a BIG difference

When I think of this last weekend
and the one before that
. . . . .
there couldn't be a greater difference :
in temperature
and the activities outside !
One was   WINTER  
the next was   SPRING  

You can hardly imagine a  BIGGER  difference in one week  !!!


For the Stitch Club this week had a workshop by Jude Kingshott
and she designed for us to make a small book
out of cotton organdie
(which is rather transparent)
with coloured shapes and neat stitching in it.

Well, that organdie was a problem for many of us :

it is not a material that is normally in your stash,
but of course you could use any other materials

that you did have at home.

I was thinking and planning

when I had a conversation with another Stitch-member

and then I suddenly remembered the dark purple table runner

that I bought years ago just for the strange fabric : cotton organdie !
Together with some greenish stretchy fabric
and my home dyed silk thread I could make a start.

My first page

Some other pages of the final booklet

It was very special to work on such thin material
where you can see trough one page to the next.

20 !!!!!

20

What a respectable old lady !

At the age of twenty ?

Old ?

YES

when you're a Burmese cat

you are !

(but our dear Bella is still going strong !)

*

These past few weeks I was busy with the concertina booklets

of Mandy Pattullo's workshop.

But my first fabric book was for daughter

so I only showed the second one in the tin box.

Today, while celebrating the summer holidays with a BBQ

I could give her the finished book,

her own Fire-keeper story.

 When still working on the covers and inside stitching with

MAGIC thread ...

Some close-ups :

Fire  !

Inside the hut 

at the end a new start !

*

The garden is as full as it ever was :

no sigh of the empty spaces after all the work at the terrace

and hardly any fence left to see

And inside, in the bathroom upstairs at the north facing window,

one of the orchids is very happy

and started flowering again

We're happy too

in our green oasis !

finished Challenge !

I think after almost eight weeks

after Sara started her Challenge for us,

I've finished the booklet.

"Along the Lines"

In fact it has become quite thick :

7 x 7 x 10 cm

That is because I made a lot of pages.

With the first instructions Sara gave us,

she suggested to think of a number of items

you could make for your chosen theme.

(so, I started thinking and made

about ten little sketches for possible pages

for my "lines" theme)

I ended up with 10 pages. 

In fact there are 11 but I sewed two together.

On top of the considerable number of pages, 

I backed every page with fabric,

so I didn't have be careful with the embroidery stitches.

On the backing fabric is machine-written what "line" it's about

The next step was to make buttonhole stitches on the spine-side

of all the pages.

Then, 

stitching every page to an extra piece of felt, and after that

attaching this piece to the cover spine

.....

front and back cover sewn to it, and :

FINITO !

Dear Sara,

it was a wonderful challenge that you initiated 

THANK YOU  for that.

It was a joy to work on it 

and encounter a lot of nice people

who participated in it 

continuing challenge ... and

The fun "Challenge" 

Sara started several weeks ago

is nearing it's end.

All the instructions for the possible pages are done 

and so is the one for the cover.

That leaves only the binding of the pages.

You might recall, my theme for the challenge booklet is

"lines" 

This is the last page I made,

though in fact it will be the first or the second one of the booklet.

On the fabric that I've sewn to the back

is written :

"a line
is a dot

that went for a walk"

(that would have been said by Paul Klee)

In one of the instructions Sara suggested to integrate some thin wire.

I had this shiny green wire in my stash

and made the leaves with nail polish.

(another suggestion)

For the cover, I made three parts.

I worked a bit more on them

and I think they're okay now

Back, spine and front.

I made the spine probably too wide,

but I didn't know how thick the stack of pages would be 

.....

This Sunday we'll probably get the last instruction for binding the pages,

though some have allready finished ther booklet.

Anyway, it was a fun thing to participade !

!
Almost forgot : I won a give away !!!

At Jackie's blog Stitchworks

I LOVE the work she makes and she greatly inspires me !
(well, I say "I never ever win"  and I didn't expect to this time either ...)

Today arrived a lovely pouch,
hand painted and stitched !

with a super fun "button"

I was so delighted I made her a "thank-you-mandala"

which went in the mail right away

(ha, only a sneak peek for you)