Karen Ruane

a little artist book play

Yesterday was spent with artist books, refreshing my memory, making plans for new books, adding to already worked pages.

Later today I am going to think about the idea I had in this post for adding lace pieces to my 'doodle doo' sketchbook.

I am thinking my lace pieces are actually too big for doodle doo though. I will have a look and if they are too big I will make new plans for them but now that I have reminded myself how much I love my 'doodle doo' sketchbook I might be compelled to work in it a little more with new pieces.

Alchemy 2020, my new class is due to begin on Monday....yikes....you can read more about that here but if you are registered, to confirm, our first post will actually be tommorow.

I hope your needles are sharpened!

adding beads, a patchwork page keeper

I think I mentioned when I made the first patchwork page keep for one of my little books that there would be more.

Here is the second one!

There is a video here of me putting this little book together if you missed it.

patchwork page keeper

Last time I posted about this little book I mentioned I would need a wrap or something similar to hold the pages open as it refuses to stay open on its own.

My intention was to create a wrap which would be attached to the front cover and fold over any page.

Instead I have embroidered a little bookmark/page keeper using one inch hexagons and beads.

Now all I have to do is restrain myself from making one of these for every artist book in the house!

(if you are registered for my new class you should have received an email from me this morning and an invitation to join our private Flickr group. If you haven't received either of those can you please let me know)

filling pages

This little thing is filling up! It's my three inch by three inch hand made notebook and it's changed somewhat since you last saw it.

Stitching in this is a lovely diversion, I can lose myself, let my mind wander. Fiddly yes but oh so therapeutic too.

pom poms, Suffolk puffs and pages

When you saw the picture of my ironing board yesterday what you were seeing was my attempt to gather 'bits' to further embellish pages in my little stitched notebooks. The results are below. A little stitched page titivated with Suffolk puffs and pom poms.

Just a reminder about my new embroidery class which begins at the end of this month, 'an embroiderers cloth'. You can read more here if you have missed it.

the next page

The next page/sample/test/exercise. This page is working for me, there is another layer to come which isn't in these images, it's not quite ready. What I'm not so happy with is where the two pages here come together, all that white space.

That's what sampling is for isn't it, assessing, changing things. Hopefully that is how 'artist book explorations' will evolve too, testing, sampling and changing where necessary, moving work forward in a different manner.

So what to do about this one? all that white space? The toggles will be removed and saved for a different area and the new page will be laid over that area, softening that space.

four hand pieced pages

This is what's been keeping me busy, pages for my 'little book of sewing' which we are working on in class. There are four here, I need six. Once these are embroidered they will be folded, attached back to back and then we will need to add more......yes girls....I speak about this in our next post so don't worry.

This photograph really doesn't do these justice. I wish you could handle them, feel the weight, feel the texture.

little book of sewing

This delicate stitching on lace and paper is my work from 'the little book of sewing', my current online class. In our second post on Monday I sent the class off to titivate pages and I'm trying to keep up. Out of sight are my samples of simple dressmaking techniques which I hope will live happily on this page and the other pages we create.

(forgot to say, this is part of a page, the piece with the lace and pink ribbon)

I have spent this morning battling seams and turning fabrics right side out. Suffice to say....I have a headache.

notebook pages

Beading an edge, before and after. Some of these images were taken before I added the over long beads.

I'm continuing to embroider this little notebook, working on each page in turn until I can't go any further. There is a new page in progress although I'm not completely certain I have finished this one yet. I see space for detailed colour studies, stitched colour studies, cross stitch, French knots, simple running stitches.

books, pages, ledgers,

Last time I was here I spoke about my happy place...and to remind you here is the quote,

''this is definitely where I am happiest....in 'that place' embellishing little sketchbooks, tiny notebooks and ledgers with stitch, beads, knots and buttons, creating my own heavily embellished pages from self made cloth, creating fluffy, soft, white and lace like fabrics...yes, definitely my happy place.''

Today's images are an illustration of that. Looking at the last image which is how my table looked just before I turned the lights out and climbed the stairs last night I finally felt as if I had turned a corner.

The first class of 2020 is listed here. It won't surprise you to hear that it's book related.