Cheap Thrills

Nothing thrills me more than making something out of nothing. I made these two book covers from "stuff" that what was on hand - didn't purchase a thing apart from the books inside.

The one on the left is made from the cuttings of threads and snippets of fabrics I save at the sewing machine. I embellished it with eyelash yarn. Firstly, I stabilised a piece of fabric larger than needed to cover the book and then laid all the cuttings over the top. I covered this with a soluble topping (I used "Floriani" Water Soluble Topping). Then I sewed (mostly straight stitches) all over the top of it every which way. Then, of course, washed the topping away. Ta Da!

Yesterday was a scorcher, 34 degrees, so what better way to spend the day than crafting and sewing. We revved the AC up and I spent glorious hours (headache free for a change) sewing my little heart out. The book cover on the right was made from little squares and tiny pieces of fabric brought into quilters group by one of the ladies wanting to get rid of them. I took them home not knowing what I was going to do with them.

Firstly I cut one piece of fabric the width of the book plus some, and the length of the book twice plus extra to allow for the pockets to hold the book. Folding it in half lengthwise, I then ironed some fusible webbing (the dreaded vleisofix) over the top of one half on the right side of the fabric. I placed all the little squares, rectangles, etc over this and ironed on. Then I sewed it in a small grid all over and embellished it in a country style with buttons.

These journals will go on sale at the Toowoomba Quilters Exhibition.

I also started some Christmas cornucopias, made similarly to the book covers, using vleisofix and snippets of white, cream, grey, mauve, gold colours. Will post photo later after embellishments.