Making Books

I have been having fun learning how to make books and tuning into Diana Trout's Longstitch online course.  Above you can see one of the books I made using some fabric paper which I made too and then below is a close up.  I made the fabric paper using calico cotton, diluted PVA then a napkin, more PVA and then a vintage dress pattern and a final layer of PVA.  It's addictive, that's for sure, this making fabric paper!!

I am also addicted to using gold metallic thread at the moment so I added some wonderful fabric autumn leaves and sewed over them in the gold thread.

Here is the gorgeous long stitch binding - I used hemp yarn which I waxed myself using beeswax

Here's the back side above.

And here is the woven long stitch bound book, again made with fabric paper, this time torn in strips and  woven together.  The other side is below.

I'm just loving this technique.  Fabric paper can be made with anything, napkins, old wrapping paper, sweetie papers etc.  I have some drying in the dining room at the moment which is made with old maps.  This is destined for a journal for my son-in-law who is a geography teacher!

Thoughtful Friday 174

"Art enables us to 

find ourselves and

lose ourselves

at the same time"

Thomas Merton

Thoughtful Friday 173

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; 

ask yourself what makes you come alive. 

And then go and do that. 

Because what the world needs

 is people who have come alive."



Howard Thurman

Thoughtful Friday 172

"In bleak and difficult times

you must always keep

something beautiful in your heart"

Pascal

Thoughtful Wednesday

"The great thing in this world is not so much 

where we stand, as in 

what direction we are moving."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thoughtful Friday 171

"I want to beg you, as much as I can, 

to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart 

and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms 

and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. 

Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you 

because you would not be able to live them. 

And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. 

Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, 

live along some distant day into the answer.


Resolve to be always beginning—to be a beginner!"

From Rainer Maria Rilke's   Letters on Love

Thoughtful Friday 170

"Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; 

the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul."

Democritus

Thoughful Friday 169

“To live content with small means.... To seek elegance rather than luxury, 

and refinement rather than fashion.... 

To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich....

 To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly....

 To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart.... 

To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, 

hurry never....

 In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, 

grow up through the common....
...........

this is to be my symphony.”



William Henry Channing

Art Fun

Saturday afternoon with daughter no.1 painting, and painting and making books!  

Index Card A Day June/July 2012

Tammy at Daisy Yellow is having another Index Card A Day challenge over the months of June and July and I loved this the last time so really wanted to be part again.  I am a little late in posting so here are lots altogether.  It's a great chance to try all sorts of different techniques and thoughts - usually done at the end of the day quite quickly and sometimes more than one at a time!

Encouraged by one of the prompts on Tammy's site  I went for green, trying all the different greens I had in pastels, pencils and crayons.  I also had a go at the Union Jack (another prompt on July 4th!).

Some inky blobs here and some oil pastel circles, a little 'create' in the genre of Traci Bautista

Lots of pastels here

 Pan pastels, washi tape and some doodling

Some acrylic credit card swiped backgrounds

Lots of fun - thank you Tammy.

Thoughtful Friday 168

"Nobody has ever measured,

not even poets,

how much a heart can hold."

Zella Fitzgerald

Little things

I've been looking longingly at Becky Shander's article in Somerset Life and wanting to try my hand at producing a little fabric book necklace and this weekend I had a go.

Wanting to display them on a different background meant I gained a visitor who thought I had got it just for him!

and I experimented with a few more lace colours and words like, Hope, Joy, Peace and Love.
These little books are made with lace folded over with some dryer sheets or muslin/gauzy fabric inside.  Little words hand stamped on other bits of material form the front with the addtion of some pearls, rhine stones and on one (and on Becky's original) a rusty safety pin holds it all together.  Then a piece of string sewn in at the top provides the chain - such a lovely idea.  One of these is going off to a friend tomorrow.

And all the time I had company with me of course!

I love Becky's work and hope you get a chance to pop over there and look too!

Thoughtful Friday 167

“We need, in love, to practice only this:

 letting each other go. 

For holding on comes easily;

 we do not need to learn it.” 

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Thoughtful Friday 166

"Overcome the notion that you must be regular.

It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary"

Uta Hagen

Thoughtful Sunday 165

"We shall not cease from exploration 

and the end of all our exploring will be 

to arrive where we started

-- and know the place for the first time."

T S Elliot

Desire to Inspire Inspiration Deck

You might remember that here I showed 52 cards I made for Jessica's Desire to Inspire swap.  It was another fun project allowing a creative flow of ideas to fall on a pack of playing cards, each with an inspirational thought.  And the swap required us to send in our 52 cards so that Jessica would swap them all around and send us 52 different ones back!  Thank you Jessica for all your hard work!! I think she had over 100 responses!! So here is a glimpse of the lovely set I received:

 I couldn't show them all individually but it is a great selection of inspirational art and words and I am really glad to have them.