Beginning on January 19th, and ending on April 27th, I stitched for 15 minutes nearly every day on this super fun project. Once in a while I missed a day, but just stitched double time the next. Inspired by Ann Wood and her handmade website, I followed her directions and ended up with a sweet fabric book!
I stitched the book 100% by hand, including constructing the book itself. Some of the pages are wonky, and slightly different sized, even though they all started out 5 1/2x7 inches, raw edged. I used a lot of my home-grown, hand-dyed fabrics. I used bits of my paternal grandmother’s napkins. I used a feather, I used a few bits of birch bark, I used some William Morris fabric and batiks, too. I used some selvedges. I used cotton thread and embroidery floss and metallic thread. I didn’t buy anything for this project. Everything came out of my stash.
At the outset, I did not have any specific ideas about what I wanted to sew. Instead, I followed Ann’s advice to do “improvisational stitching, a “yes, and” approach”.
So I let my mind and hands wander, with thread and needle. Sometimes I dropped into that lovely state of flow where I’d get lost in my thoughts for a bit. As I sewed my way through 100 days, I processed a few things, I had revelations, I discerned some new paths forward.
And so, I titled my fabric book, Sometimes when we wander we end up being led.
Front cover: hand-dyed moon and tools of the trade. Brown title patch dyed with birchbark.
Left: Scraps of Ikat from an old skirt, another hand dyed moon, and a feather found on the ground. Right: light blue sky and shibori below made from indigo grown here at out bit of earth. Appliqué batik bird from blouse circa 1975.
Left: Appliquéd napkins. Right: home-grown, hand-dyed indigo, appliquéd with a bit of napkin. Pocket made of shweshwe fabric, printed in South Africa. The bits of paper are a collection of words that launched my original blog way back in 2009.
Left: Log cabin pieced with cottons dyed with birch catkins, yellow onion skins, tansy, marigold and Black Hopi sunflowers and some William Morris scraps and some indigo-dyed raw silk. Right: appliquéd and reverse appliquéd circles stitched with commercial fabrics and hand dyed indigo on raw silk. Background fabric, dyed with marigolds from my cousin’s garden in NM, mordanted with alum.
Left: background hand-dyed with madder root, appliquéd with bits of birch and fern fabrics. Embroidered with cotton floss. Right: background fabric hand-dyed with birch bark. Square “buttons” made with birch bark scraps. Embroidered with floss.
Left: I’ve loved arches as sewing motifs for ages. The sunshine is stitched with Shibori style, tansy dyed cotton, the arch surrounding it was dyed with marigolds. Appliquéd bird, “singing” with beads. Right: Cotton background dyed with yellow onion skins, pebbles appliquéd with some commercially dyed and some hand dyed fabrics.
Left: selvedge and sprouts print from Bookhou, purchased years ago. French knotted tiny circles of an assortment of hand-dyed fabric and a commercially produced fern fabric. Right: Commercial batik appliquéd onto linen hand-dyed with avocado pits and skins, using the clothespin technique of resist. Embroidered with French knots, cotton floss.
Left: reverse appliquéd constellations, embroidered pines on a swatch of raw silk, hand-dyed with indigo, with a strip of selvedge on top. Right: cotton background hand-dyed with Black Hopi sunflowers. Fresh indigo leaves, pounded onto cotton, with indigo-dyed raw silk appliquéd below..
Left: the perennial fave, a mini nine patch, stitched with a variety of scraps. Ceramic button, too. Right: Two commercial cottons and hand-dyed indigo, again, using the clothespin Shibori style.
Spread: commercial fabrics, appliquéd and pieced and wonky! xo
Back cover: commercial fabrics and cotton hand-dyed with birch bark. Wooden buttons, stamped date.
I’ve used this project to meld the sewing and the sowing in my life…sewing with fabrics dyed with plants we gathered and grew (sowed) here at our bit of earth in Central Vermont! What a treat to have such wonderful instructions, shared by Ann Wood. How could I not be tempted to try another book sometime this fall?
My friend Cathleen (tqoe…”The Queen of Everything”) has been sending me pictures of her stitching now and then.
Have YOU stitched a book? Let us know!
xo