More Fabric Book Pages

Linda chose the lilac as her flower. She used extravaganza as a transfer, printed an image of lilacs and added shades of purple and lilac, green dyed gauze, lace and a flower held on with beads. She added some machine embroidery stitches in variegated thread. I love the colour combinations of this piece, and the way she's combined the elements together in a collage but without losing the fineness and delicacy of the flower.

Jenny in Ohio made a pansy page. She used a pansy fabric as the background, and trapped fabric snippets, lace and sparkly bits under tulle. She also trapped pansy petals under plastic, so it's a real pansy page!

Maz from Sydney, Australia made a tulip page, from calico and vylene, painted fusible webbing, coloured sheers, collaged tulips and free machine embroidery, with Treasure Gold. Aren't the colours delicious? It has a real Australian feel to it.

Terri made this beautiful daisy collage, including a photo of her granddaughter, Aubrey Jewel, just six weeks old. She layered orange jaquard fabric, tulle, polka dot and white tone on tone cottons, and the photo, which she manipulated in Abobe PES4 and printed onto pretreated PhotoFabric. She added words printed on twill tape, including the line from Elton John's "Your Song". The centre of the flower is finely beaded, and she added some cute black and white flower beads, and iridescent beads along the edge of the image. Just beautiful!

Last of all, Marlene from California made a poppy page. She also gave really detailed instructions on her process, which I just love. She collaged various fabrics and transfer images of poppies onto a painted background, and stitched them with variegated threads. She overlaid a gorgeous silk poppy,painted and beaded, and added poppy words. I really love it!

Aren't they lovely? And Dianne sent me this card with the pages:

In case you can't read it, it says, "Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain."

Fabric book pages

Something else from last year trickled in last week and I've been trying to find time to share it. Towards the middle of last year, the Like Minded Artist group organised a swap of fabric book pages on the theme of flowers. Each person chose a flower, and made a series of pages on that flower, 6in square with an additional inch at the left for binding. They were sent to Dianne in Canada and she swapped them and sent them back in September.

Alas, the Canadian postal system seemed to be unable to find Australia on its map! The pages came (I'm guessing) on a very slow donkey via Anatolia, Angola and Austria before they finally arrived at my door, four months later. But they were worth the wait.

This is my page, which I made for everyone else. It's a Marguerite Daisy, a flower of which I'm very fond. It thrives in my garden with little attention, always looks green and lush and flowers robustly so that my grandson always has flowers to pick for Grandma. It's not a flashy plant, but it brightens up my life.

Candace's page. Her flower was Tragopogon dubius, Yellow Goatsbeard. She says,"The green bracts were applied with fusible web and the petals were stamped with Lumiere in gold. The centre of the flower is a yarn wrapped pipe cleaner and the stem was done with a glue gun (on parchment paper) painted with Lumiere in metallic olive green and sealed with a matte finish spray. Thread used for the grasses are by Rainbow Gallery." Wow.

Carole's Foxglove page. Carole fused scraps of purple fabric under tulle, embroidered by hand and machine over the top, and I think she may have painted too? She's really captured the fierce uprightness of foxgloves, hasn't she?

Theresa's flower. Theresa sent me a complete mini workshop on how she made her flower, tucked into a pocket in the back. The background has tissue lame fused over the rayon background, with multicoloured ribbon stitched over it. More ribbon was gathered and stitched in place, along with the velvet leaves. The flower petals were fused to organza, hand stitched in place and beaded. Isn't it amazing?

Diana's flower was the tulip. She applied pale organza to the background, and tulip appliques, free-motion stitched in variegated thread. She added a label and ribbon, attached with a pink brad. I love the delicacy of this one.

Carol in Scotland chose a Scottish flower, Fritilaria Imperialis. Her flower was based on an image manipulated in Paint Shop Pro, printed onto fabric prepared with BubbleJet Set and intensively machine stitched. I so love this page! I'm not sure if you can see in the photo but the background stitching follows the lines of the manipulated image, suggesting a whole rich background of foliage.

Dianne's flower was, I think, a variety of lilium. She used some of her rusted fabric as the background and painted the image with water colour pencils, gel pens, copper and metallic paints. Isn't it great? She added some vintage tatting as a border. Dianne said she felt bad that she hadn't stitched much, but I don't think she has anything at all to feel bad about!

I'm not sure what Margot's flower is (sorry, Margot! My flower recognition is deserting me!)but I think it's an iris of some kind. The background is a luscious shiny embroidered silk, and the flower image is surrounded by pleated silk ribbon, held in place by beads and pearls. It's so deliciously rich.
More to come...