the finished book

I was trying to be smart and schedule these posts a day apart but messed it up and who wants to wait anyway!!

Here's my finished book - standing about 7 inches high -



Over the next week or two I'll post some of the pages

....reading it through I've just realised how many times "lunch" appears...strange that...

putting my fabric book together - part 2

Somehow I had to bind all those pages - 52 weeks in a year equates to 26 pages plus a cover, say I make two buttonholes in each page - that's 54 buttonholes! No way!!

I opted for rivets which proved just as much a pain as buttonholes, some folded over smoothly, some just went Blat! the blat ones I hope will remain hidden.



I then needed some small separation between the pages so they didn't pack down tightly together. I had some nylon macrame cord and thought of tying a knot in it between pages





I got half way through - pull the cord, tie a knot, pull the cord through some more - tie another knot - and decided it looked tacky



so it was - undo knot, pull cord through, undo another knot....

then I spied these almost flat wooden beads, I fallen for the colour at a bead show.



I scrapped the stiff macrame cord in favour of some bright blue Russian braid, I was reaching the home straight til I found the holes in the beads were just a tad small to feed the braid through smoothly, so it became - snip the end to a point, feed through the bead and snip the now ragged end to a point again -



you can see what I mean about a whopping big book!



I'll take a photo of the finished book tomorrow.

putting my fabric book together - part 1

Last year I was inspired by an article in Quilting Arts magazine featuring Frances Holliday Alford. Creating one square a week, Frances made a journal art quilt for her 57th year. My next birthday was going to be a BIGGIE so I decided to celebrate it with a similar project.

I started what was to be my quilt on my birthday in March 2007, but after about two months of weekly squares, it was obvious that this was going to be one whopping big quilt...I didn't really want it to be a bed quilt and I'd long since run out of wall space.
So the plan changed to creating a fabric journal of the squares.
(now instead of a whopping big quilt, I have a whopping big book!)

Of course the year passed before I'd finished stitching, March turned into May before the pages were finished, then the problem was how to put them all together.

Because of the quilt idea, I'd started with squares which were to be joined together, with the change of plan I needed to place them back to back to form book pages.
The squares were made from hand painted cotton with quilting fibre backing.



I decided to attached them to fabric backing - which meant more hand stitching on top of the work I'd already done:



The fabric was folded wrong side out, so the two pages were facing each other inside, then stitched top and bottom to make a pocket:



The pocket was then turned right sides out:



I made a border to cover the raw edge


This was turned and the raw edge of the pocket placed inside and stitched



I still had no firm idea of how all this was going to be joined together...
to be continued...

Charm swap

Message in a Bottle

Imagine a deserted tropical island.

The clear blue water laps at your feet as
you watch silver crests of waves breaking.

The fish you caught is slowly cooking on the
golden sand and you quench your thirst with
coconut milk.

You write a help note on handmade paper and
seal it in a bottle decorated with silver wire and
beads that tone with the cool sea.

(Well after all, who would want to be
shipwrecked without their stash!)

You cast the bottle into the sea and hope
for rescue
.......or do you?



The last of the charm swap organised by the ATASDA textiles group.
This was Claire's necklace and as you can see she asked that we be inspired by the blues and greens of the sea - as it was the last I had to work on I thought I'd have some fun and imagine being marooned with my stash on a desert island (my husband would say I already am - my island being my sewing room - he makes sure I have a steady supply of coffee instead of coconut milk)



The charm swap has been a challenge and although I've enjoyed it, I'm really glad we've finished!

All of the work from the swap will be included in the ATASDA display at the Palm House Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, 14 - 26 August 2008.
There were several groups involved, not just the 8 people in my swap, so it will be a great display.

decor

I've been unwell, it seems to be winter lurgy time in Sydney, so haven't felt like doing much but cruise blogs.

Since the tiles fell off the kitchen wall (oh about a month ago now...) I've been thinking new kitchen/renovations... and have become totally hooked on decorating blogs.

I think it's just the natural sticky beak in me - I love looking at other people's houses, driving at night I peer into uncurtained windows, not wanting to catch anyone 'in flagrante' as it were, but just to look at their rooms, keeping in mind that apart from distracting the driver, you can be probably be arrested for things like that, I should just stick to the decor blogs.

One of my favourites is Desire to Inspire a joint effort between Jo in Australia and Kim in Canada (I hope I've got that right) They are very prolific posters and there is always something new to see, as well as their links list.

At the moment I'm torn between basic white (check out the white tag on their blog)




which is all very clean and fresh and nordic looking (not at all like my own cross between Victorian clutter and objet d'craft)

or colour


wild coloured upholstery from Squint

or white and colour



or maybe just all colour

Le Temps des Gitans a flickr find from eclectic gipsyland.

and the little girl in me wants this from Kidsfactory

decisions...decisions

#190/366 decisions...decisions, originally uploaded by gramarye.

a clear fresh winter day
the sun is shining
the sky is blue
do I sew or do I garden?
....or maybe just take photos...

.....

#187/366, originally uploaded by gramarye.

"...so tell me again, why did you want me to stand in the frypan ???"