The Gift

I had such a wonderful surprise when my art group presented me with a giant bin full of their fabric scraps this week! I delighted in each and every one of them--the good, the bad and the ugly--they will all find a place somewhere. I spread them out on my floor and admired each in detail and let the possibilities flow.

Usually when I haven't worked for a while (Like Now!), I get back into things by playing in a mixed media journal. This time I decided to play with all those new fabric scraps and try a little pocket folder I saw in the Jan./ Feb. issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Heidi Sekovski and Karin Winter describe how they make a Folder Journal out of a standard manilla file folder. It reminded me of the very fun journal for Mexico I made in Mary Ann Moss's online Remains of the Day class. You can see that one here.

The Folder Journal is made by sewing paper and fabric onto a manilla folder, then folding and stitching little pockets in it for your journal papers. Here's mine, without any journaling paper in the pockets:

The Front:
The Back:
The In-Between:
It was fun to dig through my new bin of scraps and see what would work. I made a lot of mistakes with this one and found that I would revise their directions next time. If you decide to try one, I recommend adding all the fabric and embellishments that you want before you fold it into the journal shape. Once that's done, you can't get into areas to stitch stuff on. I have enough scraps now, that I just might try another one.