artJOURNALING daily...wildly stitched art journal covers
If you have seen my handmade art journal collections, you know that most of my journals have wildly embellished free motion stitched covers. Nothing is off limits, I stitch together everything...paper, newsprint, transparencies, painted fabric, photocopies of my orignal artwork and leftover collage paintings. I enjoy doodling with the sewing machine, it's similar to using a pen, but my mark-making tool is my Janome machine with a darning foot. {click on the photos for more details}
some handy sewing tips and ideas...
- explore designing your OWN art journal...it's so much more person than store bought journals.
- work serendipidously...I don't pre-plan my stitched collage, I grab pieces and attach them as I sew
- doodle around interesting shapes and painted colors of the fabric.
- use CONTRAST colors..experiment with using two different thread colors for stitching. I like to use a bright rayon for the top and a different color cotton in the bobbin
- I use silence cloth, warm & natural, colored felt or Pellon Legacy bamboo batting to create my art quilt sandwiches
- art quilt sandwich= painted fabric top piece + batting + colorful painted or vintage fabric bottom
- make two art quilt sandwhiches then find interesting and fun ways to join them together to create a unique journal cover
- explore "couching" stitching fibers and threads onto the surface
- TIP: make sure your paint/markers are DRY before you stitch
- don't forget...you can stitch art journal pages too!
- experiment with Heat-n-Bond Lite if you want to hold your collage pieces in place. This is helpful if you have smaller squares or rectangles when making a patchwork collage.
- You can find a number of stitching ideas in my book Collage Unleashed
- see more of my art journals here and here.
happy stitching...xoxo~treiC