Bag and books

Another catch up on items made in 2021. Early in 2019 we had a mini workshop at GeeTAG on using Inktense pencils and crayons. I decided to research different sea stars and created a panel of 8 on cotton fabric. I have used 4 of these on the komebukuro bag I made of leftover and recycled denim fabric. I added hand stitch and beading. The drawstring is half kumihimo cord and half wrapped cord with beads Effie Mitrofanis style. The lining is a cotton sateen second.

Sateen lining

My bookmaking has come to a standstill in the last 6 months due to working long hours but these are two coptic binding books I made earlier in 2020. The covers are some of my handmade paper using t-shirt material and recycled paper. Each signature has two sheets of drawing paper with a sheet of watercolour paper in the middle. The signatures are also wrapped in a sheet of contrasting hand made paper. The handmade paper seems to tear a little with the coptic binding so I need to investigate that further. I am currently also investigating how to prevent the cardboard cover from showing through the handmade paper and came across the process of making bookcloth here using rice or kozo paper and wheat paste. I will have a try at covering first with rice paper followed by the handmade paper to see if that gives a better result.

Coptic binding

The beginning of 2022 will be spent reorganising the creative making spaces and giving away anything I will not be using in the future. Then it will be onto my WIP list.