Needle Arts and Handmade Books

Do you combine needle art with other creative interest? This book is something I taught at the Shepherd's Bush Retreat last September. It combines handmade fabric books, hand-dyed ribbons used in embellishment, cross stitch, pictures, pockets, favorite papers. Sometimes I even include needlepoint and punch needle! I will show more of the inside pages in another post. How many pillows and framed wall pieces can you have at one time in your house? If you are like me, wall space is at a premium at my house and I like to have other things on my walls besides all stitched pieces. So what to do with all the stitching you are doing? Some of it can find its way into handmade books that the recipient (or yourself) will treasure for many years to come. If you can't stand to put one actual piece in a book then take a good color photo of it and put it in the book! Some of you will have a heart attack here, but pick yourself off the floor and just consider that sometimes you have a framed piece that you no longer want to hang in your home. Cut it up and put it in a book!! Maybe this is enough for today!! I promise you that if you have a handmade book sitting on a coffee table or arranged on a shelf in your home on an easle type stand that people will simply 'have' to pick it up. They cannot stand it until they have looked inside!! More on these handmade books later. . .

I'm off to the dye pot. . .still not dyeing white!!

Cece

p.s. would you like to learn this concept?