, but I guess if you mixed it with a thickener it could work.

I have been busy in my "J" book too.

Here is the page for 'Jam',

 and Lesley, I had already started 'Jamboree' when I read your comment this morning - honest,

although I think Jingoism may be a bit more of a challenge!

Watch this space for 'jokers' and 'Jezebel'.

The next step

I have been begrudgingly doing my chores; cooking, shopping and cutting the moss and weeds - sorry lawn over the last few days when really I wanted to MAKE BOOKS. In fact I have managed to start four! Here are the covers of two of them.

The little heart book has a three fold cover and I have started hand stitching on the dyed pelmet vilene. I only bought a few colours of the transfer dyes so I have worked on it with colour pencils before giving it a coat of acrylic wax to fix the colour. I hope to transform it with embroidery, I shall take my time. I shall fill it with rather girly heart motifs. The larger one I made in the same way but I have started to machine embroider this one and stitch on ribbon and lace. I have an idea of calling this my Book of Days and am toying with a few ideas. I promise to keep you informed. I have made another cover in the shape of a leaf, but I have put that one aside for later. 

This is the little book I have got furthest with.

I have finished the cover with embroidery and beads. The edge of the cover is pierced and shaped with a soldering iron which melts the vilene.

The theme of this book is the letter J (not too difficult to guess) and I have been making a list of things beginning  with J to go in it. Jokers, jellies, jumpers, jingles-the trick will be to make each page decorative.

Here is the first page - I am the big one!

The pages were lining paper soaked in Brusho water colour, I wrote the letter J on the right hand page with bleach. I shall probably add some stitches too. Got to go now, I am using up valuable stitching time. I'll try to drop in on your posts later.

Jill

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-