Stitch*Bookery : book 5

I've been waiting for an opportunity to make another book inspired by the wonderful online Stitch*Bookery class with Mary Ann Moss. I just love the projects I've made so far but I gifted my first three of them away. I've been sharing this project in stages as part of my #100daysofstitch project. This is the whole story....I had an old wooden cotton reel that measures 4 1/2" inside the round which I think is a nice width to show off some pretty papers. I began by gathering some inky papers and old gelli prints

and cutting a strip of "ugly" fabric to 4" - I will stitch on the patterned side so you won't see that, and some of the papers can overlap a bit

Then I began with the initial stitching - have a colour-scheme in mind and I like the black thread so the stitching shows up

Thought I might like to add some fabric with the paper = more is more! ♥

Because I used fabric on the back, I was able to add hand stitching which made for more interesting texture

My friend had the great idea that I should include some of my own art printed small - I printed on a recycled book page

Strip progress - another print of my work with stars in the backgound, and drawing on the inside of business envelopes from 2013 (You just never know when you'll use things!)

Lovely to see how adding hand stitching and button embellishments change the page

I love adding words - browsed some magazines and these all seemed to work well together for the feeling of this piece

I decided to add some other embellishments in the form of various brads I've had in my stash for a while and I used blue staples for attaching a couple of feathers - hard and soft together

I love looking at each section and seeing the different machine stitching (fancy and plain stitches),

hand stitching, 

and the addition of other fun embellisments

Using the fabric was a good idea for a base to add hand stitching, but the back wasn't looking very attractive (I knew it would be covered later so was a bit lazy with how the stitching traveled on the back)

I glued down gorgeous paper serviettes and love how this looks - because they are so transparent when dry you see a hint of the fabric design and the stitching still shows

Decided to use lovely sari ribbon to close

and a button from my stash with a shank on it so I can wind the sari ribbon around to close the book

I had left the other end unfinished and used gel medium to glue the paper to the serviette side so it stays wrapped around the reel (I hope that makes sense!)

This handmade book was another lovely project from beginnings to end ♥ 

Here it is on the shelf with the other one that still lives at my house.

Go HERE to see all my posts about books made from this class.