Travel gold

I thought that this would be quite a good link for TIOT's metal challenge.

For a few yearsI had the pleasure of attending a summer school at Galashiels in the Scottish borders area. We learnt all kinds of things, mainly to do with embroidery as it was run by the Embroiderers Guild Scottish branches. I decided that I wanted to make a cover for an art book that I planned to take on a road trip.

I have used a carved wooden printing block to create the pattern on the front cover, stamped with a gold fabric paint & then added some puff paint (black) - once it was fairly dried I heated it with my heat gun to make it puff...that's such fun! After I had got it all puffed up and it was cured it was time to go over it some metallic paints in various shades of gold, bronze, copper & mauve.

The centres of the little squares were then further decorated with seed beads, some of them are metallic. I stitched a grid by hand with some variegated threads.

The shoe came off a birthday card which happened whilst we were on the road trip, the cicada was to remind me of the crushing heat of travelling through central Spain in July! 

The back cover was another piece of black felt that's been painted with puff paint, there is black ink & a touch of treasure gold for the outer frame. The inner panel is puff paint and metallic paints in copper, gold & bronze. Again I have done some stitches (chain st) using a variegated thread and embellished with more seed beads.

The spiral binding has assorted ribbon, yarn & fabric strips tied onto it & a few even have charms ( scissors, 2 articulated fish, a beaded tassel & a heart)

The closure is a length of variegated yarn that has been oversewn with metallic machine embroidery thread.

It has some lovely memories of a fabulous journey through Spain in it :-)