Welcome back to embroidery journal project! It’s hard to imagine that this project is in its second, and hopefully, last year. I’d like to finish my journal by May 2022 with the possibility of entering it into the EAC Seminar Members Exhibition. And honestly, I need a good, hard deadline so I can make sure it gets finished!! My fall back plan, should my current plan (below) be too aggressive will be to finish by the end of 2022 so that I can enter it into the EAC Members Exhibition for 2023 (that’s the one in Manitoba).

If you recall, my second journal was originally (and aptly) named “the getting it out of my system journal” which I renamed last year to “My Stitching Story”.  I  will keep finessing this name over the fall.  As I plan my journal layout, the title might get an update!  So here’s my plan…

Planning the book – September/October

It’s time to fine-tune my writings and musings into concrete pages for my book! I’ve got quite a bit of material that I collected and wrote last year which should be more than enough to get my book going. I am also looking at small designs to add to the facing pages that can accompany the text.

It’s also time to pick fonts and design the facing page layouts and have I made some progress!  I’ve begin building layouts, deciding on the little extras that I want to stitch and have picked out background fabrics.  Here’s a couple of page layouts so you can see what I’ve been doing.  Still rough, but the ideas are starting to come together.

Little paper bits have become my best friend!  it’s easy to print off images, draw and write ideas down.  Place them on the pages and adjust as necessary.

A plan for the front and back covers (and facing pages) also will need some serious consideration.

Stitching the Story – November/December

Unlike my goldwork journal where I printed text onto fabric with my printer, I will be stitching all of the verses by hand for this book. I do like the convenience of printing to fabric and I will be utilizing this technique, but embroidering over the printed text. In my mind this book has always been fully embroidered so the plan is to do just that!

Front and Back Covers – January/February

A conundrum. I did not give the front and back covers of my goldwork journal nearly enough attention. In fact, I didn’t start thinking about them until well into the project.

I do have an idea for the back cover (very exciting)! The front … not so much…

Page and Book Assembly – March/April

I am going to assemble this journal using Amina’s (from Stitch Floral) finishing technique. It will be assembled completely by hand.

More learning required 🙂

I’ve found a few tutorials on YouTube that I hope will help with the journal and page construction…

Revisiting Amina’s StitchFloral Blog

I was introduced to Amina’s blog some time ago – and I am so glad I was! Amina is a talented stitcher and her posts are a delight to read. She has some very nice designs that you can purchase and quite a few freebies too). Her written tutorials and instructional videos are also excellent. If you have not already done so, check out her blog https://stitchfloral.blogspot.com

I’ve been re-reading many of her posts. Here’s a really good one on making a fabric page (and some good dialog on using stash and repurposing orphan projects into journal pages): https://stitchfloral.blogspot.com/2020/04/embroidery-journal-repurposing-old.html

Amina has branched out into making Youtube videos – this one is worth a watch! https://youtu.be/PCnOX8RIUSE

There’s a lot to do over the next while. Stay tuned for more on this project!