My Summer Obsession

Do you remember summer?
This is a photo of Port Burwell Beach on Lake Erie in late summer.
Gorgeous sky!

This summer I couldn't remember what I did. Oh yes, I went to Sandra's classes on Art Journaling at her Open Studio. I became possessed with this project which is still under construction. It is called 'The Rose Journal'. I was inspired with a doodle I did of roses and of course my mom's name is Rose ( sentimental meaning) . My favourite saying is: Take the time to smell the roses! This is the cover made of paper and fabric and machine quilted and hand embroidered. I added stitch to almost all the pages.

This is the back cover with only free motion stitch added.

Page 1
All of the edges of the pages are collaged and embellished.

I did a lot of collaging and painting on each page. Here I added a small stitchery on woven rug canvas.
Here I added a page of journaling, a drawing and a quote about roses on a paint chip.

One of our classes included a calligraphy lesson with Sharon Chalmers. R is for Roses.

Another stitchery from painted fabric. Every splash of paint became a stitched rose.

I love this painted and stamped page, the metallic paint just shimmers. I also added a painted and woven fabric stitchery. I embellished with embroidery of course.

Another rose embroidery and real rose petals collaged around the vintage photo. The painted and stamped page has small saying about roses in each frame. Do you like the button border?

This spread the one of the first I completely finished. It has vintage laces attached.

This page reminds me of 'Me!" I had blonde, curly hair when I was young. I now have that Passion for Art. The background is painted, collaged and painted again and again! The white paint pen is just the right touch.

This was the first page I worked on and it was totally frustrating. It has numerous layers of paint and collage. Sandra says that it must get ugly before it gets beautiful. Well, it was so ugly I almost painted black over the whole page until I stamped squares on it to integrate the images together. Integration is so important!

You can see the small elements in each of the windows.

This is a Close up of the back inside cover showing the freemotion stitching designs inspired by Leah Day's 365 days of Free motion quilting. So you can see how busy I was this summer and I still have a lot of details to add. Now I see I missed the centrefold page that has my inspiration doodle. I'll post it next time, hopefully all finished. Off to do Studio Tour for the next two days. I made 25 fabric collaged book marks and now my Pfaff is sick. She won't do zigzag for me. Next week the repair shop. Good thing I have my old Pfaff machine that still hums along nicely to finish all my bookmarks. Until next time, keep stitching!