Thank goodness for cold weather (I never thought I’d say it out loud tho)!  With it being so gosh darn cold outside, I’ve had plenty of time to stitch!  There’s been a whirl wind of activity since it got cold outside – I’ve worked hard finishing off some older projects and kitting up and starting new projects, I’ve inventoried and organized more of my thread stash (sampler threads and Appleton wool) and tidied up the craft room.  My cleaning attempts have not yet extended past my “fun zone” and the rest of the house could use a go over (maybe next week…. or month).  It’s been great fun looking at which projects I should take on next.  I’ve got a blackwork project, crewelwork project, a a couple of cross stitch projects and a felt ornament project all ready to go!  

I finally see this journal project winding down.  There’s still a lot to do to finish the actual journal, but all of the pages for this book have been decided on, including the front and back covers.  Some pages are finished and trimmed and are ready to have the edges finished. 

Almost all of the pages… 

Pages and layouts are all planned now and I’m working my way through each of them, finishing any additional stitching that needs to be done.  I did make one page change since I took the picture below – I’ve decided not to include the redwork rabbit in this journal so needed a replacement page.  Since making pages is now done, I am working on layouts – deciding on elements for each layout.  I’ll have to give a few thoughts on page order, but I am not too worried about this since I removed the “story” element – any order will work!  I have also been adding interfacing to the back of all of the pages to give them a bit more stability and to prevent the edges from fraying.

How am I going to attach stuff??

I didn’t think this could actually be a question, because, obviously, I will be hand sewing elements in place.  But the question that begs to be asked is – How do I get those little bits to stay in place before and while I’m tacking them down.  I can use pins to hold in place, but I think some of the elements are a bit too small and the needle holding them will cause the tiny pieces to “pucker”.  Another thought is to use fabric glue – there’s Aileen’s Tacky glue and also a non-permanent quilter’s fabric glue that looks like a purple glue stick.  Another option is to use a double sided fusable interfacing (Heat’n’bond).  So I have 3 options and I’ll be testing them all out to see which one I like best.

Adding extra stabilizer to each page

Another interesting logistic that I’ve just thought about recently.  Since this journal is made of fabric, I feel like it could be quite “floppy” when it’s done.  My goldwork journal is around half of the size of this one (my pages for this book will be about 8” x 10” in size), and it seems fairly firm, but I am concerned that the larger pages will have less structure.  I may add some heavy duty stabilizer to the front and back covers – possibilities could be some quilt batting OR felt inserts OR a heavy duty stabilizer (Pellon 70 Peltex).  An update on this is to come once the pages are sewn together. 

Temperature Stitch 2021 – Fifty-Two Flowers

It’s hard to imagine, but this project is finished!  I put the last few stitches in on New Year’s Day and I am very pleased with how it turned out.  I’ve also completed a page which has a legend of the colours used for each temperature range.  These two pages are officially the first two completely finished pages of my journal.  There’s nothing to do here except for trimming and stitching the raw page edges. 

Front and Back Cover – Decisions Made!

Finally, finally, I have decided on the front and back covers.  I’ve also finalized the title of the journal.  An agonizing task, but I am happy with my decision and relieved that I can now put this at rest.  This journal is officially called “Through Threaded Needle: A Compilation of Embroideries”  All that is left now is the stitching!  Fabric is ready, designs are transferred and floss selected 🙂  Bonus… I have a bunch of other really good titles that I can use on future journals!!

Nearing a Finish!

This journal is on the final stretch – the end is in sight.  I have started trimming pages that are finished (9 so far) and they are ready to have the edges stitched. The next step will be sewing facing pages together to create a full two page spread (ie the two temperature stitch pages would be a full spread).  As I mentioned in the title – this is getting technical!  Now the task will be to create “spreads” from individual pages and turning the spreads into pages in the journal – fun stuff!!

Happy Stitching!