Fabric Sketchbooks with Dionne Swift

Last month I went to Janome HQ near Stockport to take part in a two day workshop by Dionne Swift called Fabric Sketchbooks.   I was hoping that I would learn how to use my sewing machine and get over my fear of it.  And I did.  Thank you Dionne.

As you know I love well organised workshops.  And was this well organised!  Dionne set up 5 sewing machines, 3 Embellishers and the iron and ironing board as different stations.  As she set up each machine she showed us what the task was at that station.  And then we had to move round every 10 minutes and do each exercise.   You don't really have time to be afraid of your machine when you've only got 10 minutes to do something in.

Dionne had given us a large piece of material to do these exercises on.  I'm not going to tell you what we were asked to do.  You will have to go on the course yourself!   Sign up quickly though because the places fill up fast.

By the end of day one my fabric looked like this

Day 2 brought more exercises both on the large fabric and some other pieces of fabric.

And then we cut it up!  Oh yes!  And you know how I love to cut things up and make books.

After cutting and folding it looked like this

I'll just show you a few of the pages.

Dionne talked about some other things to do which I didn't have time for and so took the sketchbook home to finish.

I'll show you what I did in my next post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Advent

My friend Mary Brack has set up an Advent art project called Advent Words 2017.

From Mary's blog: Advent Words will be a daily challenge during the Advent season which runs December 3-24 this year. Each day there will be a word prompt along with a passage or two of related Scripture. You can choose to connect this word to whatever form of creativity you like - art journaling, collage, memory keeping, planner art, photography, poetry, painting - the creative practices to choose from are endless! You choose how you would like to participate.

Join us as we think about the reason for the season.  Find all the details on Mary's blog.

I've been thinking about how I want to record this project.  Originally I thought I might combine it with my December Daily. Then I thought I might make a fabric book - still not sure about that.  I have several books I have made which I could use.  Or I could make a brand new one.

Decisions! Decisions!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

December Daily Preparation

Last year I prepared my December Daily book ahead of time and found that to be most useful.  Many of the pages didn't stay the same but it's so much easier each day to see things in the pockets rather than be faced with choices of page layout etc.

I've pretty much stayed with the same colour scheme as last year - black, white, grey and pale blue.  This year there is the odd splash of red.   I didn't order the main kit from Ali Edwards.  Instead I ordered the Mini Kit designed by Paislee Press, the 6x8 Text Album , the 4x6 Stamp Set by Jasmine Jones, the Black and White Journal Card Set, the Religious Journal Card Set, the Chipboard Numbers Set and the Multi-Sized Stars Craft Die.  I've also included some bits left over from last year.

Here are my pages ready to go.  The numbers aren't stuck down yet so I can put them somewhere on the double page layout.

I had a spare set of 8x3" acetate monthly dividers from my One Little Word kit.  The original set I ordered had a fault so I was sent another set.  I cut the months off the top and used them here.

December Daily ends on December 25th but I quite like to do right up to the end of the month.

The month is rushing past and there's only a week until I start filling this in.  Where has the year gone!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice