My new Etsy store is launched with one item!
Have you heard of Etsy and wondered what it means.
It means "and if" in Latin spelled ET SI.
Here is a TV news clip about Etsy.


Isn't technology wonderful? I didn't think so last night when for about 4 hours I thought I had lost all my blog posts! I had just put my first item in my new store and was in the process of adding a link and rearranging links. When I did something.

All better now! Isn't technology wonderful!

What am I doing this beautiful day?

Laundry, dishes, sorting mail...the never ending stuff!

Spending way too much time at the computor

Drinking iced Jasmin Tea

Doors and windows are opened for the coolish breeze

Listening to the birds and Finding Neverland Soundtrack - the best thing about this movie was the music!

I have made several new ACEOs, Art Cards Editions and Originalsthat I am listing for auction on Ebay. I love the format of tiny art quilts.

I find them a challenge and a pleasure. I have had the pleasure of trading cardswith some of my flickr friends but at the moment I need to make some sales.

I still plan to sell some books on Etsy as soon as I iron out the wrinkles in my new store. I also need to research the new postal rates.

Almost done with this one! Photographing it outside changed the colors somewhat; the previous view was scanned this morning before the sun came up. The sketchy black free motion quilting also gave it a different look! Sort of brought it to life! I also added some silk roving for highlights.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

Claude Monet

I love flowers! And when I paint them I tend toward botanical accuracy, a look I love. But at times I desire to break away more into abstraction or interpretation of the flower. That has taken place at times when I am painting with children using tempera paint, a "throwaway medium."

Then two years ago I painted purple petunias with a decidedly stylized look. It is one of my favorites, the flower and the painting! Now I am trying to interpret the painting with cloth and fiber using needle felting and sewing. I am using bits of cloth, yarn, and wisps of dyed unspun wool to paint the picture.

Book Binding Tutorial
for Journal with
Quilted And Felted Cover

Recently, I was asked if I have a pattern for my felted books. I decided to do a small simplified version, take pictures, and give some dimensions. I am going to show pictures and give some links to other sites because I don’t have time right now to draw and scan diagrams!

I am not going to use a lot of book binding terms because I don’t want to spend hours defining them! So I will try to keep it very simple.

It is always easier to try a new technique on a small scale and with easily accessible materials.

Make the quilted cover:

For the cover you need:

4 1/2 x 12 inch piece of polyester or wool felt (1 sheet cut in half length-wise)

Or 11.5 x 30.5 centimeters

small scraps of quilter's cotton fabric
yarn wool roving or dyed locks of wool (for use with needle felting tool)

Here are pictures of my example: pieced, felted, and quilted. See previous post for tutorial on how I use needle felting on a quilt.

When I was pleased with the look of my cover I trimmed it down to 4 inches wide, rounded the corners slightly, and finished the edges with zigzag stitch.

(If you don't want to do the needle felting this could be made without felting as a small slender quilt using batting with cotton fabric on top and bottom and lots of machine stitching to hold the layers together.)

Paper for pages:

I used 6 sheets Canson Mi-Teintes colored drawing paper from a 9x12 inch pad.

You could buy one large sheet and cut it or use what you have, even nice copier paper
(8 ½ x 11 inches) parchment or other paper with pleasant weight and color.

Cut paper 3 ½ x 8 inches long or 9 x 21.5 centimeters.

To make your book pages cut the paper to size, fold in half and burnish the fold for each page individually then nest sheets together to form a signature. Use 6 - 12 sheets nested together, depending upon the heaviness of the paper. With the Canson paper I used 6 pieces of paper (folios) per signatures (groups of pages that are nested together).

Make a pattern for the holes in the pages. Cut an extra page of cheap paper the size of your pages. Make a mark in the fold, at ½ inch, 1 ¾ inch, and 3 inches. That will put stitches ½ inch from the top and bottom and in the center. I used an awl to punch the sewing holes in each page. For years I used a sharp nail. The hole should be about the size of the thread and needle.

Sewing the pages into the cover

I used waxed linen thread and a sharp needle with a large eye appropriate for the thread. You could also use six strand cotton or linen embroidery thread or pearl cotton.

The pamphlet stitch is good for sewing each signature into the cover and is very easy and elegant! You can begin the stitch inside the book, like I did here, or outside on the spine for a different look. If you choose to make a really large book someday, you may need to reinforce the spine area and use a different stitch.

I made an effort to sew the signatures in straight. Sewing all the way through the cover, with the spine of the pages at a right angle to the cover’s edges. I put about 1/8 inches between signatures when I sewed them into the cover. If you expect to glue a lot of elements into your book you can leave more space at this time.

Odds and Ends

I crocheted a chain with two coordinating yarns for the wrap around tie.

I deckled the fore edge of the pages.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments. I may amend this as I see the need or leave comments.