Exploding books

If you've been following along with my Textile Explorations posts you'll know that I have been making 10cm square samples of different techniques.  I ended up with 40+ squares.

You may have been wondering what I was going to do with them.  Or maybe you haven't but I'm going to tell you anyway.  I used 26 of them to make two exploding books!

First I cut squares of heavy duty Lutradur.  For the first book I melted the edges of the squares before painting them.  Then I folded them.

They fit together like this so that the whole thing can be closed up and explode!

I tried out the squares in different places

And finally settled on this combination

I painted the second set of lutradur squares with copper coloured acrylic paint.

As with the other set I cut 8 of the squares down to 9cm square and then cut them in half diagonally.

I assembled the whole thing with doublesided tape.

And what have I done with the remaining squares?

Well, that's for another day.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Not everything works well

As you know I love to make things and show you the pieces in progress and finished.  But sometimes things don't work out as I might wish.  That has happened to me this week but I thought I would show you anyway.

I made these large collages last year at Committed to Cloth.

They have lived on the spare bed since last October!  Last Saturday I was watching a video from Hilary Beattie in the Saturday Sketchbooks online course and she was making books with large collages she had made.  And I thought it might be a good idea to use the collages I had made.

Wrong!

Two reasons!  

1.  I made them on thin card rather than cartridge paper and it really didn't want to fold.

2.  I used a glue stick rather than gel medium and as I folded the card some of the collage papers came adrift.

To make the books you fold the paper into 4 in one direction and then into 4 in the other direction so that you have 16 rectangles.  Then you cut along proscribed lines.The red ones in this diagram.  Then you fold it concertina style starting from the bottom left rectangle.

I made the first one.  The edges weren't straight.  The folds damaged the collage papers.  I was disappointed.  I managed to salvage it by putting washi tape along all the edges.

I used doublesided tape to tape the pages together.

WIth the second one I cut the original collage down to a square.

Folding this one was even worse.  And I have given up on it.

I was rather reluctant to fold and cut up the third collage but the paper seemed to be stuck down better than the others had been.

I cut it and folded it and stuck the pages together.  What a mess!  It was all skewiff!  The pages don't line up.

And they're not all the same size!

However, I persevered.  I trimmed the pages top and bottom in attempt to tidy it all up.  I found a copy of a gel plate print that I had made some time ago and made it into the cover.

I think the photos probably flatter the last book a bit.  It's not bad but it's not excellent.  However I shall keep it so that when I am demonstrating this technique I can show people what happens when it doesn't quite work out.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Eclectica Exhibition

This Weekend is the British Quilt & Stitch Village show at Uttoxeter Racecourse.   It opened yesterday and closes at 4pm tomorrow.  So plenty of time for you to visit!

I spent yesterday stewarding the Eclectica group's work.  Sarah and her husband did a great job of putting up the exhibition and all the work is fabulous.  Sadly my photos don't do it justice.

And finally my two Venice pieces.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice