A gift that went awry, part II

If you missed yesterday's post (part 1 of this story), you can see it by clicking here.

When I finished assembling the pages for the book I was making for Krisha,

I took these two photos.

Then panic set in, because I couldn't find any more photos.  None, zip, zilch.  And the book was already in Krisha's hands.  How would I be able to show all I did over the course of about three weeks?  Then something wonderful happened.  I took some photos of a sunrise (we all know what those are for).  When I was taking them off my SD card, I realized I had never removed the rest of the ones I took for this book.

So, dear friends, here is the rest of the story:

This is probably the third time in my life I've pinned anything!  Will wonders ever cease to exist.

The completed front cover to Krisha's book when finished.  Since I've already shown the pages individually, I'll let you peruse them at your own pace.

Inside front and page 1.

Pages 2 and 3.

Pages 4 and 5.

 Pages 6 and 7.

Page 8 and inside back cover.

Hand stamped heart using Bleubeard's and my signature stamps, colored with handmade shimmering mists, and sprigs of rosemary from my garden.

For the outside back (shown before assembly) I stacked hand dyed and commercial fabric over misted tyvek.

After reviewing the photos, I realized I didn't show how the book went together.

Those brown pieces at the top of each page like the one shown above, are used to hold the pages together.  Each piece was a different size, so sandwiching the two "pages" together was a nightmare of my own doing.  But, the idea was, to cut heavy cardstock (I used 110 lb white) to just slightly smaller than the size of the fabric, then add about an inch and a half to the top.  That top area was then scored and painted on both sides.

The cardstock is used so the pages will stand on their own and are sandwiched between two of the finished pages.  You sew the cardstock to one fabric piece, then the other fabric piece.  That comprises two pages.  What you see above are two pages.  When I add another assembly (two more fabric pages sewn back to back), I overlapped the brown areas and sewed them together.  In other words, those brown areas were made up the gutter.

Did I lose you?  Once the assembly is complete (4 pages), I added fabric to both sides that covered the brown I so carefully painted.

At the risk of being redundantly redundant, you can see an example which I showed in the second photo of this post.  (See how neither of the "signatures" and gutters were the same size?)

My big problem is, and Ruth Rae's instructions never addressed it, that half the pages are upside down when you flip through the book.  You have to turn the book around to see the "backs" of each page, or otherwise stand on your head.

I hope you enjoyed this two day adventure of how I made this book.  If any one can tell me what I did wrong, I'm open to any and all options and suggestions.  And if you own Layered, Tattered, and Stitched by Ruth Rae, the name of the project is called (and this is her spelling, not mine) "Ancestory Album."  Maybe you'll see something I didn't.