“Book of Hours” is finished

I have used a single page binding for this book, with a strip of burlap, to continue the theme of the Middle Ages.

The front cover is made of black velour, and the light catches it, it’s not so mottled in reality.

The brooch I made in order to complement the theme.

The book is made up of antique and vintage lace, silk ribbon,

reproduction of antique manuscript, printed on canvas

Hand painting, machine embroidery,

vintage laces, tassels

Hand painting on stencil design, silk ribbons and antique button

Hand embroidery

Hand painted Illuminated page

Original vintage church Gregorian chant

Extract from the Morte d’Arthur

Embroidered lace

Silk ribbon, lace, embroidered cotton, vintage buttons

Extract from Morte d’Arthur

Back cover with silk embellishment and lace

Side view

Top view

It is available for sale on Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SocratesArtWorks

Layers of Memories

I took the new fantastic online class from Serena Barton, Layers of Memories and Collage. She uses a lot of alcohol inks, with which I love to work.

Here are my early efforts:

Thank you Serena, for your inspiration.

Fabric journal Round Robin

Here are my pages for the fabric journal Round Robin. The theme is Vintage lace. I picked “A young woman in Paris”.

My great-grand mother was a hat-maker in Paris around the turn of the century, and it seemed a fitting theme for this vintage lace.

Here is the front cover:

The inside front cover:

I made a tag to explain my theme, with a picture of my own great-grand-mother:

                 

We were to make the covers, and one set of pages, front and back. Our journals will travel around the US and to Australia, so we didn’t bind our pages to keep the weight to a minimum. These are my pages:

 

This is the inside of the back cover:

This is the back cover.

Can you tell that this is going to be a gorgeous Round Robin. All the artists involved are amazing. I cannot wait to see what they’ll do in my book.

And I so look forward to working in their books. Some of the other themes are: “A stitch in time”, “Vintage Gypsy”, “couples”, and more.

Bead embroidery

Here’s the latest. It was supposed to be a bracelet, but that was a bit too immense for my taste, so I stopped and turned it into… I’m not sure what it will be. Maybe a decoration for the flap of a hobo bag.

 

Another bracelet plus fabric book in progress

I have just completed another bracelet. This one took a while, you can just see why. It’s a stunner though.

  I mounted it on a brass cuff, I like it much better than with a hook and eye.

I also made a little pendant, very Renaissance. I’ve just been told I’m the epitomy of the Renaissance woman. So that seems fitting.

 

Speaking of Renaissance, I’m more involved with the Middle Ages at the moment, making a Book of Hours.

Here’s a preview. The book is not bound yet, I’m still working in it:

 

I’m going to do more embroidery. And who knows what else?

Thanks for visiting.

Fabric journal binding

I showed yesterday the individual pages of my fabric journal. These are all single signatures. I saw this cool binding on someone’s blog, –sorry, I forget where- and it worked really well for the soft pages. Isn’t that yummy.

I’ve also made a fabric page as a little wall hanger for my sister. I found the gorgeous flower ribbon while in Portland, shopping with my friends at the Button Emporium. Definitely worth the trip if you’re in town.

Many projects

 I took my first ever embroidery class, where we were learning to make little samplers such as the one above.


I made a little embroidered purse, based on the online beading class I took at Joggles, based on a pdf. Not the best way to learn...  I sent it to my sister for her birthday.


Following on the October beading class I took, I just finished a bracelet. It's based on a design by Sherry Serafini from her gorgeous book.

Here are some details. It took about 4 days.
Then I made a brooch. That was faster, being smaller. )



But one can’t be beading all day long.
I also made two pages (huh, couldn’t stop at 2, made 4…) in the Asia Round Robin I’m involved in. I played with my new sewing machine, embroidered the geisha’s hair. Endless fun!

This is the extra two pages, on the reverse side.
The gorgeous little girl is one of the Chinese unwanted girls who are sent to the orphanage, because they are girls. Wonder what will happen when all the remaining boys come of age, and there are no Chinese females around. Hummm…

Then I joined a tag swap, theme vintage dressform in Paris, I had so much fun with that one. There were 15 participants, and we traded tags, fabric and lace. Here is the front cover.
 

I decorated some of the pages without tags, because not all the participants had their tags ready by the due date.