A January Finish

 Since my post earlier this month about finishes this year. I now have something that I now consider finished.  My Sew 4 the Soul Book, which was started in June last year as a project inspired by Anne Brookes of Hannemade, who is a textile artist and teacher.  This year’s project is 52 tags, but I have decided to sit this one out as I have other things to work on, but I still enjoy her demonstrations on You Tube. The fabrics used in the book were sewn onto wadding pages which used up my scrappy pieces.  I used various pieces of African fabrics, hand dyed and hand painted fabrics all of which were in my stash, as well as button, beads, and ribbons, so no new items were bought for this

Here it is.

This is the cover, which is made from two pieces of African print fabric, some of which also features inside the book. Some sari ribbon on the top and bottom edges and alphabet beads to spell out Sew the soul, with number 4 being embroidered in. 

And the back.

The first 2 pages 

Circles and squares with straight lines.I used a printed fern to do reverse appliqué and added some straight stitches in a grid pattern, a square piece with straight stitch stars.  The next page had square of yellow and blue fabrics and I whip stitched the running stitch surrounding blue square. The circle cut out from the first page was appliquéd along with a Suffolk Puff.

Pages 3 and 4 were crosses and kisses. Page 3 I used a hand printed fabric and added cross stitches to the background and French knots to the flower centres. I coloured the petals with watercolour pencils.  The fourth page has a pocket made from hand printed fabric with ribbon yarn for the cross and lace with crosses in the flower centres. The background fabric also had crosses stitched. I made a linen tag to go in the pocket.

Pages 5 and 6 was strips and Suffolk Puffs. I used strips of silk fabric and some organza and stitched down with various embroidery stitches.  I finished making Facemasks about this time, so I used some of the sheeting fabric that was used and the label from one of the pillowcases as a reminder.  Page 6 had French knots and Suffolk Puffs. In between the pages is a Kumihimo braid to use as a book mark, which I made at a West Country Embroiderers meeting just before the first lockdown.

The next 2 pages are fabric weaving and I used strips of different hand dyed or painted fabrics and added lace, sari ribbon, stitching and buttons to embellish.

Pages 9 and 10 This was a single piece of hand dyed fabric that I had printed quite a while ago and fitted these pages nicely.  Onto this was a cream silk strip that I embroidered onto.  The top right of page 10 had a circle cut out and with wire stitched in place was buttonhole stitched, which leads onto

Pages 11 and 12 and circles (sort of). There’s also a Chinese coin, washers, buttons, another fern print and I found a felt elephant so I put that in too.  The purple circle in the top left of page 11 is the cut out from the previous page. The blue washer on the top right of page 12 could be seen from the cut out circle on page 10. There were also seed stitches and Kantha stitch too.

Pages 13 and 14 were pockets. The background was stitched down with running stitch and has pockets, one was of the same fabric with the addition of ribbon, lace, flower trim sequins; the other with felt and lace.  The is a little book in the fabric pocket - more of that later and a heart, which was a cut out piece of free machine quilting, to which I added more hand stitching.

The last pages 15 and 16 was an ‘index’ of the fabrics used with the additions of ribbon yarn, lace and buttons.  I found a little leaf charm and that got put in too.  But there was something missing I thought and that was a bit of patchwork. I had odd bits of Grunge fabric from making my circular needles holder so that went in.  I stamped the fabric with a flower stamp and gold ink pad.

So that’s the book and now for the little book that was in the pocket of page 13. This is a mini version of the book

Top left is the cover from hand dyed felt (that was used for the pocket on page 14) edged in blanket stitch and used sari ribbon as a with African beads as a tie.  Page 1 (top right) had squares and a strip and edged with lace, page 2 has squares of fabric with buttons and feather stitch. Page 3 (bottom left) has a button with Pistil stitch to look like flower petals and page 4 has couches threads on a sparkly net.  Page 5 (bottom right) has a teeny tiny pocket with a felt tag with alphabet buttons and the last page with lace and the added touch of a dragonfly button.

This project was a joy to make over the latter half of last year.  A chance to dig in to the more unusual fabrics threads and other materials in my stash and just stitch away.  The book is lovely and squishy and very tactile. It’s a good reminder of the strange times of 2020. I can’t resist these photos of the ends of the pages so here they are.