Library Paradise

Musings on creating a book quilt

I’ve been thinking about how to create a book quilt for awhile.  I’d made some sketches of a soft chair with a cat and a book.  “No,” I decided, “too much emphasis on chairs and cats.”  And one day when I was looking for images of open books, I had the idea to photograph an old dictionary. Open book, to the page of a loon and I took several pictures.  Then I wanted the vantage point of the pages of the book on its side as it lies open.  Oh, nice pictures due to the soft green wall in the background showing.  Oh good, some interesting pictures of the stitching to hold the book together.  Creating books fascinates me almost as much as working with mixed media.

I played with the images and put some fabric and book images together.  I did this playing with the images on my computer.  I cut 5 pieces of fabric into rectangles 8.5” x 11” and then treated the fabric and hung it up on a drying rack to dry.  When the fabric was dry, I ironed it flat and placed freezer paper on the wrong side of the fabric.  And then I taped the edge that would feed into the printer to allow it to flow through and print without jamming.  I printed 3 sheets of lovely book images.

 

I thought I was complete and then I decided to add brads, and a bookmark.  That took a few more tools.

I enjoy adding interesting ephemera to my quilts.  In this quilt there are 3 brads, one braided embroidery floss bookmark, and one saying.

 When I felt complete, I added my signature and date.  I like the sepia color for the signature.

 Library Paradise, 12" x 12".