Books again - exploring covers

Looking for something a bit different from the painted and printed papers I've mostly been using for covers, folded over padded card and stuck down.  I'm interested in stitching on fabric, here filling the space with lines of running, back, chain stitches and whipping or lacing them, then patching in couched cords or extra stem or herringbone lines to fill any gaps.  The stitching is done here on a sort of muslin plus wadding, and i've laced the pieces over the card.  Now why didn't I take a photo of the back!

 The text block is stitched over tapes - ribbons here, plus endpapers of folded card, which will be stuck to the boards.

This is paper again, but it is torn bits overlapped and machine stitched down to a piece of brown paper - recycling envelopes.  The painted bits are brown paper too.  The signatures lined up all have a painted folio on the outside.  No tapes for this one, so the painted folds will be visible under and between the stitched lines joining the signatures. 

Tidying up . . .

. . .  bits and pieces after my book making classes, I just had to use up some cover bits and pages that were left over. 

A slightly different treatment of the long stitches - wrapping the outer ones - and some bead dangles.

While painting a cover I like to paint an A4 sheet or two as well to use in the book, generally as the outer page of signatures.

A different stitching style, going over the spine edge to get into the next signature.  Buttonhole stitch over those stitches turned them into curly squiggles, to match the oil pastel squiggles on the cover (inadvertently!). 

Plain stitches in matching threads.  I was trying to copy a stitch design I'd seen somewhere, but just couldn't work out how to get smoothly into the next signature with this pattern so did a lot of fiddling about and improvising.

Printing with interference paints on black painted card, and a button sewn on the front to wind a cord round for a closure.

Another button plus cord.  I need a few more ideas for closures.

The background is some paper DD3 and i printed up to make something to wrap a present for DD2.  We made the big butterfly print blocks and the small butterflies and flower shapes came from a stick on set of bits in the children's craft sectin at Tesco.

Finishing off

Books that i had in various states of unfinishedness during the classes i've been running, have now been completed. One with pages half A5 folded, with painted paper stuck to card covers, longstitch binding over ribbons, and a large silver brad to wind a cord round for a closure.

Longstitch again, with the long stitches linked into each other to form a herringbone stitch effect.  As usual the cover is cereal packet with oil pastels, and in this case, a wash of coloured inks over.

While painting the cover, instead of washing leftover colour from the brush I painted it out onto a sheet of paper.  This was then torn up to form the outer folio of three of the signatures (the pages in this book are one third A4).  I like the look of the coloured pages here and there in the book.

Another painted paper stuck to card cover and stitching over tapes, in this case plain white cotton tape painted to go with the book.  The lesson to be learned with this one was not to leave the covers in the hot sun, even though they had been left to dry under weights, because they bent a bit.

What to do with cards . . .

 . . . like greetings or thank you cards that you don't want to throw away -----

stitch a signature in them and do something decorative with the ends of the threads. You may have to trim the cards down a little to fit the paper, or cut paper to fit.  I was able to use half A4 by cutting the cards a bit.

Buttonhole stitch along the spine stitches.  Blue and red threads to match the design.

The leftover threads were made into twisted cords and knotted, and the ends frayed into spiky tassels.

Flowers and butterflies . . .

. . . on the book some of whose pix got lost while uploading yesterday.  What a contrived link!  Sorry.  Here's the stitching on the spine, using a fine perlé thread.

And now the flowers, that have grown a bit since the last Spring pix.  I've arranged them in a sort of sequence of colour.  It is quite amazing how many gradations there are in colours.  I suppose really it just goes in a continuous shading, not in separatable steps!

I like the shadows on the wall

and the shape of these pointy tulips

contrasted with the blunt curves of these primroses

and the small round bell-shaped blobs of the grape hyacinths.

This horse chestnut has been growing for 4 years, I think.  It needs a proper home somewhere, out of its pot.

Holiday reading . . .

. . .on a cold day.  The next best thing to reading books is to make them!  These two were made by eldest daughter Claire and granddaughter Rebecca at one of a series of 'informal book making' classes I'm running at home at the moment, and were finished off on holiday in Cornwall last week (pix to come).

I'd made this one earlier, using Inktense pencils to colour the cover . . .

. . .and this one on holiday, printing the pattern in acrylic paint with a wine bottle cork, and putting a watercolour wash over.

Hannah made this one, a concertina fold with pamphlet stitched pages in the valley folds.

Then Claire made this one . . .

. . . and this one.

. . . and this one!

Hannah (left) and Rebecca (right) made these, using the cork.

And here's the class ones again, closeup of the stitching, to which Claire added some beads and a twisted place marker looped into one of the stitches at the top.

The covers are all made from corn flakes packet card.  Those that aren't printed with the cork have been coloured by drawing on the inside, the uncoloured side, using oil pastels, including metallic ones, then putting a watercolour wash over.  The coloured side of this cereal packet card I have found needs to be painted over with black acrylic paint to hide the colour, but the other side does take the other mediums pretty well.

Of the making of many books there is no end . . .

. . . and much study is a weariness of spirit.  That's what it says in Ecclesiastes 12: 12 in the Bible, and it means writing books, not constructing them.  Studying the construction of books is no weariness to me, completely the opposite in fact.  It lifts my spirits pretty high!  But there has been a making of many, as the following pix show!  My favourite bit is the stitching, but of course there is a lot to do before that, deciding on size, sorting pages and how to do the cover, cutting or tearing all that to suit.  I like to do my own colouring of materials, and for all these books have used cereal packet card, either painted directly or covered with painted paper.  I've sliced up A4 sheets of paper for the signatures, in half lengthwise for the first one.  The black acrylic paint covers the printed side of the card, and the flower is printed on with interference paint, which shows its colour nicely on the black.  The spine has slits, and each signature is stitched to the cover individually.

This one has painted card for the cover and is stitched like the first one, but with holes, not slits.  The beads were added separately using buttonhole stitch.  It is A5 size.

Another A5, typical longstitch, using perlé thread, with a painted paper glued over the card cover.

These 2 and the small orange one following, use the side strips of a large corn flakes packet.  waste not, want not.  I usually discard these, or cut them up to wrap threads round, but had the sudden idea to use them for covers.  I had to trim the paper to fit for the pages, so wasted a small amount there.  Until I realised the offcuts could be used to make templates for punching holes!

These covers are all coloured by scribbling on oil pastel, including metallic ones, then putting a watercolour wash over.

For a contrast, this pale cover is the backing board of a pad of handmade Indian paper, bought from Oxfam long ago.  It has a sort of purple middle, with paper backing, which split on the folds.  Which proved interesting as there are glimpses of the purple in the cracks!  Thick linen thread for stitching.

In the previous 3 pix I've experimented with the stitching, working out different patterns, using cross stitch and sort of herringbone.  Below is another basic longstitch, with added beads and a paper lined cover with linocut prints in acrylic with an ink wash over.

Here's another cover waiting for some pages, but not the painted signatures.  Those will go for an open spine book so the colours can be seen.

So that has kept me out of mischief.  I have in fact started a series of workshops in my home, with up to 6 people coming for two and a half hour sessions fortnightly.  I cal it 'informal book making' as a prpoer bookbinder would probably have a fit at the lack of precision.  But that's my style, and I am happy with the huge enjoyment I get from doing it, and sharing it with other people.

Bit more stitching . .

Rust seems to be all the rage these days so I thought I'd have a go. DH has been making items of garden furniture out of reclaimed wood and had a lot of rusty nails lying around. I wrappedsome up in a piece of calico and left it in a wet heap in the garden. Then promptly forgot about it. Eventually I had a look at it and this is the result.

These two pieces are indulging my delight in running stitch and fragments of fabric.

2 small needle books and 2 notebooks, using up some of my stash of free machine embroidery samples.

Ditto, 2 postcards . .

. . . and 2 more postcards. Straight stitching this time, on left, appliqué, on right disguising an 'ugly' fabric.

And a notebook cover. Very cheap notebook from Tesco. When I went to get some more, thinking, a good fundraiser here, there hadn't any!