Of the many peculiar, secret things I like to make just for me, my “blank books” are a perpetual favorite. Little bits of everything I like to do end up in these highly personal pieces. The one I share here begins with a felted Ozark Handspun cover embellished with some Universal ruffle yarn that is no longer made. After more than 20 years owning a retail store, I have learned the hard way that nothing is forever, especially funky yarns. Each of these books is an archaeological treasure with layers of resonating symbols and remnants of the past.
The brilliant piece of orange/red/yellow Freelace fabric (below left) brings to mind our early years in Kansas City, a longing for summer in February, the wonders of the Freelace technique, and great new friends who taught me or shared their creations with me. In an effort to nudge Mother Nature, I made my own Spring microcosm with stumpwork daffodils on a lightly felted batt.
A gallery of beaded bugs and dragonflies (below, left) lives on a gorgeous quilted fabric strip that a friend brought home from Thailand. The result of being “sandwiched” in life by a father and a son who are both Electrical Engineers is that resistors, capacitors and circuit boards frequently end up in my books. Dragonflies, fathers, sons, resistance, capacity and short circuits all have deep meaning for me. This little book does, too.
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