A gift that went awry, part 1

I want to begin this tale with a spoiler alert.  Halle, if you want to be surprised, don't read this post.

This tale begins when I was trying to find a nice gift to make for my friend Halle's birthday, which is was May 5.  Yes, I realize I'm a bit late this year.  At first I decided to make a sort of banner (or as my British friends call it, a bunting).

I dyed a bunch of fabric, along with some I'd previously dyed, and tore it to size.  That's a bit of a misnomer, because I have never made anything fabric "to size" in my life.  I even attached a few strings to these pieces, which I eventually removed. 

Then it hit me that Halle had made a bunch of these fabric flags that she strings outside around her veggie garden and deck garden each year.  What WAS I thinking?  Only my subconscious knows.  I sure don't!
I was stuck on the idea of creating a gift from Layered, Tattered, and Stitched by Ruth Rae because Halle had won my extra copy last year.  I can't remember, but it may have been THIS year before she received it.  As Halle says, "It's how we (meaning Halle and me) roll."  Regardless, I got it in my head to make this handmade book.  Unfortunately, it's the hardest entry in the book, or at least I think it is.  Add to that the fact, I couldn't make sense of the directions, even after reading them FOUR times.

Then I had a giveaway on my blog.

Some of you may even remember that I drew Krisha's name.  Now I realize it would have been nice to make a very, very personal book for Krisha like she made for me, but I had already started making two: one for Halle and one for whoever won the giveaway.

However, something happened on the way to completion.  I simply have NO idea how it's supposed to fit together.  So I have yet to make Halle's.  I told my friend Sally that I could always make Halle's the same way I made Krisha's and let Halle figure out what I did wrong by reading the directions in the book.

Before I show these pages, let me warn everyone about this fabric book.  If you are here to see even, precise stitching, pages that match up perfectly, and items that go together in harmony, I suggest you walk away.  Click to another blog because you will NOT find any of those things here.  You will find stitches that don't match up, fabrics that aren't the same size, and pieces that look like they should never have been put together.  Having been forewarned, please proceed at your own discretion.

As I began putting everything together, I took photos of all the pages, not knowing which pages would go in which book when I did.

(This page contains snow dyed fabric, part of a man's tie, and two ribbons)

Only later did I consider what pages needed to go in each book.

(This page contains snow dyed fabric, a dyed hand wipe, part of a man's tie, gold ribbon, three buttons, craft felt, and rick rack)

Luckily for me (but not for Halle), I still have all her pages, but haven't started her cover yet.

Two detail shots show I used snow dyed fabric for the base, over which I added hand dyed lace.  To that I added white cotton lace from an old blouse, and five hearts (three hidden) made from ink dyed (handmade shimmering mists) tyvek.  I stamped a swirl on the alcohol and Staz-on dyed fabric.

I found this vintage photo in my stash and added it to this page because Krisha uses a lot of this type of image in her art.

That's Mexican sage caught under the lamination material that I sewed over snow dyed fabric.

Another snow dyed fabric is the substrate for this page.  I added a piece of old lace at the bottom to make it the right length.

Words cut from a book, along with a piece of old measuring tape seem to spring from this fabric flower I found in my stash.

Originally I planned this page for Halle, but needed one more for Krisha's book.  The fabric backing was made using oatmeal resist.

I laminated both the photo, again found in my stash, and the flower that I pressed last year.

A hodge podge of fabrics were used on this page.  The main background is snow dyed, over which I painted some acrylic, while the blue that peeks out below was some left over from an oatmeal resist session.  The orange should look familiar if you were here when I colored my second Summer of Color entry.  The pink at the top is left over from some I made from a pair of my shorts.  The glitzy fabric on the upper left was left after I cut my friend Kathy's cuff down to size.  Of course, the white is, as mentioned before, from a blouse I cut up.

Yes, I stamped!  The assembly needed something, so I added the face.  Isn't the background fabric lovely?  This is oatmeal resist, and I always love how it turns out.  Very different from flour resist, which was used in the face assembly and at the bottom under the lace..

I added three buttons, along with a piece of commercial fabric and a colored heart cut from tyvek, which I encased in pink tulle.

This is where the story takes a rather quirky turn.  Please visit tomorrow to see the rest of the story.  This would be too hard to load all the photos, otherwise.

Since many pieces were recycled, I'm trying to get in under the wire by joining one final time at

Moo-Mania and More for their recycle challenge.  I also have Moo-Mania and More recycled projects here, here, here, and here.