STITCHED: Sewn Journal Cover

I decided to sign up for the online class Stitched recently. I'd been eyeing the class up for months, since I'm a fan of Alma Stoller, who organized the class, and Kelly Nina Perkins, who is one of the fabulous teachers. Even though I'm currently teaching my own year-long art journal class, I wanted to sign up for a class for me; since all "work" and no play makes Moira an unhappy girl. (I put work in quotes because, lucky me, my work is play!) I decided to go completely outside my usual media and into fabric.

Don't get me wrong: I do sometimes sew fabric into my journals and make jewelry using fabric, but it's not my primary medium, mostly because I'm pretty sure my sewing machines hate me. I have a huge and beautiful stash of fabric, even though I hardly ever sew, because I just can't resist the stuff! I pick it up from remnants racks and the recycling center all the time, so I decided that in 2012, I'm finally going to BUST my fabric stash. I'm going to sew all sorts of projects, big and small, and use up all that pretty fabric. (And zippers, my goodness, I'm drowning in them!)

(I'll post some stash pictures later this week!)

The first project that I decided to tackle in STICHED was Dale Anne Potter's Journal Your Landscape. Okay, so, yeah, I made myself an art journal and didn't actually bust any of my stash to do it (unless you count the lovely variegated hemp I used to bind it, which you should, since I have a lifetime supply of the stuff).

The cover is made from Lutradur, which I'd heard of but never used. This stuff is nifty! Originally a roofing material, Lutradur has been usurped by artists and crafters worldwide for all sorts of cool projects. This stuff is tough! You can't rip it, I tried, which means it is perfect for a book cover. I'll let you know how it holds up to my art journaling, but I suspect it will weather beautifully.

I bound my journal with three signatures of paper, instead of canvas.

It took me a little fiddling to get my machine at a good setting for sewing it: I ended up using a stitch length of zero and a special foot that might or might not be called a darning foot? I can't remember.

Since I was super impatient and started sewing while the Lutradur was still damp from coloring the cover (dang stuff takes forever to dry!), I inadvertently learned a trick for dyeing my white cotton thread WHILE I'm sewing. Holy cow -- so cool! I'll definitely use that happy accident to my advantage in the future.

I'm super inspired by all of the projects in STITCHED and have already bought fabric for my next project: a baby quilt. (Again, not busting the stash, but need to make a quilt to suit a particular color scheme so there ya go. Here's hoping Project #3 will involve stash busting!

So what are you doing exciting for 2012?