Sew Crazy For You!

March 24, 2017     Happy St. Patrick's Month!!!!

The square above is on my front door for the whole month!!! Working on one now for April Showers!!!!

Have you tried the latest craze???  Making a Fabric Journal, of course!!!  I made one recently, with a lot of help from Annette Graves on private messages!!! You can learn lots more by visiting her blog. Here I will give you my journey, with descriptions and pictures! I do warn you, it is an addicting project, and it will change an organized sewing room into a total chaos mess.  But it was so fun I am planning the next one!!!!
First I used 6 blocks that were on the Summer Round Robin of 2014. The participants, in order as depicted in the fabric book are: Cathy Glover, Margreet de Reus, Lauren Mattison, Barbara Scalise, Stacy Sharp and Pauline Keller.  So the pages with their blocks are in the order above.  I learned from Annette that you will not want to put embellished squares on facing pages, too many things to catch on. So each facing page is made up of things in a similar theme. Here goes!!!

This is a paper journal I sent out with the Round Robin for the ladies to write in.

These are each of their squares.  I chose a butterfly theme, and you can see how well the ladies did!! The black butterfly fabric is a favorite of mine, and was intending to use it for the pages, but my "muse" sent me in a different direction!

Had to raid my many bins of laces. I didn't want to use just white, so I coffee-dyed several different types to see what effects I would get. Some were new, some were doilies, and some were off of dresses from the thrift store!

When Annette, my muse, told me that black fabric wasn't right, I took a photo of some of my other butterfly fabrics. The very center one is what made up some of the squares.  We both fell in love with the batik piece on the right!

By laying the squares down I determined the size of my pages. This is the beginning of the outside covers.

It's now coming together, with a bias tape border to hold together with the inside page added. Some lace and pictures on the front cover on the right. Some of my dyed laces are from Barbara Nicki Lee Seavey.

Several rows of lace, on both sides, were added, lace designating the binding, and sparkles on the back. Butterfly of sequins added on top.

This is a work in progress...really, the whole room was a complete chaos!!!!

I used various fabrics for the pages, multi-variety of laces. The more the better. If they don't go all the way around, just grab another variety and keep going. Just like crazy quilting, there are no mistakes!

See what I mean. I pinned the fabrics together, and sewed the laces on by machine.

Pocket on inside front cover, place for the paper journal!  Cathy Glover's square on the right!

 This side is decorated by me, so as not to catch on the square facing it. Just some lace and doily. The hand embroidered butterfly on the top right, was taken off of an old pillow case done by my hubby's mother! 

It faces the wonderful square done by Margreet de Reus.  I simply hot glued the fabric to the pages, and the bordered with different trims and laces, some glued on, and some sewed on.

Butterflies were my first favorite embroidery to stitch when I first learned at the age of 10. My mother would thread the needle for me with 2 threads.  When she wasn't looking, I would get a couple more threads and re-thread my needle....I wanted the fat puffy look!!!! I don't know when I made the red butterfly, but it's been waiting for a home for some time!  The square on the right is done by Lauren Mattison.

I love this quote!

On this page, I used a cut-out of the butterfly from the fabric that was used for these blocks. The block on the right is done by Barbara Scalise.

This page has another butterfly by me...also waiting for a home. The quote below, I found on the internet and printed on fabric. This block is by Stacey Sharp.

This block I used a wonderful velvet ribbon to frame the silkie. And last, but not least, is Pauline Keller's block. 

Finally, the inside back cover page:

Another silkie, and quote printed on fabric! And an inside pocket, for, what else, a bookmark!!!

I thank all of these ladies for their lovely work! And I thank Annette for her help and inspiration!!!

Here's a finished picture of the book!!!

And a sneak peak at my next month's blog on April Showers!

Thanks for visiting!!! Happy Stitching!!!