Silk Notebooks

Yesterday I decided I would take some time to work on a project with the silk papers I made with Jodi. I decided to make some hand bound silk notebooks.

I had my first experience with hand binding books last fall when I made the vegetarian cookbook for Maureen, as part of her "Secret Pal" reveal package. The book I made for her was sort of scrap book style, with recipes printed on coloured papers, and mounted onto different decorative papers, and then it was all put together with a mulberry paper cover and bound using the Japanese Stab binding method.

After that experience I think it is safe to say that I will never be a scrap booker, but I did enjoy the process of binding the book, quite a bit. I made additional copies of the book for people that had shared recipes, and used pre-printed pages. I liked that a lot more!


When I saw the finished pieces of silk paper the first thing I thought of was these hand bound books, and I decided to have another go at it.

This time I took some 5x7 spiral notebooks, clipped away the spiral binding, and re-covered and bound them. I used the original cardboard covers as a base for my new silk covers.

This was great because not only were they already the same size as the paper, but they had

holes in the proper places for me to use as a guideline when sewing up my binding. I did have to punch the holes out several times through out the process of applying the silk, or they would have been lost. It was much more time consuming than I expected it to be, but when the books were finished this morning [I let the covers dry overnight before binding] I really felt like it was worth the time and effort.

I think the finished notebooks are absolutely beautiful, and will make wonderful gifts.



I had some other plans for the rest of the silk paper, but now I'm thinking they may all become notebooks. At the very least I will have to make more silk paper for future book binding projects.

Silk Fusion

So, this is the result of my day learning a new craft.



It's hand made silk paper. Very Fun!



Yesterday, I spent the day with my friend Jodi, and we learned to do this together.



Jodi is an art therapist, and loves the creative process more than anyone else I know. This makes her a great person to be creative with- you can just feel her enthusiasm. Things have been tough for Jodi recently, and it was great to see her so happy while doing this!

Here are some action shots Jodi took of me layering the silk, and applying textile medium to bond it together.

It was a sunny, but surprisingly not humid day yesterday and the papers dried quickly. That was great because as you finished a new piece of paper the previous one was dried. That meant that we two first timers were able to see very quickly what we liked or disliked about any given piece and had the opportunity to progress quite a bit through just one afternoon.

I have several ideas about what to do with the finished sheets of "paper" but you will all have to wait to see what they are!

I'm So Behind!!

It seems that the past few months I just haven't had the time to do half the things I want/need to do- much more so than normal. Blogging has been one of the things that has been neglected, but I am trying to check in (if you have noticed the abscence of my comments lately I am still reading!).

I mentioned in my last post that Melanie had given me a blogging award. The award came with instructions to pass it on, link to the original creator, etc. In my "breaking the chain" tradition I am not going to do that. What I am going to do is tell you about 5 blogs that I enjoy, that I don't think I have ever linked to before. So, here they are:


http://www.criminyjickets.blogspot.com/- Dave makes LOTS of wonderful socks, and has some free sock patterns as well as a few other fun things.

http://gildedbottle.blogspot.com/- Jeannie has recently started doing some of her own designs. Watch out for her. I think there is a wealth of untapped knitting and crocheted talent waiting to come out.

http://serialknitter.blogspot.com/ -Sunny is another new designer. Just like Jeannie, I think she will continue to to flourish in her creativity. I expect wonderful things!

http://yarnspider.livejournal.com/- I met Sarah over at yahoo 360. She spins and dyes and knits, and has some beautiful projects.

http://spinning-jenny.blogspot.com/ - Jenny always has something interesting OTN. I found her through ravelry, and have been following her blog religiously since the first time I saw her work. Her knitting is truly art.

Just to have a photo to put into this post:

These little turtles are actually crocheted soap sacks. The turtle is part of a reptile bath set that will be available on the Peaches & Creme website this August. It is also going to be the focus of one of the crochet work shops I will be teaching at the Peaches & Creme facotry this summer.



The rest of the set is complete, but no photos will be posted until the kit is available for sale.


Later this week I will be getting together with a friend to learn a new craft! So, hopefully there will be more blogging soon.

New Crochet Patterns

I feel awful that I have been neglecting my blog so much lately. I have been very busy putting together new patterns and kits for Peaches & Creme, and I keep saying I will blog when I have more time.

Well, I have finally decided it will be too long before I have more time, so I will just have to be quick!

First of all I would like to give a very over due Thank You to Melanie for honoring me with the Arte y Pico Award. Thanks Melanie, I am going to try and pass the award on in the next few days.

Now on to what I have been up to:

As I mentioned I have new patterns up on the Peaches & Creme Website.

There is a fre pattern for the Triple Waves Dishcloth, which is a great one for using up odds and ends of cotton yarn. I used 3 colours for mine, but you could use 2 or 5, or 6, or....

There is also a free under the kitchen sink type rug, made out of the Double worsted weight cotton, the Semi-circular Rug. That is a quick and fun project, and I enjoyed making it.



This is a preview of a market bag kit that will be available in the next day or two. The Kit includes instructions to make the large grocery bag, and the smaller produce bag. The produce bag is made with size 5 cotton, and weighs under an ounce, so you can weigh your fruits and veggies right in the bag! No more small plastic bags to worry about- just toss this one in the washer/dryer in between trips to the market.







There is also a kit for a crocheted Beach tote, the Honeycomb Mesh Tote. This was my design, but the sample was actually made for me by a fellow member of the P&C group on Ravelry, Chris (ravelry name Erskinelake). Again, this is a kit, and it comes in such fun summer-time colours!

The last photo I will share today is the Crocheted Ridges Bath Ensemble. This is a back scrubber/bath mitt set I made to match a cloth pattern that had been posted quite some time ago.
I actually designed these by request, and had never used one of these back scrubbers before, so I had to give it a try. It was nice, I'll be making more.


For the next few weeks I plan to be very busy working on the new pattern kits that will be used in my crochet workshops this summer at the Peaches and Creme Factory (have I mentioned this before? Details here), and believe it or not a pattern I have agreed to test for another designer! I know I must be crazy, but there is a very special reason why I have agreed to test this pattern, and when I can reveal more you will get to hear all about it.