Tuesday 29 December 2009

Autumn felted and embroidered journal cover...

So as promised, here are some photos of the 'Autumn' themed journal cover.


Here is all the fibre laid out, pre-felting.  You can't see how deep it is from this angle - it's about 4cm!
There's a whole mixture of fibres, including many from a wonderful mixed pack from a recent discovery: Stone Creek Silk. All in all there's merino roving, silk throwsters waste, silk tops, silk noil, flax fibre, bamboo fibre, soy silk, angelina and wool locks.



After the felting I added some couched threads on the front cover side, and some embroidery on the back cover side.


On the back cover I used cast-on stitch to represent falling leaves (in lovely space-dyed threads from Stef Francis)



And on the front cover I couched on silk boucle thread in a classic Japanese 'gust of wind' design.  I also added a wonderful handmade burr wood button (courtesy of  Julie and her husband of Roseland Bags), and again I made two different kumihimo braids as pagemarker and for closure.



I lined the very inside with plain green cotton, and for the cover holders I used another piece of antique kimono fabric from Kyoto.



Here's the front laid out:



...and a detail of the button closure:



All in all I was pleased with how these two journal covers turned out - although they're quite substantial, and not really delicate, I love the colours, and they feel wonderful to hold.

4 comments:

Chris Gray said...

..they're both beautiful!.....and it looks like you've had fun making them....

Wishing you buckets of creativity for both your textile and musical lives.....

Have a good 2010..

x Chris

Karin said...

Oh, autumn is gorgeous, too. I love the stitching on it.

Playing by the book said...

Wow Kate - if ever you wanted to make me one as a birthday present I'd be very happy to recieve one ;-)
This is *gorgeous*

Kate said...

Thank you, everyone - and a happy New Year to you all!