Venice

I've been to Venice :-)
So, pictures:

Weaving and Bookbinding

After a long while, I've pulled out my riged heddle loom once again, and did a bit of weaving.
One thing I wanted to try is mixed-media weaving. Here's it fabric, yarn and paper stripes mixed. The result is okay, though I'm not so sure now, what I'm going to do with it. For now I consider it an exercise.

More practical is this rag rug I've made, using fabric stripes from old t-shirts and bed sheet covers. I still need to fix the fringes, but other than that I really love it.

There might be a second one in the near future, as I have plenty of fabric left.
I also did some book binding using a combination of the accordion binding and the simple coptic binding. The book is 15 x15 cm and perfect to store CDs.

For the leaves I used the sleeves from old floppy discs we trashed this week at work (I did ask if I could have some - we had tons). So basically, this is some form of upcycling.

I had to do the coptic binding twice, as the book behaved very differently depending if it is full of CDs or not. First time round, it was way too tight, but now I'm really happy.
The cover paper is from my first experiments with paste paper making last year. I think I have enough material to make about 10 of those books.

Cross Stitch Meets Binder

And some more projects from my current favorite book.
Binders!
In the book, they are actually sewing binders, and I made one using an old sewing pattern, which I laminated and used to cover the outside boards of the binder. I used book screws to link the back and the front, and also to put in plastic sleeves for some of my sewing pattern.

I very much liked the result, so I decided to make a few more, this time using old cross stitch finishes I had made a long time ago, which were sitting in a box, doing nothing.

I picked two finishes, the first from a Bucilla kit called 'Curiosity'. The size of the kit and the size of the cover don't quite match, but I'm still quite happy with the outcome.

 The second finished cross stitch I found is this wonderful Oehlenschläger pattern with owls (I think it was also a kit, though I'm not 100% sure). As this one has less definded borders, it does fit better in size to the cover.

For the spines and the backs I used also cross stitch fabric, which I laminated to silk paper and then pressed while it was drying (same method I used with the cross stitch pictures).

I'm very pleased with the results of this little project. I've got to use some of my old finishes, I had fun making those binders, and in the end they are even useful.
A total win in my book.