T Stands For Tuesday and My Fabric Art Journal Update With Loads of Photos

    Hello everyone,
        T Stands for Tuesday is where we share a drink related post with friends. So do stop in and join us. Link to the party hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth is in my right hand column.

  Most of last Friday and Saturday I had spent lots of time working on my Fabric Journal. Allot of hours really.
   I had it in my mind that the blog post I got my inspiration from was sewing the pages together with the blanket stitch. (see in my right hand column the link for this under Inspirations and how to's) So instead of rechecking that I just jumped in and started stitching. I could not figure out how she was doing the blanket stitch on two pages,  so I just did a whip stitch around the two pages. I didn't like the look of it at all so I took all that out-and then went back to re read her post-lol  Should have done that to start with.

  Re reading and looking at her photos over and over, I realized she first stitched a blanket stitch around all the edges of each page. She says she used this blanket stitch to stitch the pages together, but did not say how.
     I figured out she must have used a thread to intertwine amongst that bottom part of the blanket stitch, which would pull the stitches tight and in her photos you can not see this thread. After that it looks like she went back and added in her beads.
    Her pages are quite thin opposed to my wool ones especially the blue page. I also discovered that my plaid wool page is raveling a bit so I could not put my blanket stitch on the very edge as she did on her pages. So her method was not working for me.  I decided to do a whip stitch and also added in some beads. I like the end results----but then I am not real sure haha  
    I have decided I need to sew a stitch around the edge of the plaid wool pages first to keep it from raveling before adding the blanket stitch for the rest of the pages.(this plaid piece is not 100% wool so that is why it is raveling a bit)
    I am not sure I like the look of what I did because perhaps the whip stitch detracts from the blanket stitch.  I hope this all makes sense as you read this.  
       any tips is always appreciated. I think on the next pages that I sew together I will work on getting the blanket stitch closer to the edge and then try doing what she did. we'll see

Here are some photos: (all photos will enlarge)

I Pulled some wool threads and beads. These larger cards of wool threads were not as strong as the others and less of each color so thought these would work out great for the blanket stitch around the pages.

I also grabbed cotton embroidery threads to stitch the pages together. These are stronger and also easier to add beads with.

There were just two cards that had this name on them-these are the wool threads I had bought on Etsy a few years ago when I was gathering supplies for a crazy quilt. 
    These were all sample cards for a shop in France from the '60's  so happy I found these. Perhaps any of you that go to France are familiar with the name??

I went in my stash for odd beads to add to the pages

At first I thought I would just use these seed beads but they are too small to show up.

Putting the pages together:

This is my cover page which will get sewn on to the back of the left side of January's page. 
      When I made the cover page I totally did not think about how fat my book will be so when the year of pages is finished I will need to add to this piece and make it longer to fit my book, perhaps wider too.
    

The right side of January's page I sewed on to the back of February's left side page. (February's right side page will get sewn on to the back of March's left side page)
   Thanks again to Elizabeth for helping me figure out the order of the pages for sewing together into a book. 

Close up of stitching these two pages together. 
     When sewing you leave a center strip on both ends Not sewn together so the pages will turn easily.

Close up photos of pages sewn together

I decided to put beads on the tops and bottoms of the pages not the sides where turned.

So what is your honest opinion of the finished look of this joining edge? thanks

  Remember that I did the virtual walk to benefit Yellowstone National Park? Well I received my finishing medal in the mail Saturday. I love this one-it is lighter than last year's medal and you can see through it in the light. This is Old Faithful

If you missed my day in the Big City post you can find it here.

The drink I am sharing is Strong Bow hard cider. I really like this one. It is lighter than Angry Orchard, and is also gluten free.
I find this one very refreshing and I love the feel of the bottle too, it has a nice shape to it.

I have started up Cast Iron Fridays. You are most welcome to share a post-anything about cooking or baking in cast iron-inside or outdoors.

Thanks so much for visiting.
Happy T Day Everyone