The book of The Sea

My book cover is belatedly taking shape. The front and back covers will be the same - background fabric sewn directly onto a thick pelmet vilene base, then a zigzag stitch to give emphasis to the different fabrics used; the letters are bondawebbed in place; after this the fish buttons are sewn in place; textured threads added and couched in position; last of all, an experiment - the sheer fabric has been cut using a soldering iron giving a rather nice almost hard edge to the shapes.

It was so funny. A short while ago, my husband came into my workroom and stated "you have a soldering iron?" "Oh yes," said I, "for fabric."

Hopefully, this will mean that it will not be "borrowed" for an urgent task in the house............ I have just managed to reinforce the idea that my scissors (kept in the workroom) are only to be used for fabric........ I have carefully not mentioned my paper-use only scissors...................... Scissors for everyday use are kept in the kitchen.

Do I sound as if I have had a problem? Oh yes. Past tense, you will notice. My first pair of dressmaking shears got used for cutting wallpaper............ Then another pair got used for cutting some fine wire................

My own scissors now bear labels - "Fabric scissors - misuse at your peril."

So sorry I have been so late in getting my book put together. I shall post photos of the completed book in a day or so.

Page from Cobi

Cobi I'd almost given up on on your page but I'm happy to report it arrived on the weekend.

Now onto completing my book.

Flowers are travelling.

I have just returned from posting off my first page. This was "Flowers" for Kath. The detail above is a piece I was free machine embroidering for the page. Fursther photos will follow as soon as I know the page has arrived safely.

Some of Elizabeth's work!

I have already introduced myself in a previous post but at that time I did not have a chance to share some of my owrk. The tree's above and the floowing group of pictures are projects that I ahve been working on to deliver to a local gallery , here in Virginia, for Chirstmas sales. Except for the green batik tree at the front, all of the fabreics atht I am using on my trees is of my own design. I print my fabrics using acrylic paints and each one is a unique monoprint.

I made these trees using a very tattered Swedish Linen dish towel from my grandmother's home. We never had paper towels nor a dishwasher, so these towels played a very important role in my grandmother's wonderful kitchen. I will be making more of these as gifts for family members. These trees are for my personal Christmas collection.

I made these heart ornaments using scrappy fabric that I made with fusible web and free motion embroidery. Then I added some quick hand embroidery and beads and sequins and backed them with a wonderful red vintage silk fabric.

Here is one of my Fabric/Paper bird ornaments. I fuse all sorts of vintae text and tissue papers to fabric and then cut and stitch ornaments form the collaged piece. I wired on a real twig and added some leaf beads and berries.

This small collage falls somewhere between an ornament and a very mini art Quilt.
The back ground is a baby wipe that was used to clean hands during a fabric painting workshop. I have a hard time throwing serrendipitous art backgrounds like this , away!!! I added a stamping with one of my hand carved stamps, a quote and then embellished with some monoprinted fabric scraps that had accumulated around my sewing machine. I finished it off with a few beads ( MUST have beads somewhere!!) and a hanging string. I backed this piece with more of my monoprinted fabric!


The following group of pictures are examples of some of the fabric book pages that I ahve amde in the past for various swaps. The criteria for many of these was that they be 6x6 squares, with various themes. Blogger has insited on posting some of these pictures on end so I do appologize for that!!

The theme for this piece was Nature and one of the color choices was green. I used some fo my sunprinted fabric and hand dyed trims for this piece.

This piece was for a gal who requested that we work all in white. I used various vintage white pieces and included a quote from an old dictionary that I stitched behind tulle and trapped some pearls and white beads in the pocket.

I finished the back with white damask linen and added a tag with some beads and mop buttons. This is how I generally finish my page backs.

This page was for an Ocean themed book. ( Sorry that it is on it's side) you can click on the pictures to enlarge to see details, if you want to.) I used some bleach stamping on batik , added some vintage lace for sea foam and used sand paper for the sandy waters edge. I also stiched on some sea shells from my collection and added more sparkly beads for water droplets!

The following two pieces are pages for a different swap. They include both fabric and paper and stampings with my hand carved stamps and OF COURSE, MORE MOP BUTTONS AND BEADS!!

By now I think that you can tell that I love buttons and beads!!!!