The 100 day stitch book challenge - A bouquet of flowers

For the 100 day project this year I decided to join the Stitch book challenge hosted by @annwood.

Got the 20 pages of size 5.5"×7" cut and ready before the start date of 20th Jan 2023.

I was excited to learn a new method of assembling a fabric book - the slot and tab method.

I didn't have a theme in mind.

Going through my stash A floral theme emerged.

My sleepy companion - Gin the Calico cat 🐈. 

Kasuti embroidery swatches from a project I did years ago in Hubli, Karnataka. 

Flowers my mum embroidered on a silk peasant blouse. The fragile silk tore but I saved the exquisite embroidery and I'm glad it found a place in the pages of this book.

I have cross stitched motifs , initially intended to be converted into Christmas ornaments but they worked with the theme so some found their way into the book.

The first page I made. The Blackwork butterfly was in my needlebook for a few years but I think she's happier amongst the pretty flowers.

Salvaged from a block printed bedspread in my mum's house.

From my mum's top.

My cousin Esther contributed many floral themed swatches in this book.

The yellow sprig and ladybug are my sister's clever way to mend a tear in her trousers. Many tears later when it was te to let go the trousers I decided that clever bit of mending had to live on in the pages of my book.

Suffolk puffs. My first attempt making them.

This page took the longest with all those French knots.

Another piece contributed by my cousin Esther.

The 20 hand embroidered and appliqued pages. 

Starting to assemble the pages.

Ann Wood has all the instructions with pictures so one can create a book using the slot and tab method. She is most generous in making it free. Much appreciated Ann, thank you.

The pages on top have a slot and the ones below have tabs.

Hand sewn pages ready to assemble.

The completed book.

A fabric book after ages and I'm so delighted with the Bouquet of Flowers.

The Book of Leaves

The thirteen month swap which was The Story of the Traveling Pages has resulted in some amazing books and I've just completed creating my own - The Book of Leaves with contributions from ten women in the USA, the UK, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Greece who interpreted my theme - leaves and created unique, one of a kind fabric pages.

This is the cover for the book which I embroidered.
The inside of the cover has the name of the person, the country they are from and the month they created the page for me. The first page is from Kath Walls in Greece.
The last page in the book is from Juliette Coates in the UK and the inside of the back cover has a pocket which contains the letters and smaller cards each one sent me detailing the method and techniques used in the creation of the page.
Thank you Ruth for putting together this fantastic swap and to all the lovely ladies who got involved, persisted and made those pages while dealing with life and the curve balls life threw each of us in the past year.. The book of leaves is a precious addition to my little collection of fabric books.

Any interesting fibre/fabric swaps and challenges happening in cyberspace? I'd like to get involved because I haven't taken up anything this year.

Oh there's been some changes taking place here.

Leaves from Juliette

This page made by Juliette came from the UK and takes the pages of my book of Leaves to nine.

Waiting for a couple more to take the count to twelve so I can start assembling the book.

Will start on the covers next week while waiting.

I've completed my end of the swap and will be posting three pages out to Germany, Greece and the UK tomorrow. There will be sneak peeks of the pages here but will have to wait for the recipients to actually receive them before I post pics of the three pages.

What have you planned for the weekend. My weekend started yesterday with a wonderful party for a close friend's 9th wedding anniversary.

Text and Biryani

Writing, text, various scripts all facinate me, more so if its embroidered and I'm not the only one. Read more in this post at the Ragged Cloth Cafe Serving Art and Textiles and take the time to read the comments. There are some wonderful insights on the use of text in different peoples work. I have to say I agree with most of the views and opinions expressed there.

The fibre book I've begun for the documentation of biryani is as much about our love for biryani as it is about the exploration and use of materials to express with text our ongoing quest and discovery of biryani lore, recipes, facts, and the best places to eat biryani.

Its our set of wheels which get us to the next plate of biryani so its an apt name for us - hungry hot rods. That's page one of the fibre tome.

I'm using found and recycled materials as far as possible in this project. The silvery shiny material is the foil packet that the museli comes in, the red fabric is a small piece of block printed cotton from my stash and the embroidery threads too come from my stash.
The embroidery on page two is inspired by this and Jude's work. Have you noticed? I'm putting my TAST embroidery stitches to good use.