Gathering Dust

Back to School Collaborative Journal Part II

I've got more pages from Back to School Journal project.

On the left is the back of  Michelle Geller's page, the page on the right was made by Jan LaFollette.

These were tucked into the pocket of Jan's page. 

Did you notice that this project is called a "journal" and not just a "book"?  The idea of a journal is that you would also use it to write in.  That's why many of the pages have blank tags, cards etc- places to write.

I just don't think I can bring myself to write on any of these pages, I'm just too afraid I'd screw them up!

The front of Michelle's page- love the colors and the Washi tape.

This is the back of my page and the front of Rachel McGough's page.  The class picture on Rachel's page is actually a pocket.

The back of Rachel's page just tickled me- it's one of her real schoolwork pages,  complete with her grade school picture.  I've met Rachel, and knew that was her right away- she's changed her hairstyle, but still looks like her school picture- I love that personal touch.

Mollie Morrison's page is a mini file folder- see the red label on the right side? 

Inside the file folder- a class picture.

The back of Mollie's page- this cool alphabet collection.  This isn't a photocopy- Mollie actually made all of those squares and glued them together. 

That gets about half way through the book.  I have pics of all of the pages, so I'll post more next week.

 

Back to School Collaborative Journal

Earlier this summer I showed you my pages for Michelle Geller's Back to School swap.  The finished book came in the mail last week, and it is just fun and fabulous, and all the little details are amazing.  I've looked through my book ten or twelve times, but I keep finding new things.

Michelle made the covers, assembled the books and added little surprises through out.

Like the packaging.  The books were wrapped in old fashioned tablet paper with the pale blue lines, ruled numbered tape and personalized flash cards.

The artist list was inside the front cover, library card style.

This is the first page, made by Jan Clem.  It's mechanical!  Pull the yellow ruler tab and the page opens TWICE!

Sheila Earhart's page- all about the Grand March, complete with medal.

The back of Sheila's page and the front of Cynthia Fawcett's page.

Another cute detail- the back of Cynthia's page uses a clear triangular ruler as a pocket- and folds out to reveal a tag underneath.

There were 14 swappers, so I've got a lot more idea filled pages I could share on my blog...let me know if you like to see more.

Her Life In Stitches Round Robin Update II

Just about a year ago, we started our Her Life in Stitches Round Robin.

If we had followed our original plan, we would all just be getting our completed books about now- but an editor from one of the Somerset publications saw a page on Karla's blog and was interested in publishing it.  Karla explained that the page was part of a larger project, and long story short, we ended up sending all the pages that had been made to date to Somerset back in April.

We each still had a few pages to make to complete everyone's book, and last week I got a beautiful package from Sandra with her final page for my book.

I love Sandra's work- she has a great eye for picking out beautiful textiles and then combining them to give every piece a rich layered look. 

The baby picture is printed on a satin finish fabric.

This is the back of the page- I think there are at least seven different kinds of fabric and lace- and isn't that blousy pocket darling?

Sandra also sent along a beautiful handmade lace notebook...

...with a little pocket inside with a playing card- don't you just love little surprise touches like that?

Sandra's package also had this beautiful stack of embroidered runners and doilies- I have a plan for them, I just need to find the time....but I'm sure you all know how elusive time can be!

Two of Lisa's pages, along with a full explanation of the cool techniques she used will be printed in the Sep issue of Somerset Apprentice.

If you'd like to see more of Sandra's work, click on the link above to see her work on Flickr, or check out her Etsy Shop Tattered Laces.

Is That Smoke Coming Out of My Sewing Machine?

...because I have been sewing up a storm...well, not a storm, but I did finish all fourteen of my pages for Michelle's Back to School swap. 

The theme is Vintage Back to School- I think I might have skipped vintage and went right back in time to antique. 

I embellished each page a little bit differently- for this one I sewed a card from the Authors game.

This one has a pen nib sewed on.

This one has a Perfect Attendance charm.

For the backs, I used paper from an old yellowed Big Chief tablet as a mat, and added a real school picture.  The school pictures came from an old yearbook that didn't have the pictures printed on the page, it had ACTUAL pictures glued on to each page.  It was from the 1930's and the whole school enrollment was only about 150- but still, can you imagine the time that would take?

(More than making fourteen Back to School pages)

Sarah Has A Baby- The Next Round Robin Page

My most recent page in Her Life in Stitches Round Robin is for Lisa's book. Lisa's book has a story to go with it- it's about a girl named Sarah who grows up on a farm.  My last page for the book was about Sarah getting married, then Karla made a page about the honeymoon and Sandra made a page with a baby. 

The cover of this old baby "biography" was pretty beat up, but the image was so sweet that I couldn't throw it away- so I covered the edges in scraps of lace.

I embroidered an "A" on this little linen medallion, added a tiny sprig of flowers and an old baby pin to finish it off. 

(The "A" is for Sarah's baby "Alec", who was conceived- by me- while watching Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock.  I'm still obsessed with 30 Rock.

Never mind that Sarah's baby would have been born in the 1910's and Alec Baldwin was born in 1958.)

The back is simple-I loved this old black and white picture of kids having a picnic.  I just added some lace and ribbon to finish the page.

My favorite part of the picture is the dog on the folding stool in the middle.

Here's another cute dog on a stool.  The "Other Karla" is on vacation on and we're watching her dog Dixie.  Dixie's favorite hobby is the same as my dogs- looking out the front window.

Her Life In Stitches Round Robin Update

When I was at Karla's on Tues, she asked me about our Life in Stitches round robin.  She didn't have a book, but wanted to get started making some pages.  We started looking at the original schedule I had made up, and both ended up confused. 

I think the confusion started in Dec, when the holidays got in the way for some of us in meeting our deadlines--- I'm not naming names, but you can just call me "Guilty".  If I was to make a recomendation for future Round Robins, I'd say take the month of Dec off. For most people, Dec already has plenty going on. 

When I was part of a book club, we skipped reading a book in Dec and went out for dinner and shopping instead.  It was nice because we still all got together, but none of the pressure of trying to read the book the day before.

The first picture of the post is the front of the page that Sandra  made for Lisa's book.  One of things that these books have in common is lace- they are dripping in all kinds of beautiful lace and little details.

Like this- little pearls sewn on the edge of the page.  They almost look like pearl buttons along the side of the page.

The back of the page is a piece of crazy quilt.  I think this ties in so nicely with the quilted page that Lisa made.

Thanks for all the suggestions about the last square in my free style sampler.  Lots of people suggested I sign and date it.  I liked that idea, but I might sell the sampler, and I didn't know if a potential buyer would want MY initials.  After all, I'm not RL (Ralph Lauren). 

But I liked the idea of letters and numbers so I just did a simple ABC and 123.

Here's the full sampler.

There's a bit of shadow on the left side, because I had a DOG laying on the bed next to it.

Isn't it funny how a dog will lay down in even a little bit of sunshine?

Yes, Mom, that is a dog on the quilt you made, but he doesn't sleep there very often- it was his second choice.  Button got the first choice- the bench by the window.

Round Robin Pages- Two Styles

So far, the pages I've made for the Her Life in Stitches round robin have been heavy on using fabric, cross stitch and embroidery. The pictures on top and bottom left are my book, the bottom middle is for Karla's book and the lower left is for Sandra's book.

I kept the same kind of theme by using fabric and stitching for Lisa's book.  Lisa had a story about her book- it was about a farm girl named Sarah.  I tried to keep up the story by adding a page about Sarah's wedding- I call it "The Farmer Takes a Wife".

Besides the wedding picture, I added a bit of a marriage license printed on fabric.

I knew I wanted to add a locket or charm, but I needed more than one "dangly".  I looked in a bowl of old rosary chains and couldn't believe it when I found an old charm that actually said "Marriage License". 

Lisa's book was the last one I worked in in our first "round" of pages.  The next page to make was in Sandra's book- the second page I'd make for it.

I decided to go  a completely different route.  This page is bits of vintage wallpaper sewn to chipboard.  The ladies are from Green Paper Packages Vintage Catalog collection.

Patchworking the wallpaper together took longer than I realized it would.  When I finished, I told my husband "you have no idea how much work it is to make something look so random."

It's kind of ironic that my first four pages were all sewn by hand- but on this page, which except for the bow and netting, is all paper- I used the sewing machine.

More Her Life in Stitches Round Robin Book

Last week I was talking to Lisa about our Round Robin book and Lisa said that other than the pages she had made for her book, she hadn't seen any of the other pages.  I just happened to have her book, so I told her I'd do a post on it.

When we first started the Round Robin, we weren't sure if we wanted to post pictures of our pages- we were afraid it might spoil the surprise of getting the actual books- but that really hasn't happened at all.  So far, the pages have had so many details and so much texture that pictures don't quite do them justice.

Lisa's book came to me from Sandra- wrapped in this beautiful vintage wallpaper.

The cover is the first picture in the post. The center of the cover is a resin block.

On this page, Lisa used some Tim Holtz inspired techniques with alcohol inks to get the aged color on the farm house.

The front side of the second page has a pocket holding a piece of ledger paper with the heading "TEXAS COTTON", a sweet old bundle of rick rack and a tattered and spotted baby shoe.  Lisa is the queen of making stained, worn and torn items tell a story.

This is the back of the second page.  Love, love this fabric.  I wanted to figure out how old it was- my guess is before 1920 and probably before 1900.  I googled "dating calico fabric" and got a lot of hits for sites like "Match.com"- I don't want to GO OUT with the calico fabric, I just want to know how old it is. 

 I was also directed to a site where you can get a Russian bride...

This is Karla's page for Lisa's book- a beautiful French net doll dress on perfectly faded wallpaper.

This is the trim at the bottom of Karla's page- I love the ombre look.

Sandra's page for Lisa's book is full of little details, too- a baby shoe with a button, an embellished heart and a beautiful cross stitch initial.

The back of Sandra's page for Lisa- so many different kinds of lace, a pocket with pretties and a wand topped with a frozen Charlotte.

If you'd like to craft with Lisa and Karla, you're in luck- they both have fun new tutorials for sale.

Lisa's Altered Ballet Slippers

 

and Karla's Cuff Bracelet tutorial

What's fun about both classes is you can personalize and customize your piece to fit in with any decor, outfit, or style.

This is a cuff I made while Karla was working on her tutorial- I embellished mine with  a French label I printed on fabric, and then added a little rhinestone leaf.

Her Life in Stitches- Karla's Page

This month my page in Her Life in Stitches round robin is for Karla's book. Karla's book is inspired by her mother, who was a great seamstress, upholsterer and quilt maker.

I started with a picture of Karla's mom printed on fabric..

Then  I added a fabric flower, some millenary flowers and a rhinestone button because I know Karla likes them- and embroidered a heart with Karla's mom's name "Marty Jo".

The bottom of the page is part of a sampler that came from a box lot of linens.  I thought the saying was perfect:

"Mother's love is like a fragrent rose with sweetness in every fold."

I added some bits of pink embroidery stitches to give the page just a little bit of color.

The back of the page is simpler- just some lace, stitching and a mannequin borrowed from The Graphics Fairy.  At first I thought it might be too simple, but the back of a book is never as elaborate as the front.

This is my third page, and I've loved doing all of them- partially because vintage sewing is one of my favorite subjects, but also because collaborating with such talented people ( Lisa, Karla and Sandra) makes me want to do my best.

BothersMe

Yesterday, I sent off my page for Sandra's book to Lisa for the round robin swap we're doing with Karla.

 
My page has a cross stitch (and other stuff) sampler.  When I look at the picture of it, I realize....I'm NOT a very good seamstress.  The sampler really isn't straight on the page- so I pinned a bow in the corner to try to distract from it.

My mother is an excellent seamtress and master quilt maker- everything she makes  has perfect seams and meets up exactly.  She says if she has a mistake it bothers her until she fixes it.  She has some early projects with tiny imperfections that she didn't fix and whenever she looks at them, all she sees is the mistake.  She calls them "bothermes".

So the rule she follows is "If it bothers me now, it will bother me later".  I also subscribe to this rule- but not nearly as much bothers me as bothers my Mom.

 
Thank goodness these little art quilts don't have to be perfect- if I make a mistake, I just cover it with a bow, a button, a stitch or a patch.

 
I was going to make the back really simple- just a doily with a bit of stitching, but once I started, I just kept going.

 
The printed sampler has a finger signing alphabet as well as three other fonts.

Not perfect, but it doesn't have any "bothersme".