Pages

Sunday, November 11, 2012

More longstitch journals

I'll say it again.
I'm so happy I took Diana Trout's "Longstitch Two Ways" bookbinding class.

I'm at 4 journals (and counting) and each one gets easier and goes more quickly.  I'm having no trouble modifying the technique to dimensions other than the ones in Diana's templates, which is wonderful because I was able to use the odd sized strips of paper that were leftover from cutting the pages for my first journal.


This little orange one is only about 4 1/2" x 5"

These, and all of the other, covers are from paper cloth that I made. 
I experimented with adding beads to the spine stitches on this one:

This next one is my favorite so far.  The paper cloth is a collage of different translucent papers, and the large blue circles were first pasted and then stitched onto the cloth.

 I sewed a button to the bookcover and then filled it with air-drying clay.  I stamped the clay while it was still moist, and once dry, painted it blue and rubbed it with some gold "rub and buff"

Here's a shot of the spine:

This next one is still in progress.
I made the cover from a giant sheet of tissue paper that I had sprayed with liquid watercolors.  I then turned the whole piece of tissue into a single sheet of paper cloth. It makes for a nice background.
I'm working on a few ideas for cover design and embellishment.
I'll show it to you again when it's finished.
 
 You can find out more about the class here.
The combination of clear video instruction, written PDFs, and diagrams shown in a white board presentation cemented this process in my head.
It's not a terribly complicated stitch, I learned it quickly, and with a solid understanding of the basics I think I'll be able to experiment with variations.
I'm hooked!

16 comments:

  1. Your journals look amazing Karen!! I love how unique they all are. Such gorgeous colours and papers, even a fancy-shmancy button! I'm super impressed xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are so beautiful Karen! I absolutely love them! I have been making journals left and right since the swap, and got a few others doing it too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What gorgeous books you have made Karen, you should be so very proud my lovely. Lol, I was so tempted by the course but things are a little tight at the mo, tee hee, may still try to do it in the New Year, who knows!!
    HUge hugs x x x x

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think I may have to kidnap you, Karen, and lock you downstairs in my studio and make you hand over all the fabulous journals, booklets, papers, paintings etc that you make!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Here's my question - once you put beads on the spine, how do work with the book? Does it lie flat, or flatish? (The autocorrect really really wants that to read flatfish). I've been curious about adding beads, but worry that I wouldn't use the journal because it would be too awkward. Let me know your experience. They all three look FANTASTIC!! I want to spend a day making papers and papercloth with you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beautiful books. looking forward to seeing what you do with the green one!

    ReplyDelete
  7. These are so lovely! Love the color combinations you picked.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love love love! And I love even more that it's obvious you are having so much fun with this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. These are amazing and I'm so doing this after the first of the year. I had the goal of trying it this year and it just didn't happen. You've inspired me to do it for sure next year - maybe it will be my January project. These are each so different and pretty and oh-so-cool!

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are all just gorgeous. The blue one is my favorite too!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Time for an etsy shop my friend. Beady goodness and stitched love. xox

    ReplyDelete
  12. OMG - I hope you are going to sell those! Pretty (many) pennies would be paid for those!!!! I look forward to the YES reply :D....

    ReplyDelete
  13. These are just so beautiful. I'm thrilled at how inspired you are!

    ReplyDelete
  14. This class sounded great the first time you talked about it. And every time I see another of your journals, I am more interested in taking it!

    ReplyDelete