Hot off the Press!

As you can see, the Thyme page has had a revamp and I gave up on trying to get the right shade of pink/purple and settled for a soft deep green for the capital letter. The piece of dried plant material is from my garden, pressed between a pieces of card and acetate, and edged with plaited cord. I fixed it to the page with tiny paper fasteners. The light is pretty dim this morning so I hope these turn out alright - they are a little dark.

I drew the letters onto tinted card then used Sakura gel pens to add the colour. This was mounted on hand-dyed felt and edged with a gold braid before being applied directly to the page using a narrow automatic stitch. The gold machine thread didn't break too many times!!

I quite like the addition of the capital letters to these pages and will probably go back and add some to the others.

This letter has been cut from soft leather and hand stitched to fine tapestry canvas which I had painted with gold paint. I then couched a double line of gold all round the edges, placed the whole thing over a piece of very bright gold synthetic fabric then applied it directly to the page. I finished off with a strip of gold 'bead' edging. The gaudy gold under-fabric is knocked back but adds a subtle glint through the holes of the canvas.

The fennel image is from a rubber stamp - would that I could draw like that! I coloured it with the Sakura pens again and machine stitched with ordinary straight stitch directly to the page.


I quite thought I would be completing each page as I did them but am finding I have to keep going back to see if they look finished. Even now I may add tiny trims and embellishments to one or two though I don't want to overload the designs.

I am working out how to assemble the book as I go along and think that each page will have to be treated as a signature and attached to a strip of strong fabric individually before being attached to the spine. All this is quite far ahead and there is plenty more to do before I get to that point. The pages will have to be assembled in the right order and then joined to eachother back to back. I have a strong random-dyed thread in muted natural tones just right for the job but all that stitching is going to take ages. Never mind, while I am doing it I shall have plenty of opportunity to work out how to make the cover.