looks can be decieving

hi from northern ny where it is partly sunny and 45 degrees (we're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.....)

over the weekend i had the urge to put together a new book. i wanted to use a new binding stitch on this one and decided i liked the cross stitch look.

after studying it a bit i thought "that looks simple enough, just basic cross stitches, right?" i was eager to be stitching and just through together a basic cover (still needs detail work) and that is another story. i found a basic diagram and got started. oops...... didn't work, pulled a couple of stitches loose and tried again. still didn't work. took it all out and started completely over. still had problems. the column were numbered on the diagram and all the stitches were numbered in the order to sew them. i finally figured out that the diagram was looking at the stitches from what would be the outside of the cover and i was trying to sew them from the inside. took it completely out and started over again. it went better.

the stitching looks a little wonky. i marked my stitching holes on the inside of the cover. but because the two fabrics shifted while i was sewing, the stitches really need to be marked on the outside to get them to perfectly lined up. gotta get a new blue disappearing fabric marker.

when i was gelli printing i used everything i could lay my hands on from my work table. that included some half pages of a manila folder (the larger, back half was used to cut stencils. worked great. was able to make an 8x10 window with my stencil pattern in it. fits perfectly over my gelli plate and is easy to file). i used the printed half folder in half again for small journal covers (ended up to be 6 x almost 9 when folded). here is a picture of that journal cover and a pic of one of my stencils i made.

any way, there are a few pictures of the inside pages on my flickr site. mjkcreations flickr photos.