I mentioned in an earlier post that Sue Bleiweiss’s (see her blog in the sidebar under Fiber Art) journals have been an inspiration for me to try some different things. She is offering an online journal making class (5 weeks/5 lessons) so I joined and this week we started with the first project.
I was sewing machine-less until late yesterday (it was in the shop getting checked out for a really obnoxious noise). Today I worked on the project – a larger size of journal than I’ve been making lately. I figured that I knew the basics of bookmaking, so I used this as a means of pushing some concepts that I’ve been meaning to try. Getting people used to the materials and including pockets was the main push in this lesson.
For the outside of the cover,I laid down paper strips (leftovers from a paper folding project last year) on the double-sided fusible Peltex then fused a layer of organza on top of that to soften the colors and protect the papers. The inside lining came from an old silk shirt – and I used the pocket from the shirt as a pocket in the journal. The button for the closure was an old one from Grandma – and I figured a way to have it ‘caught’ without making a loop or hole.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with it. I’m thinking it is a bit bigger than I like, but that can be easily remedied in future work. There have been a variety of pockets devised in the class, which is nice.
Seems to be a growing group – from all over the world – and I’m not sure how many are actually in the class. Sue set up a Yahoo! group to accommodate questions and comments and pictures of finished projects – it is a very chatty group so far! 🙂 And the great part about it being online is that the work can be done any time – at home – without having to drag materials and supplies all over the place.