Sunday, April 20, 2008

Hand sewn Watercolor journals



Front of batik watercolor journal
The outside of the batik watercolor journal
Inside of batik watercolor journal
Kaffe Fassett Paisley journal
Outside of Kaffe Fassett watercolor journal
Inside of Kaffe Fassett watercolor journal


I made two today....i had already cut up an old strathmore wc tablet that i had lying around the house for years....I ripped the sheets instead of cutting them with a rotary cutter...and made signatures of two sheets each...


The covers are made of two coordinating fabrics fused to an interfacing called Timtex. After i fused the fabrics I stitched around them with either a zigzag or a buttonhole stitch using at least three threads...YES the threads broke from time to time but i like the raggedy look so I let the tails of the thread hang and even added more threads to make it look more raggedy.

It was soo easy to sew the signatures in following the Youtube directions..did it in hmm 10 minutes? using first some pretty turquoise thread on the green one and since it was trying to snap on the second one i used some braided beading thread...TOUGH stuff which worked great.

I didnt like the threads showing so i added beads to the oriental one on the spine...who wants beige threads showing? definitely NOT pretty!! I had the perfect box of yellow orange and well just yummy colors that coordinated with both of the journals to a t...an assortment of seed beads bugle beads and other odd beads from Chevron trading post and Beads in Asheville...

After i beaded i added some more threads on the corners backstitching and sometimes tying. I work on the principal if theres enough thread it doesnt matter if it sheds some...I also cut the threads different lengths to add to the raggedy look...

Then I did the closings and the ties...a Japanese fan on the oriental looking one and a button growing beads on the kaffe fassett paisley.

How did i make the twisted cord on the Paisley? Take a double length of yarns ...you can add more colors for variety and even threads...anyway hold one end of the yarns down and twist the other end ...KEEP TWISTING...when you think you have twisted twist it some more. holding both ends find the middle and fold the yarns in half. They will twirl on each other and stay that way...makes great cord!

10 comments:

Lora Martin said...

Love these journals, thanks for sharing them!

Did you get your Hunt Slonem book yet?

Alan said...

Nice job. Great, just what I need....another project. Seriously, nice job.

Julaine said...

Tres cool...

Anita Davies said...

Oh Margaret these are just beautiful!!!

Ann said...

These are gorgeous! You could begin a small business making journals. Very beautiful.

caseytoussaint said...

Wow - great stuff! I'd be afraid to work in them though....

Margaret McCarthy Hunt said...

Funny Casey:> and here i was just thinking of how easy it would be to reload them...They have a total of 16 long stitches holding the paper in so it would be easy to replace it for a different brand....

Think i may have to make a few with nice writing paper for the writing family members...just what a lady lawyer my niece could use to take impressive notes at her new job in DC dont you think!

Anonymous said...

An easy way of doing all that twisting is to tape the yarn to the handwheel on your sewing machine.

Nice journals!

picklesandroses.blogspot.com said...

Maggie, these are delightful. What a great way to work through a stash of scraps! Nice work!

Dana S. Whitney said...

These are really wonderful! When you scour the fabrick shops, are Fasset's fabricks in a particular place? That is, should I go to a quilt shop? A dress-making fabric shop? Are they cotton? I will have to make some of these journals!!