Sigh no more

This post is dedicated to the memory of Carol.

And while you read it and look perhaps you might like to tune into this gorgeous song Sigh No More with the beautiful lyrics by Shakespeare. I can't get it out of my brain at the moment, it appears to me in dreams and in every waking moment ever since I heard it on Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. 

There is no right or wrong way to grieve, everyone does it in their own fashion. For me, I like to pour it into an artwork. I find the process of making something truly therapeutic, it gives me time to reflect and something to give away at the end. A kind of symbolic letting go.

This is a fabric book I made for Carol's partner to use as he wishes, and in some small way, help him process his grief. It's a bit girly, well, VERY girly. But hey ho, so was Carol, so let's acknowledge that beautiful feminine person with something equally feminine.

Recuerdos - mixed media, vintage fabrics, eco dyed mull, found objects.

The brown fabric is mull, eco dyed with NZ harakeke seed pods. Embellishments are vintage beads, buttons and lace. The pages have been left plain, ready to fill up with memories, photos and stories. Binding is simple long stitch.

Dyeing to Print III - paper technique

About 2 months ago, I put down a couple of jars of solar dyes. One with flax seeds and one with morning glory. I left them for a month in the weak autumn sun. When I took off the lids, phew, did these babies stink!! Putrid rotten leaves, dumped by the neighbours fenceline, and jars quickly stuffed in the dishwasher. The results were quite subtle, but give a good aged feel to the fabric. And once they are rinsed in rain water and dried, thankfully the smell dissipates.

Here are the results. Morning glory produced a pale pink, salmony colour. The flax, a sort of tea shade, more of an English Breakfast than Lady Grey.

This sample is from a fabric book I have been making with the Eco dyed and Eco printed calico and mull. To make the pages for this book I followed the technique documented by Cassandra Tondro
My dyeing equipment doesn't yet include a very large pan, so to get all my pages in the pot I had to cut them first after spraying with alum spray.

Each page is stuffed with autumn leaves, made into a bundle tied up with string.

This is placed in a pot, on a rack above water, and weighted down with an old iron trivet that weighs a ton. This bundle was steamed for 2 hours, then left to cool.

Once cooled, I couldn't wait to unpack it.

Each page has a unique print of leaf, some darker and more distinct than others. In particular, eucalyptus and loquat work really well.

The pages were laid flat - on the kitchen floor - to dry, while I batted the cat, who loves shredding paper, away from my work.

The next day, when fully dry, I ironed them using a dry iron, and folded them into the book pages ready to bind into the cover. I will blog the finished product next time.........

New Fabric Books

as inspired by Ailie Snow. I'm getting the hang of the technique now and I've discovered that if you take a bit of fabric and your sewing kit on holiday you can work on these while away from home, particularly if it's raining which it did 5 days out of 7 on my summer break this year.  Not that I'm complaining because I can't do anything about the weather, and it enforced rest on me. Plenty of good novels and cups of rosy-lee. Could be worse huh?

First Fabric Covered Journal

This is my first post of 2012, and it's about something I did 2 months ago which just goes to show that I'm slacking already in trying to keep up to date with my blogging. Note to self re New Years Resolutions, forget it! Anyhow, this is my first fabric covered journal made in a workshop with the amazing book artist Aillie Snow. Layers of organza and fabrics, ribbons, stitches, beads and old crocheted doilies. The workshop went over a whole weekend, including barbeque in between, with a neat group of likeminded women, lots of laughs and creative energy, which for me is an essential part of the creative journey.

You old bag

Here's an idea given to me by Gill Carlsson, constructing a book out of old paper bags. On the day I made this I could only find 4 paper bags, so I filled the pages with greeting cards, tissue paper all the way from Las Vegas, transparencies and a multitude of other found papers. There's even a leaf skeleton in there to discover amongst the pages. A bit of a challenge to line the papers up for stitching, one night at the kitchen table with a glass of wine, but it came together and took on a life of it's own. I called it 'Old Bag', mean't to be a term of endearment.

Old Bag: paper bags, assorted found papers, dried leaf, transparency. Coptic bound. Unique.

Busy making books...

I am really enjoying creating books lately, using lots of ideas (some plagarised) and trying out different techniques. I will take some time over the next few days to show some of my latest creations. Some are for sale, and will be at the Kowhai Festival in Warkworth, at the Masonic hall. 

Charm it crazy: handmade paste paper, caterpillar stitch, coptic bound. Unique.

This notebook is dedicated to Sam Hunt, my fave poet of all time. This is one of his quotes. I attempted the caterpillar stitch for the first time and am happy with the outcome. I think I might keep this book for myself, so many of my books get given away which is OK but I'm kinda attached to this one.