Second Signature.

 Using the same hand made paper with it's vegetation embedded I've added the embellishments and assembled the next signature.

 The partially successful gelatine prints are proving to be excellent for these pages, as I can just cut out the good bits to use.

 I have reprinted my hand carved stamps with silver which adds a bit of shine to the various wings.

 The beetles are hand carved stamps which are actually on fabric not paper, but I have Vliesofixed them successfully onto the paper anyway.

The back inside cover.  I have machine sewed the pages together with a long stitch which I can remove easily when I come to bind the book properly.

At Last!

 At last I have managed to get some good photos of our resident Orb Weaving spider. This is her daytime retreat, between the uprights of the wooden pergola. It's very clever the way that she folds her legs up into such a small space.

Although she is obviously hanging in her web, the use of a black cloth behind it has eliminated the web strands from the photo. I love the pattern on her back, rather like a Christmas tree!

The Next Few Pages.

 Once upon a time I did a lot of digitizing with my Bernina sewing computer and was left with a bag of trial runs and 'not quite right' samples. What an opportunity to use some of them in this book! The 4 stitched flowers are all free standing motifs that I've sewn to the book pages, which are a double page spread, hence the appliqued plant right in the middle.

                This is the back of the pages above which doesn't need to be a full page spread.

 This is another couple of back pages, a very busy commercial print that didn't need much at all to add to it. I had a couple of hand made silk butterflies in a good bright blue that fitted in quite well.

Inside the cover above, another couple of samples of my digitizing that weren't quite right. They are actually mayflies, but as close relations to dragonflies I though that I'd use them anyway. The large butterfly is also a digitized sample, one of 4, so I have another 3 to find spots for further into the book. Hand dyed fabric of course!

First Signature.

 This is the first day of working on the book and I was very happy to have finished the first signature.
Here is the combined back and front of the signature, but unfortunately I made a silly mistake, a change of mind that I didn't make allowances for. I decided to 'bag out' the double book pages and forgot to add extra for the seam allowances.  The proto type book has zigzag stitches joining the 2 edges, so each page is an A5 size, mine of course are smaller and as a consequence I have had to cut the paper pages smaller.

 When agreeing to make the book I took the decision to only use what is in my stash, both the dyed and commercial fabrics, but also the ready Vliesofixed (Bondaweb) motifs and anything else that was left over from previous projects, eg the lily flower and pad.

 This is the inside with pages on the left and right, hand dyed fabric with iron on motifs left over from other projects and some stamping along the bottom edge.

 I found that I had some beautiful hand made paper with embedded foliage in it, something that I had been hording for decades, so I decided that the time had come to use it. Unfortunately I had to trim the edges, but did tear them rather than cutting, to preserve the hand made look.

           The fabric page facing the paper page, which I have temporarily sewn together.

 The grasses on the right are a sun print on silk which is very delicate and allows the vegetation in the paper to show through. On the left is a gelatine print and fabric butterfly.

 The image on the left is fabric which I had adhered to the paper, on a page that had no obvious foliage in it, the image on the left is a gelatine print.

             More paper pages with gelatine prints, a home made stamp and a fabric butterfly.

                         Another silk sun print and more left overs ironed onto the hand dyed fabric.

The back of the signature with the commercial dragonfly fabric, screen printed nasturtiums and left over butterfly and beetle. More pages tomorrow I hope.

At the Start.

 You may have been wondering about my preoccupation with dragonfly images of late, well a group of us decided to make a cloth and paper book, and in preparation we all chose themes.  Mine was dragonflies. This above is my collection of commercial dragonfly printed fabrics.

 Part of the aim of the project was to use up some of our stash of not only commercial fabrics but hand dyed ones too, as well as anything else that fits in with the them and will embellish the pages of the book. Here are some of my hand dyed fabrics that I will use for the cloth book pages.

Here are the fabrics and paper prints of the dragonflies that I will start out with, adding other bits and pieces as I go along.

More of Mrs. Spider.

 Apparently these orb Weaver spiders can live for a year or thereabouts, so the fact that we have seen this particular spider spin her web every night for 10 nights or so is not unusual. Sometimes the time that she starts varies a lot, from when it gets dark at 9 pm, or much later.

 She gathers up the web every morning at about 6 am and takes the bundle into a gap in the pergola roof to consume, ready for the next night. I do wish that she would stay still for a photo!

This is the web from the same species of spider, but there is no sign of her. It looked so pretty with all the rain drops that I thought it worth taking a photo. This was a few days ago, and there has been so rain since unfortunately.

More Wings.

Just so that you don't think that I have abandoned my favourite butterflies in favour of dragonflies!
I came across a book and disc that I had had for years which had images of butterflies as either Photoshop 'shapes' or 'brushes'. As the disc is so old I wasn't sure that my current W7 version would play the disc, but it did and I was able to load the shapes and brushes. Then of course I had to have a play, all very random but again, lots of fun. All the usual start of the year things begin from this week, so my playtime will be limited unfortunately.

Dragonfly Mania?

While sorting through some old files I came across this embroidered picture of dragonflies that I worked a few years ago. The background is painted and machine stitched cotton, for the reeds I cut a rubber stamp, stamped on the background and then hand embroidered over the image. I positioned the dragonfly bodies in Photoshop, embroidered them and appliqued the wings,  adding red bead eyes to the closer ones. It was done too long ago to really remember all the steps however.