booking and beading

Just back from a four day trip to the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina to a friends house near Cashiers...we planned to make beads BUTTT someone decided we had to make books ....and would i show them how...now you have to realize there is NOT much in the way of book making supplies in Highlands and Cashiers or SO we thought...but we had a long list to find...the only fabric we had was a smallish pile that Ille had brought with her...and not a scrap of paper...no fuseables, no book thread...no binders clips to name a few items on our list...

..we set off with our shopping list...for Highlands...found the most wonderful Needlepoint store in Highlands run by a retired school teacher...all kinds of yummy hand dyed pearl cotons...did i say we had only ONE sewing machine...so that meant some of us would be hand sewing...

Two of the entrepid shoppers waiting for their lunch

we went to two frame shops ...first one we got lovely strathmore drawing tablets 80 lb to fill the books...

by the time we arrived at the needlepoint store we realized we had NOTHING for the boards of the books...but the helpful lady at the needlepoint store pointed us in the direction of another frame shop...where we found for free discarded centers of matt board...

BYTW these were all in the cutest set of little shops around the corner from the needlepoint store...all in the same buildings with lovely flowers and brick sidewalks...6 nice little shops...and chairs to rest in.....


then i was off to the knit store around the corner...Why Knot Knit..a famed Atlanta yarn shop with a branch in Highlands...darn .....they were closed...sad sad...The book store

but what a marvelous used book store next year...Shakespeares something or other...I left loaded with the coolest old Art book from 1937 the Arts by Van Loon, a copy of Julia Childe and Simone Becks The Art of French Cooking 2, a cool wildflower book with LARGE pictures...and two Beatrix potter books for only $3...what a deal....



the view from our lunch table...$12.95 for a brie and turkey wrap OUCH...we split it three ways!!!

A Hair salon (tangles??) around the corner from the needlepoint shop

A Lovely church in Highlands

In Highlands...they even decorate the ACE hardware...dont you love this picture?

Sues book ...tags were made from scraps of paper with the machine thread i brought to make beads

As Sue and I went on to search downtown Highlands for Peltex or Timtex...Ille headed back to Cashiers...only to call us and tell us there was a QUILT shop and Embroidery shop right near Highlands...NO one in town had ever heard of it..I Called...CANT believe my cellphone actually worked in Highlands...it NEVER works anywhere but on the interstate...called the Quilt shop and yes she did sell peltex ...two pages of post it directions...on top of Flat Mt Rd we found the shop......and fat quarters for $1....off we went with our bags loaded up to Cashiers and HOME!!!

Illes book...mine are the two on the right

Ille in the meantime completed our shopping list at the dollar store and Ingles Grocery in Cashiers...miracle of miracles...we had everything we needed now to make our books...so we made...hmmmm 8 of them...some hand sewn some machine sewn...none of them embellished YET....

Illes two on the left and sues on the right

well so i went crazy with this one...i sewed scraps of fabric on the spine....hand buttonhole stitched the edge...and then wrapped it with with scraps of my $1 fat quarters for the closing with a stick from the yard...it now sports a new stick....also tags on the spine..well at least for the moment...hmm no wait i want to sew some buttons on this baby on the spine...where is that box????

Sue's journals on the left and one of my old ones...she was sooo pleased with the middle one...i had her use four machine METALLIC threads all at the same time...

So then of course today we had to make beads to coordinate with our journals...out on the back deck since the weather had finally warmed up...did i say Yesterday was about 60...and we did not have a long sleeved shirt or socks among us!!!

Sues paper beads

Ille put the finish bead touches on these for me...I was getting tired by then...and ready to clean up ...so she put her elegant touch on these

This is the lizard pin i made the same way we made the beads...with UTEE and fibers and pearlex powders

with nothing in the way to color two tyvek used mail envelopes...i found a bottle of Decoart metallic paint and my watercolor paints...this is what happened! pretty neat huh?

The view from our beading spot

Ille dressed for work...our bead making morass


So on the way home today...we ran by the needlepoint shop...they wanted all the lovely hand dyed threads i had bought while they were busy shopping the razzle dazzle fancy threads....and had to have a pair of the gingher stork scissors...you should have heard the WHERE did you get those...and we had to show the nice shop keepers our books...the needlepoint lady and the matt board lady LOVED them....and OH MY the yarn shop was open...DANGER DANGER....50% off sale...needless to say my budget for July is blown and its only the second of the month...hmmm could tell dh i bought myself an anniversary present:> BRILLIANT..hes off the hook:>