This is a book-box I made for my friend Jane. I had started with another book, but I made a mistake on that one and glued the back cover to the inside before I was ready. This one I kept it free and didn’t glue on the inside until I was prepared.
One of the details I did for this book was to inset magnets into the book block and the front cover so that it will stay shut. I had to sort of force it shut afterwards with heavy weights for a few days because I added bulk with the cover, so if I do it again, I may remove a few pages to compensate. The magnet is inset. I bought a special hole punch just for that purpose.
The cover is part of a blue and brown paisely fat quarter. I printed on it with monoprints, but wasn’t happy with the way it turned out. I did have a monoprint from a sheet of tissue paper that looked great, with those ornate mandalas layered over each other, so I pasted the tissue paper down to the fabric. Then I started picking out pieces of the design with paints. I also sewed on some blue and green iridescent beads. You can’t tell much from this image, but there’s interference paint here too, blue and gold, so that it shimmers a little in certain triangles when you shift it from side to side.
Jane really appreciates hand-made goods, and has a nice collection. People like that make me want to try hard to make something special. I hope she likes it, even though it’s late for her birthday.
