China Book is finished

I finally did it! I'm not entirely satisfied, but I've decided to accept it as is and try to do better with the Japan book.

I had to remove all of the pockets from the front of the bag; it was just too large. I had hoped to put the small one, upper right, back at the lower right and decided it wouldn't work.

I did a photo transfer on the now empty front section of the bag. I consulted several books and the internet and my friend SandyB, who is wonderfully creative, gave me some excellent advice. I printed this photo backwards, with China 2008 added to it, on an inkjet transparency.

 
After I brushed acrylic medium on the fabric I placed it ink side down and rubbed the front of the transparency. This kind of transfer is usually done with paper, rubbing removing the paper from a film created by covering the ink with the medium, and involving lots of careful brushing and waiting for the medium to dry. Using a transparency bypasses all of that but results leave something to desire.

I embroidered the letters and the red banner, which hardly showed up at all in the transfer. Then I added the beads, bone soaked in black coffee, at the bottom, and the pieces of silk fabric at the top. The back of the bag had a large pocket that I retained. I write all of the files for the book on a DVD and put it in the pocket, just in case I want to do it again.



Binding boards get cut to size (9x11.5) then a half inch gets cut off the binding side and glued a quarter inch from the larger board. This enables the cover to open properly. After the fabric was glued to the boards, keeping everything clamped together, I drilled five tiny holes within that quarter inch space, then sewed the entire thing together using linen carpet thread from Ireland. Directions for sewing can be found here.