Buried Treasure, 2015: Confessions of a non-sewer

I'm once again joining Seth Apter at The Altered Page

for his 7th annual Buried Treasure hunt.

Similar to my Second on the 2nd (where you feature a post on the second of each month from your past you are especially proud of, or one you shared before anyone knew your blog existed), Seth only features his event once a year.  And lots of people play.  In fact, I've played for the past six years and wouldn't miss it for the world.  Why, you ask?  Because it's where I see some of the finest mixed media art in the entire solar system.

Of course, we have Seth to thank for this annual event, because if he hadn't put it together, I for one, would never have known there were other mixed media artists out there.  So, thanks SETH! 

This post was dug up from my blog from November 27, 2014.  It's a bit mixed media, but it's more hilarious, especially if you are a seamstress or sewist or whatever the term is for a person who makes lovely, accurate art pieces using their sewing machine (and more than likely a rotary cutter).

Although I did a tiny bit of editing (especially pronunciations), here is the post of when I made a scrappy journal cover:

I am NOT a seamstress.  I sew.  That makes me a sewer (pronounced SOer, not SUEer).  So if you came to see lovely sewing today, perfect stitches, detailed cutting, straight seams, linings that fit flawlessly, and everything matching, you might as well forget it and move on.  All you will get here is a good belly laugh.  This post could easily be called "how NOT to make a journal cover."   If you are a sewing perfectionist, you will either laugh or walk away in shock.

Your first indication should be the fabric I chose for this project.  My dear friend Sally gave this to me, and I debated what to use it for.  I can assure you, it would NOT fit me.  Actually, it would fit me about three times around.

One of the benefits was, it was white on one side and striped on the other.  At least I had a color choice.  After all, I'm driven by color.  You can see I've already started to tear it to "size."  Size is a term I use quite loosely.  I'm driven by color, not actual, or even realistic, fabric dimensions.

I missed photographing a few steps here.  I tore the outside fabric, which I will show in a moment, then I tore the inside fabric, which I show here.  I also tore some old jeans fabric and sewed two pockets: one to hold pens or pencils, the other to hold notes, tags, and/or ephemera that can be added to the journal.  You can see the inside does NOT line up with the outside.  Note also how I had to lap the inside over after I had sewn the two pieces together (SAD, but remember, color is my only strong suit)!!!  One thing I did remember was to add the closure, which was a purple ponytail holder.

Note how dark it is outside when I started this project.  The outside of this scrappy journal has a painted and stamped fabric piece I made quite some time ago.  I got tired of looking at it, and decided to use it on the cover.  I'm not sure you can tell, but the inside fabric STILL does NOT line up with the outside fabric seen on the right side of this photo, even after I "reworked" it by folding it over. 

Here it's even more obvious, and you can see my wonky stitches that hold the two sides together.  Nothing precise in my sewing world, because I'm driven by color.

After I assembled the papers that would go in the scrappy journal, I successfully sewed one signature into the book.  (For those of you not sure what a signature it, it is a set of pages, also known as a section, or specific number of pages that are bound together in the middle.)  But as I was sewing the second signature to the cover, I broke my needle, seen here on my sewing machine.  That put a real smile on my face (NOT).  Note how it's now nearly mid-day.

I finally got another needle (these needles are about $2.00 USD each), and attached the second set of pages.  I was really pleased with myself, until


I turned the book over and realized I had created this mess when I sewed the second signature.  All I could do was laugh and rip the stitches out.  So with thread ripper in hand, I set out to remove the errant stitches.  Why is there always time for rework, but never time to do it right the first time?

This journal was certainly living up to its scrappy journal name!

I was ready to try again, and this time, I got it right.  Or at least as "right" as this color driven sewer could.  Although you can't tell, it's started to turn dark again and I haven't added a single embellishment, either.

Feeling incredibly pleased with my accomplishment, and rather than spending time embellishing the first journal, I set out to create my second cover.  However, after I "sized" and sewed the front cover to the focal piece,

and finished the inside cover, it was time to put everything away, because I was expecting company in less than an hour.  Sad, but true, I spent over nine hours putting these two covers (and two signatures) together.

I hope you laughed at this tale of sewing domesticity.  I'm sure I'll laugh at this post in about 10 to 20 years, too.



Actually, I'm laughing now and shaking my head at how much I've learned about cutting and making these scrappy journal covers since I created this post in 2014.

Thank you for visiting during Seth's Buried Treasure.  I'll be by soon to see your buried treasure, too.  I hope your buried treasure isn't quite the disaster mine turned out to be, but I could have picked a different post if I hadn't wanted you to laugh at my amateurish sewing skills.  I truly hope you enjoyed it! 

BTW, if you are on Google + only, I am unable to leave comments, because they insist I join in order to leave one.  That will only happen when hell freezes over, or Blogger goes exclusively to G+.  It all depends on how you set up your comments, I'm sure because I have no trouble leaving them on some G+ blogs that are attached to Blogger.