I finally finished this one. I bought the class for it almost 2 years ago, worked on it for months and then got stuck. Couldn't decide whether I should sew in the 2 signatures the class called for or the 3 I had made and just let it ride.
Well, it finally is done - with 2 signatures which simply felt better.
Lots of pictures, few words, I hope. And I did not take pictures of every page, we'd all be here for hours and I'd tear my hair out uploading and editing.
The cover, fully closed and tied.
With the tie undone.
Still the front, with the flap open.
The back of the journal cover.
I limited myself to fabric in my scrap baskets only. Nothing out of the big stash upstairs, no yardage, no new purchases.
The inside of the journal withe the first signature, I used gift wrap I found at my favorite re-use center in Berkeley/Oakland. Quite a lot of other papers came from the same place.
More re-used paper plus a pocket made from a sheet protector. There is a lot of sewing involved in this journal, papers that wrap around the edges of the pages, papers to fill in gaps, papers to close open edges of the sheet protectors. That was a big part of the class - sewing together papers to make a full page and took me quite a bit of time.
The journal includes quite a few security envelopes, both whole - opened up - and repurposed as shown above.
A page from an old Sears catalog and a page from a notebook from the re-use center with some decorative bits sewn on.
The interesting paper on the bottom is actually from a salami wrapper. My husband had won the salami in some contest and I held on to the wrapper for ages, long before I had ever heard of junk journals. On the right is another sheet protector pocket. The blue dotty paper is from a gelli print I made, copied and cut into strips. There are quite a few of those included in the journal.
Another re-used security envelope with a heart sewn on top.
A guest check, a real one, I usually use blanks, but this one came from a visit to a favorite pizza restaurant from a visit to central Oregon to see our grandchildren.
More old Sears catalog and another Target envelope, plus map paper.
The beginning of the second signature. Ledger paper and a heart doily.
Another spliced together page, more ledger paper.
Here I used a petty cash receipt as a pocket/tuck spot.
Pages decorated with paper, fabric and a doily.
Another pocket made from a page protector with a map page showing behind. I took pages from an old road atlas.
Map with a goose from a children's book.
A fabric doily.
Some vintage ephemera sewn to a page. I did not have much when I started this journal. Much better supplied these days.
Map and dictionary page sewn together.
Another page decorated with both paper and fabric. On the left is yet another page protector pocket.
An old bingo card.
The spine. I used 5 hole pamphlet stitch to bind the journal.
The view from the top. Two signatures with the threads left showing.
The class, BTW, is called "Remains of the Day" by Mary Ann Moss. It's an older class, I am late to the party, as usual. It was a great learning experience. I knew very little about journals, junk journals, collecting papers, sewing papers together, ephemera etc. etc. when I started this class. Maybe that's why it took me so long? I know I agonized over the cover for weeks, finally came up with something I liked. I made many more pages than I needed, that's why there is a whole signature left over. Who knows, maybe I'll make more pages and another cover, now that I know what to do. But, then again, there are plenty of other classes to take and more things to learn. I find I like learning bookbinding techniques, the various stitches involved in holding papers together and Mary Ann Moss teaches more of those.
Here is a link to Mary Ann Moss' blog, the links to her classes are easy to find.
Whew, apologies for the length of this post, obviously not few words. Sorry!
