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.

Stitch*Bookery : book 4

Recently I decided it was about time to make myself a book from the Stitch*Bookery online class by Mary Ann Moss. The first 3 were all gifted. One of my favourite colours is purple, so I started making a concertina book on canvas featuring purple complemented by yellow and green. You might remember these progress shots from previous posts : 

I was stuck at this point (below) before I realised that the end pages form the cover...

and I was able to finish it today ♥ It's my fourth book made from this class, so I was thrilled to find these words for my cover : 

Click on any photo to see it larger

I just LOVE how it turned out. I also like the canvas back with the exposed stitching.

These are a couple of my favourite spreads from the back

Registration is currently open for this class until 1st November! - better get in now if you've been thinking about it. 

Check out all my posts about this class HERE. 

Stitch*Bookery : book 3

Lots of girlfriends having birthdays in August so here's another book from the online class I'm doing with Mary Ann Moss - delivered today. It's an accordian book (from Week 2 lessons) stitched on manila luggage tags. This time I didn't check up on favourite colours, I chose them based on what I see her wear and that she gifted me this gorgeous heart as part of my birthday present

It might have been all about me, but I'm working on the theory that you give girlfriends gifts you'd love to receive yourself! So I gathered again - this is probably what takes the longest amount of time. I've got backgrounds in my neutrals and 2 colours of turquoise and red, plus some focals/words I want to use. 

Then I just start stitching onto the tags - layering as I go - not planned ahead....so much fun to see what comes 

Although I began thinking all the stitching would be in red 

I decided to do some stitching with a variegated turquoise/purple thread as well

I used some of my favourite techniques again : paper serviettes

and found words of course ♥

It's fun to have lots of variety in the pages - different types of paper and trying out my machine's decorative stitches as well. I love my sewing machine. I've been using my "new" (2 years old) fancy one since there is no glue or paint associated with these tags.

I used a manila tag as a pattern to cut the shape out of a lovely recycled birthday card before I stitched on it 

The tag below was in my stash from an experiment for a journal page in 2015 - I just added a little stitch detail

I stitched paper to 12 tags on one side only and decided that was enough to join them up. I stitched 2 together back to back to make the front cover more solid. When I sorted the rest it was obvious that some belonged together

and the others soon fell into place (click on any photo to see it larger)

I love the look of all the different fibres/sari ribbons that I added to the tops of the tags

I haven't covered the stitching on the back and I rather like the look of it 

My friend is a poet so I thought she has 3 choices : leave the back as it is, stick down some of her own lovely paper and imagery, or write poetry in the gaps

Gifted this morning and had to smile - I was wearing turquoise and she was wearing red! I'm away from tomorrow for a crafty weekend at the beach and taking my sewing machine and paper with me. Happy Creative Weekend to you ♥
PS. The current class of Stitch*Bookery is closed, but Ms Moss will be running another session with registrations from late October. See all my posts about this class HERE.