Over the last several months all of my creative focus has been on creating handmade cloth "Stitch Journals" in which I can experiment in and fill up. Here's an example of one of them...
I began by hand painting all of the fabrics, (Jacquard Textile Colors were mainly used).
I then machine stitched the fabrics into pages to later hand-bind into the journal.
When I make the "blank" pages I like to add machine stitched lines and bits of machine stitched appliqué.
(I consider the journal to be "blank" until I fill the pages in with hand stitching.)
Those machine stitched lines, and appliquéd bits, act as "prompts"...
jumping off points for my creativity to land... places for me to eventually fill in with my hand stitching once the journal has been hand bound into a book form.
(Such as what you see in these photos of a completed journal.)
The hand-stitching creates a sort of non-verbal language. One that can be seen and also felt.
Something almost primitive, and very instinctual.
I take great joy in the whole process...
from hand-painting, to hand-binding, to hand-stitching.
All of it is meditative, creative and fulfilling.
And when it's complete, I feel so incredibly satisfied.
I hope this obsession lasts for sometime.
Xo