Fabric Book Update

For those of you following my fabric book journey, I wanted you to see my progress. Now it was time to start working on the spreads.

I had decided on the pictures, but wasn’t sure about the size so I printed the pictures out on paper and laid them out on the spreads. You can see how I had several sizes of the pictures.

Once I had decided on the exact size, I printed them out on fabric. Here I am auditioning all of the fabric pictures and those iris embellishments I made earlier. Now I was ready to sew down the pictures and the irises. The chalk lines kept me from sewing outside the pages and in the spine.

I continued on and finished each spread adding at the end hand-sewn elements. Then it was time to sew the spreads together to make a 4-page signature. I spent a lot of time making sure I was sewing the right spreads to each other. Here I am checking the first one.

Next was to sew the spreads together. On my last post I said I was going to use a binding on the pages, but again I changed my mind and just stitched them with a straight stitch.

And here are the three signatures, a total of twelve pages.

Now it’s time to work on the cover. First I took pieces of jean fabric and put the signatures in it to get a finished size.

Once I determined how large I wanted the cover, I ironed on the stabilizer to the back of both pieces.

I sewed the back and front cover together just like I did the spreads with a straight stitch. Once completed I worked on the front of the book. I printed the date on fabric and colored the white fabric with an Intense pencil with water. These leaves are made from jean fabric stamped just like the others that were made out of fabric.

Now that the cover was done, all I had to do was add the signatures into the cover. So I lined up the middle signature with the middle of the book. When I did that I noticed I was a little off on my center line but it was okay. There was nothing I could do now unless I cut off that iris which I didn’t want to do.

My plan was to take it to the sewing machine and sew it down. Well, I did that but then I couldn’t get the other two sewn, so I went to plan B – sew it in by hand. If you’ve ever made books, it’s really an easy way to put together a book. I made a 5-hole template. Two at top, two at bottom and one in the middle. I decided I wanted the end of the binding string to hang outside the book so I started outside the book in the middle. I used sinew which I had around the studio for tie dyeing. You can use any strong thread. The thread comes from the outside of the book through the middle hole, down the top lower hole and then up the top hole. It continues going in and out of the other holes and ending outside the book.

So here is how the cover looks with the binding thread on the outside of the book.

So I’m almost done! My next post will show you the completed project, and my thoughts on the process.