Leather journals.......

In spite of being out of the studio too many days this week I did make some time for journal making. 

Here I'm auditioning a button - the final step in the making of a journal

Here they are - sorry no pictures of the insides with the lovely/creative end papers. I've got watercolor paper cut to make 6 more, then I've got leather cut for 12 more but I made a math error when ordering paper and don't have enough so more is on the way from Dick Blick. Many of these will end up for sale in my etsy shop in the not too distant future.

"Who you looking at?"  Bailey's bed behind me when I sit at the computer - he can sleep like he was doing here, before I rudely woke him up, or he can lay his head on the window sill and watch the forest critters.

Journal making

My life doesn't seem my own these days which results in very little time weaving. Lo and behold I had the entire day at home yesterday and I could have woven on that 3 scarf silk warp that's been sitting on a loom for weeks. But I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't sew because my Bernina is in for maintenance. I looked at the pile (on the floor, for months) of already cut leather, big folder filled with watercolor paper waiting to be cut into journal pages and fun papers for end covers for the journals. I thought - I'll start working on making all those journals, then I can get that pile off the floor and into a nice box of finished journals. Of course, this will take a while because I have a lot of supplies but it sounds like a fun activity for right now.

Here are some leathers paired with my homemade paste paper that will be coordinating end papers. The paste paper is so fun and I'm so glad to have a good use for it.....you see, I made it many years ago with my dear friend Janette when we had a paste paper play day. Janette lost her very long battle with cancer back in 2011 - I thought about her all afternoon while planning out which paste papers will go with which leathers.

Some black leather will get paste paper end covers, others will get Asian paper that I'll use spray adhesive to adhere them to watercolor paper so they have some heft.

These leather covers will all get Asian paper as end covers.

So, this is the paper picked out for 15 different journals. Then there are at least as many pieces of leather cut out for more journals but I have no more end paper so those I'll do what I've done on past journals, either watercolor paint the end papers or stencil them. I'll concentrate on those after I've made all of these journals.  Yesterday I did get 2 journals made and paper cut for several more......but a friend came over to buy some roving so we spent time visiting instead of me working on journals......time well spent visiting with a dear friend.  Eventually journals will show up in my etsy shop......but they need to be created and then comes the dreaded photography.........

Excitement here is a bear opening the bird seed pail and eating seed one evening, next evening he tried to carry the pail off but heard Sam open the front door so he dropped it. Then overnight he decided to pull down our very high steel cable holding bird feeders between trees - one feeder is missing. I want to put the pail out this evening so we can see it, Sam doesn't want to lose the pail.....

R & R

This past Friday we decided we needed some R & R. Life has been too busy lately and we have not gotten over to the coast much the past 3 months due to snowy road conditions on the passes or commitments connected to daily life. We pretty much did nothing other than walk, sleep, nap and eat out..........did us both a world of good.

These pictures were from up on the bluff where we were walking Bailey - it was a picture perfect day, high 50's, blue sky, only a bit of wind. Here's looking to the left down the beach.......

.....here's looking straight ahead......

.....here's looking up the beach to the north.

The quilt top I pieced and then had a long arm quilter do the quilting for me is finally on the bed. I got the binding on recently. We don't have much on the walls in our bedroom at the beach cottage yet and I can see that something is desperately needed over the bed. I'm considering making a wreath with shells and sea glass..........will give it thought, I never rush into decorating decisions.....

And in closing we watched a labyrinth being drawn in the late afternoon of the sunny morning, the clouds were moving in but no rain so the drawing went off as scheduled.  It was pretty windy and chilly by afternoon so we didn't stand out on the bluff too long too watch. Check out the Circles in the Sand website to see some of Denny's other labyrinths.

Pancakes done!

 I finished my pancake afghan quilt. It was sewn from gingko fabrics I've collected. I used what I thought might go together that would also go in our living room. I had varying amounts of the different fabrics so went with what was in my stash. I do have an entire shelf of gingko fabrics left but they are in other colors like pinks, blues, purples.........not sure what they'll eventually grow up to be.

Here's the backside. It's chilly today so this evening I'll be snuggling under this while we watch Heartland on Netflix. I've started another quilting project in the works but it's for a gift so I won't show it for a while.

Pancake quilt..........

I've started sewing the pancakes together for my afghan quilt.....2 rows so far.....9 more to go...

Pancakes.....

 I finally decided to start making the pancake/circle afghan quilt for myself. Here are 77 circles awaiting an X to be quilted in the center of them before starting to join them together. That was 77 circles of a top fabric, back fabric and batting cut, sandwiched, sewn and turned. Sounds daunting but it really wasn't too bad. These are from my gingko fabric stash. The backside of these circles are either all black or black mixed with other colors,,,,gingko fabric, of course. Not sure how it will all look when put together but I'll love cuddling under it regardless. I would have preferred to have all light colors for the top side but I didn't have anymore yardage and I couldn't find more so the pale rust color got added into the mix. I've got all but one stack quilted with an X now, I've run out of steam sitting at the sewing machine to finish the rest..........plus I finally finished listening to Drums of Autumn, book 4 in the Outlander series so it seemed like a good time to stop.

This was what it looked like yesterday in-between snowfalls. The sun came out and melted it all off the trees although not off the ground. This morning we awoke to a fresh dusting but once again the sun has been out and has melted most of it.