Completing the tunnel book

The pages were ready.  Now to work out how to make them into a book!

This set of pages were left over from the Folded Book.   I had bonded them together back to back.

I didn't like the tunnel picture on this page so decided to bond a cover to the book using the page as a stiffener.  I also added some more printed bondaweb to the side I liked.

I had cut the cover so that it could contain the pages when folded up.  Before I bonded the page to the cover I inserted a ribbon of the fabric so that it would hinge to the next page.  Below you can see the Bondaweb ironed to the inside of the back cover.

I bonded a thick piece of Lutradur to the inside of the cover and bonded another piece of 'ribbon' before adding another layer of the dyed silk noil.

I bonded some dyed cotton fabric to the back of one of the pages

I inserted another 'ribbon' piece using Bondaweb

I ironed Bondaweb onto the back of another page and then ironed it onto the prepared page and contained the hinge pieces at the same time.

The book closes with the pages folded inside.  Ideally I think it should have buttons and buttonholes but the buttons should have been sewn on before I bonded the page to the cover and I'm not terribly good at buttonholes.  A work-around will come to me at some point!

As you open the book the fourth page shows first

And then page two and three are revealed as you unfold the book.

I have made versions of this style of book before with the ribbon of fabric that holds it all together as one long piece right through.  However I didn't have enough of the fabric to do that so I improvised with small 'hinges'.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Experimenting or playing?

Whichever it is, it's what I was doing!

I put a very thin layer of black acrylic paint on the gel plate and smoothed a magazine page onto it.  It needs to be black and white with high contrast.  When I pulled the magazine page off the pattern from the page is left on the plate.  After leaving it to dry, I put a thin layer of white acrylic paint and put a piece of wet strength tissue on and left it to dry over lunch.  This is the print and will be useful in collage.

Then I did the same but put blue paint as the first layer rather than black.  I also took headlines from Towpath Talk which is a newspaper and put them onto the gel plate.  After burnishing I pulled off the newspaper and the print is on the gel plate.  Again I put a thin layer of white acrylic paint and a piece of paper on and left to dry.

I had used a piece of leftover watercolour paper over the plate when I was smoothing the paper onto the plate for the blue pattern before I added the headlines.  This gave me this blue frame.  I used gel medium to pull the print of the pattern left on the plate.

I added more headlines to the gel plate.

I used transparent paint to pull the print.

I also tried putting some bondaweb through my printer.  After a couple of abortive attempts I set the printer to envelope.  I had taped the piece of bondaweb still on its backing sheet to a piece of thin card.  You can see at the bottom where I have pulled off some of the bondaweb.

I'm hoping to be able to iron bits of the printed bondaweb onto some silk noil which already has marks on it.

I'm planning on making the silk noil into a fabric book.  These are some of the pages.

If you're interested in playing with the gel plate I can thoroughly recommend Yeates Makes on YouTube.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Textile Tags

Recently I attended a workshop called Textile Tags at Littleheath Barn Studio run by Liske & Claire.  We were encouraged to rummage through their scrap bag to find fabrics to print on.

I chose the pinks and oranges and after printing on them with stamps and thermofax xscreens I tore them up and collaged bits onto a piece of fabric-backed bondaweb.

I did another A4 sheet starting with the blues and neutrals but added some colour when it looked too neutral.

I used my machine both with straight stitch and preprogrammed stitches

Then I machined shapes on the collaged fabric and cut them out.

I didn't like the shape of the one on the right so machined it again as a triangle.

I've still got some of the collaged fabric left.  Not sure whether I will make more tags or do something else with it.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice