Another fabric book

I finally completed another fabric book. This one was of our trip to Cumberland Falls June 2024 with our friends Steve and Sharon. I had such a hard time deciding on how I was going to make it, and continued to change my mind throughout the process.

I started working on this book last year. What took me the longest to complete was deciding which pictures to include. Then I printed them on paper. I’ve found that I always decide on way too many pictures making it necessary for me to leave some of them out. Then it’s on to deciding what fabric to use for the page spreads. The last book I made for them was on old cut up jeans. I loved that but didn’t want to repeat it. I found some canvas in my stash and got out the intense pencils and proceeded to paint the fabric green.

Then I ended up with my painted spreads.

However, when I finally got back into working on this project I realized I didn’t have enough spreads, so I had to paint more! Each of these fabric spreads contain two pages. The back side is not painted because it won’t be seen. What is good with this technique is that you can work on those two pages and once you are finished you sew them together with none of your sewing showing. The negative is you really have to pay attention to which page goes where.

Once I got the sheets painted, it was time to pick the fabric for each page and play with laying out the pictures. Below I am auditioning fabric and pictures. The photos are still on paper.

If you look closely you can see a red line an inch in from both pages. That was to keep me from sewing into that area which will hold the binding. Once the fabric is sewn on the pages, and the photos are printed on fabric and sewn down, it’s time to make sure the pages are still pretty much the same size. I stacked up the pages to check on that.

Below is one of the fabric spreads and two pages before they are sewn together.

Below I’ve folded the fabric spreads and sewed each one closed on the red line I had made at the beginning of this project.

Now I had to make another decision. I was concerned about the fraying so I chose to sew around the whole page. I originally wanted to use fabric tabs for the bindings, but I was concerned that it might be a bit unstable. The rings work fine. Here are the pages.

Here is the cover again.

I love making these, although it takes me so long. And just like a scrapbook, it’s fun to revisit those memories. I always say I’m going to make a book for us, but that’s not going to happen!!

I recently finished this book that brought me to tears. It’s a book of hope, second chances, and forgiveness. It made me see forgiveness in a new light. I highly recommend this wonderful work of fiction if you’re looking for a feel good book which might challenge you. Now to find other books she’s written.

Lastly, I’ve been wanting to make little art to abandon in local places to hopefully bring joy to those who find them. I left two of these at our local library, and the two hearts at Starbucks. This is part of the Art Abandonment project on Facebook. If you want to join us, we’d love to have you.

That’s all for now. I did a little dyeing today, so I’ll be showing you that soon. Hope you have a joyful and creative week.