Wednesday, April 23, 2014

A Bitty Book is Bound

After quite a bit of trial and error I do believe I've got a system down by which a bitty book may be bound. A bit of color touch up gets the ball rolling...
 
 ...quickly followed a trimming of the pages.
 
 Folding goes fast and that is a very good thing indeed because by this time I can hardly wait to get to the next step.
 
 I have found I absolutely LOVE the process of stitching the pages together!
 
 It's so much fun to be able to turn the pages one by one.
 
 But before it can have a proper read through it does so need a front and back cover to keep it tidy!
 
 And so I gave it one!
 
Unfortunately, I soon noticed a slight problem being that little Lucy's pinafore took on quite the yellow cast once the two were paired up. Hmm....this would not do!
 
 Thus out came the paints again, only this time a "Bleached White" replaced the "Vintage White" I had previously thought perfection.
 
 Even Lucy agreed it was a much needed improvement.
 
Of course this is not the end of book binding adventures for me.
Being that this bitty one measures a tad under two inches square, reading it can be a wee bit of a challenge and so  I'll be working out the details of a more "handy" version next. The plan is to have an assortment of both book sizes and some little Lucy's ready to start making themselves available in the shop on May Day. Oh, and I haven't forgotten her velvet cushion either. That will follow soon after along with some other little goodies that I can't wait to start playing with!
 
 


Tuesday, April 8, 2014

A Patchwork Tale

 And so it seems, with the reveal of little Lucy's patchwork of memories, that
Book One is concluded. What's that? Book One you say?
 
Yup, you heard correctly!
I've decided to tell the story of Lucy's memories in a series of mini books.
Collectively they will be called The Patchwork Tales but individually each will have it's own title.
 
 Book One has been named Attic Days...pretty basic I know.
To make it a little more interesting, however,  I thought it would be fun to also associate each book with a patchwork block pattern. Can you guess which one this is?
 
It's called "Spools" and I first thought of how much it fit in with Lucy's world way back here.  
 
 With the pages completed it was time consider how in the world they could be patched together into a book. Lucky for me I have a dear hubby with all the techno voodoo knowledge needed to put my scrappy papers onto a shiny new disk.
 
 Follow that with one quick pop in to Staples for some printing hocus pocus and....
 
Ta-dah!
 
 
But wait! That's not all....
Lucy thought the project needed one more touch, something a bit more delicate.
And so, with a sweet sprinkling of fairy dust, an itty bitty version of the mini book is officially underway!

Stayed Tuned....

 
 


Tuesday, April 1, 2014

From the Inside Out

The glimpses of sunshine and chanced birdsong did much to brighten Lucy’s existence in that dim attic and the comforts of her basket home kept her tucked away from the worst of the drafts. For these things she was very grateful. There was, however, one more thing that Lucy had. It was perhaps her greatest treasure even though it could not be seen, or heard, or felt. It was glorious and heartwarming in ways no dormer window or velvet cushion could ever hope to be and it was never out of her reach for it lived deep within every fiber of her little wooden being. It was her ability to remember, and although each recalled event was no more than a snippet of the past, over the years she had stitched them into a patchwork of memories that comforted her from the inside out.