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!