Book-Binding

Posted on October 7, 2026 by craftycreeky

Last week I went on a book-binding course at the Leeds Print Workshop, it’s just outside Leeds city centre but within walking distance (10minutes) of the bus station, so ideal for non-drivers like myself. It was an introductory course so I hoped I would learn techniques which would transfer to my fabric books and maybe inspire a new hobby!

It was great, the tutor was great, good at explaining techniques, helpful where needed, very knowledgeable and interesting. There were only six on the course so we could all see and hear easily and the tutor had plenty of time for us.

We made four different books over the day, starting with a notebook made using pamphlet stitch which is certainly usable with fabric books. Our second book was made with stab binding, its the one with the stitching on the outside. I like this but it would certainly need more planning as each page needs extra space on the side for the binding.

After lunch we made the concertina book. This was our introduction to making a hard backed cover using a piece of buckram to cover the grey card. This is a no stitch technique, it’s all glue.

Our final book blew my mind! I’m calling it the magic book, or the exploding book!! It’s the little teal coloured square book in the photo. It’s made with three squares of paper which are folded diagonally and straight before being glued together at an overlapping square. It can then be folded flat but bursts out when you start to open it. I was lucky too in finding three sheets of gelli-printed paper which followed into each other. I love this one and I’m now trying to work out how to make one in fabric!! A variation on English paper piecing is what I’m thinking of at the moment!!

Isn’t that clever!!

I’d definitely recommend the Leeds Print workshops, I’m hoping to go back for another day, either on different aspects of book-binding or a print making technique. It’s run as a co-operative with various printmakers and artists all sharing the space, running workshops etc. If you join as a member you can also use the facilities there to do your own work.

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Foragers Stitch Journal HQAL

Posted on October 4, 2026 by craftycreeky

My foragers journal is coming along nicely, three weeks ago I was up to date waiting for the next instalment to arrive from Pretty Fabrics and Trims...

When my September parcel arrived I was pleased to see it was of blackberries. There are quite a lot of blackberry bushes on the back lane and I often go blackberry picking with the dog – I think she gets a bit bored but then she’s happy to go slow and sniff at times too! I put cartons of blackberries in the freezer so I can make blackberry and apple crumble in the winter. This summer I also made summer pudding with them which was delicious. This year the blackberries are quite small due to the lack of rain, a friend of mine grows them in a pot up a wigwam, he gets loads and they’re easy to pick – I’m tempted to try this!

I’ve stitched most of the letters, I tend to do a threads worth then do a bit of the picture, then another thread…then I’m not left with all the writing to do at once. The stem and the leaves were stitched first, split stitch for the stem and fishbone stitch for the leaves.

The blackberries are stitched with French knots in four different shades of red, purple and grey. I’ve just used two shades so far. Some of my blackberries are coming out a bit square so I think I need to round the off a bit. I’ve done the French knots a little bigger than the instructions – three threads rather than two and I’ve done two wraps on most of them which I think gives a nice plump effect. There’s six blackberries altogether – you can just see the outline of the sixth one under one of the leaves.

The border round the blackberries is fly stitch if I remember correctly, so that should be fairly quick to stitch.

October’s design isn’t due until the end of the month, so hopefully I’ll be ready and waiting by then. I think this will be the last page to stitch before November and December when I reckon we will make the cover and put it all together.

This Hand Quilt-a-long is organised by Kathy, we post our progress every three weeks, please follow the links and see what everyone else has been stitching. We are delighted that Sharon has rejoined our little group again.

Kathy, Deb, Sharon, Karrin, and Daisy

I’ll also be linking up to Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday.

Posted in embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Lace Journal Construction

Posted on September 28, 2026 by craftycreeky

I did promise a post on how I put my lace journal together, we then had family to stay, holidays…recovery from holidays…and the days go by!

I posted about the various different pages I put together and the embroidery I added. I ended up with eight double page spreads, all double-sided too. I also had several pages which were simply one length of lace. I included a piece of my wedding dress lace, some beautiful wide vintage lace I had in my stash and other laces I had collected over the years.

I folded the pages and put them in an order I was happy with, some of the thinner pages had extra pieces of lace added, bulkier pages were just on their own. I ended up with nine groups of pages to be stitched in.

I puzzled for a while what type of fabric I should use as the binding as it did need to be fairly firm. By chance one of our members brought a pile of fabrics to my Skipton Stitchers meeting which she didn’t want anymore. Amongst them was a piece of stiff canvas type fabric…Perfect!

I worked out the size I wanted the cover – extra long as I wanted a tri-fold cover. I then worked our the spacings if I was to have six stitches. I made a cardboard stencil which I used both for marking the pages and also for marking the cover.

On the spine I measured out nine lines 1/4″ apart. I marked the lines on the outside with a frixion pen. The fabric was very dense so I used the awl end of one of my seam rippers to make holes ready for stitching. This worked really well and certainly made it much easier.

I added a piece of lace to lie between the spine and the pages, the idea being that it wouldn’t be so obvious when you could see in between the pages. The photo above is after I had stitched five pages in. I used perle thread as I felt it was pretty strong. The photo below shows the lace underneath and the second page going in before I tightened the threads.

I tried to keep the stitches firm but not so tight they would distort the pages or the spine. I went from one page straight to the next one and tied it off at the end. For once all the preparation in measuring and marking worked and it all went together first time.

To cover the outer canvas I used a piece of my wedding dress lace which was quite a heavy, beaded lace. I turned it over the edges and also extended the flap with it by about 1.5″ as I wanted a bit more of a wrap around. For the inside I used some beautiful silk satin which was left over from a wedding dress I made for a friend.

I stitched the title on some linen and stitched it onto a piece of vintage lace before using bondaweb to secure to the first page.I wanted a tie round the book, I tried various things, a length of sari silk, some lace, I eventually decided on some satin edged tule ribbon, I used the sari silk strip to make a flower with a lace motif flower in the middle to cover where the ribbon was attached.

My lace journal was finally finished. I love it, it has the overflowing with lace feel to it that I wanted.

I have a short video of the book on my instagram page, here’s a link if you want to see inside the finished book.

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Phenology Wheel SAL

Posted on September 27, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve cracked on with my phenology wheel, rather than waiting for the appropriate month, partly because I’ve just bought a BIG cross-stitch kit but I need to clear the decks a bit before I even contemplate starting it!

Three weeks ago I had just finished stitching some purple echinacea for September…

For October I decide to go for autumn colour rather than a flower. I have two euonymous alata in my garden, otherwise known as a spindle bush. I’ve just learned from google that another name is burning bush, which is rather apt as it leaves turn quite a striking red during autumn. They are beautiful at the moment. I used a variegated DMC thread for the leaves and fishbone stitch.

November has proved tricky, initially because I couldn’t think what to stitch, I then decided on cyclamen, I’ve a very pretty little clump under one of my camellia bushes. Cyclamen flowers are pretty distinctive, so they shouldn’t be that difficult to stitch! I found a simple outline drawing and used it as a basis for drawing the outline of my design with a frixion pen. I used satin stitch. After one flower I decided it was too big and heavy. Next I tried lazy daisy stitch but I still wasn’t happy. I decided to stitch December and think about my cyclamen!

My original plan was to stitch holly for December but when I thought about it, it could be quite tricky to stitch neatly. I decided instead to stitch sarcococca, otherwise known as sweet box, I have one in the back garden near the path. It looks like an insignificant evergreen, but come winter it has these tiny creamy white flowers and it fills the garden with scent. I used fishbone stitch and a variegated DMC thread again for the leaves and a mixture of pistil stitch (French knots on stalks!) and straight stitch for the flowers.

As you can see I am now on attempt three for the cyclamen flowers. I’ve resorted to fishbone stitch for the petals. I might put a little chain stitch at the base but I think the angle of the stem will be what turns it into a cyclamen as they are a bit like a shepherds crook. I’ll stitch a base of leaves and keep my fingers crossed!

Here’s the whole wheel so far, as you may notice I’ve also added another primrose to March as the segment just needed filling a bit more.

Hopefully in three weeks time it will be complete and I will have started one of my other kits.

This SAL is organised by Avis, we post our progress every three weeks, just enough to keep us motivated!. This week we are delighted to welcome Sharon back to the fold. Please follow the links and see what everyone else has been stitching.


Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen, Sharon

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Holiday Stitching

Posted on September 25, 2026 by craftycreeky

We’ve just had a few days away in Mallorca, I’ve never been to the Mediterranean so it was all new for me.

I packed some stitching of course! When I was travelling round Europe with my daughter we found a little cross-stitch shop in Bruges and both bought a kit from the same range. I bought one of blue flowers, I think my daughter bought the pink one. There were quite a few in the set, all very pretty, from a company called Le Bonheur des Dames, they have a shop in Paris but we ran out of time to visit.

I started the kit about a week before we left, stitching the iris first, it seemed to take ages , I was probably about half way through when we set off. I stitched in the airport and of course on the plane.

We stayed in Palma, did some sight-seeing and some relaxing round the pool. Now I’m not one for sunbathing, I sit under the shade of a parasol and I stitch! In the evenings when we were in our room I stitched a little more…

By the time we got home I wasn’t far off finishing it. A few more evenings and it was finished.

It’s a lovely design, I’m really pleased with it. I love the detail in it. I did make a couple of mistakes – mainly from misreading the key – the symbols for each colour weren’t unique enough for my brain! Put it this way, there were six variations of > , pointing each way and in bold!

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, it’s about 5″ square. so a nice size for a book of some kind 🙂 Once Helen has stitched here’s we can do a swap, that’s the plan.

Posted in cross-stitch, Holiday, kits, Serendipity | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Foragers Journal HQAL

Posted on September 13, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve been a busy bee over the last three weeks, we’ve had visitors this week but luckily I managed a fair bit of stitching on my Foragers journal before all the prep began. In fact, I am actually up to date with this project!!

Three weeks ago I had hand-quilted the dandelion page, embroidered the hawthorn flowers and I’d just started the elderflowers…

I cracked straight on and finished embroidering the elderflower page. I could then trim the two pages, stitch them together at the centre seam and then hand quilt them to a piece of batting. These pages are quilted using fairly simple designs with the centre square left unquilted. There’s no backing fabric so it is just quilted onto the batting. The elderflower page is quilted just using randomly placed French knots, a bit like a tied quilt. The hawthorn page is quilted with lines every half an inch.

The following month (I was very behind in the SAL!) was borage. This page was pretty quick to embroider as there is just one sprig of borage. It brought back memories as once I picked borage flowers from the garden, put them in ice cubes and used them in elderflower cordial for a summer party.

Crab apples took a little longer to stitch, the basket is stitched using chain stitch, the crab apples are all satin stitch. This page also brought back memories as we had a big crab apple tree in the garden when I was growing up. My mum would make crab apple jelly and my dad made very potent crab apple wine!

The crab apple page was quilted with on inch diagonal squares, the borage was only quilted with the inner square by the designer but I felt I wanted an extra square half an inch bigger.

All the pages are bound with tana lawn provided by Pretty Fabrics and Trims in the kits.

My next parcel arrives towards the end of the month, it seems a bit strange to be completely up to date with this project!! I think I just have one more pair of pages to stitch, making five pairs altogether, then it will just be the front and back cover.

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Deb, Margaret and Daisy

Posted in embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Lace Journal

Posted on September 10, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve been wanting to make a lace journal for a while now having seen a few on pinterest, in particular the ones that were bursting with lace, overflowing! I’ve quite a lot of lace, both new and vintage, pieces I’d bought on holiday and ones I’d bought in charity shops. Last month I finally got round to starting it.

Having pulled out the various pieces of lace onto my work bench it quickly became apparent that I would have to stitch it ‘in one go’. it couldn’t drag on for months, or even weeks, as it made so much mess!! Here’s my work space after I had sorted them a bit…

A lot of the pinterest pages I had seen were very complex with little motifs of lace cut out, lots of embroidery too. I didn’t want to spend days on each page, I also realised I really didn’t have the ideas to create the more complex pages, when I tried to put them together they were mainly lines of lace. I decided to look for a poem or piece of prose I could use. I found one by Brunonia Barry which I felt would work…

“There is lace in every living thing; the bare branches of winter, the patterns of clouds, the surface of water as it ripples in the breeze…even a wild dogs matted fur shows a lacy pattern if you look hard enough”

I loved the first three images, just wasn’t keen on the last one, and it went on too long! I decided to add a few extra lines of my own…

“the skeleton of an oakleaf, the wings of a dragonfly. Memories are entwined in lace, in weddings and christenings, holidays and happy days and times gone by.”

I used old napkins, doillies and traycloths for the backing. I wrote the words using a frixion pen, using a sepia coloured DMC thread as I didn’t want the embroidery to compete with the beautiful lace. I pinned the lace in place, then stitched it using standard sewing thread. I was using both sides of a piece of linen so I either hid the back of the stitching with more lace or just accepted it was there. The words were often stitched over the lace or following the lines of a piece of lace. Here’s one page in the preparation stage…

It took several days to make all the pages, embroidering the words and stitching down all the lace. I also included large pieces of lace, either because it was so beautiful, or sentimental, for example, there is a piece of my wedding dress lace. Pages include lace I used for my daughter’s christening gown, a cross of bobbin lace my mum made for my prayerbook cover when I was confirmed at the age of fourteen, there is also a blank page left as somewhere I have a square of bobbin lace I made when I was about twelve…I’ve put it somewhere so safe I can’t find it!

Many of the lace samples extend beyond the linen edge, I wanted that overflowing feel. I think the poem works well, I do like it when you get an idea off Pinterest and run with it!

Here’s my pages all prepared, waiting to be made into a book…and yes, there’s a page upside down in the photo!!

…and the other sides…

All I had to do now was make it into a book, but that will be another post!

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Phenology Wheel SAL

Posted on September 6, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’m managing to keep up to date with my phenology wheel, last time I posted my progress I had just finished stitching clematis for August…

You can just see on the photo above my markings for September in Frixion pen. I had already decided my flower of the month would be echinacea, otherwise known as a cone flower due to the downswept petals.

I started with the cone shaped middle, just using three French knots. I quickly realised I need more than the three flowers I had originally planned. I stitched six in the end. I stitched some of the stems using split stitch before adding the purple petals with lazy daisy stitch. The leaves were next to be stitched using fishbone stitch, which has to be my favourite stitch for most styles of leaves. My first attempts were too small so I made them bigger, so it looks a bit bushier at the bottom. Finally I added the rest of the stems so everything was attached!

This year seems to be suddenly flying by, especially when I look and realise I only have three months left to stitch. I’m not sure what I’m stitching for October and November, December will be holly, I might do Chinese lanterns for October, I haven’t any in my garden at the moment but I do want to get some or I might stitch some autumn coloured leaves.

I’m pleased with how the phenology wheel is turning out, my only thought at the moment is whether to stitch another primrose flower for March as it doesn’t really fill the space enough. I’ll have a think and see how much it niggles me for the next three months!

This SAL is organised by Avis, we post our progress on our chosen projects every three weeks, please follow the links to see what every one else has been stitching.



Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

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When things don’t go to plan…

Posted on September 4, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve been a busy bee in my sewing room over the last couple of weeks, trying to clear the decks a bit! One project I have managed to complete is my alphabet of birds fabric book. I’ve been stitching the letters over the last ten months, I had a nice stack of embroideries, all I had to do was make them into a book.

Life would be much easier if I planned from the start how I would create the pages, rather than stitching them first and then trying to work out a method. I had stitched a back-stitch line round each page so having applied a square of interfacing to give a crispness to the pages it didn’t take long to whip-stitch the sides of each page together. I realised fairly quickly that despite trimming the corners and mitring them, then pressing with a clapper board, they were still bulkier than the middle of the edges. This meant that if I was not careful and just stitched the pages together, I could end up with an hour-glass shaped book!

I overcame this by stitching tiny beads in between the pages as I stitched. The corners were stitched firmly together but the sides were separated by a bead every cm or so. It worked and it looked pretty too when you opened the pages. It also meant the pages opened beautifully flat. So far, so good!

I made a cover using a pretty bird fabric and some bosal interfacing to stiffen it and give it body. I’ve used it quite a few times and it has always worked well. Having pressed the edges over of the cover, I stitched the two squares of lining fabric to the front and back pages, with the idea that I could then just stitch the lining to the cover and the book would be complete…

…only it didn’t sit right and was clearly going to be very difficult to stitch. Plan B was to stitch a lining to the front and back cover, leaving the inner edge unstitched so I could slot in the first lining piece. I managed to get it into the slot, clipped it together with some clover clips, but it still didn’t sit right. One thing I liked with the actual pages was how they sat flat when you opened it and that was lost with the spine attached.

Plan C was a bit more drastic, I cut the spine off the cover, found a nice titled selvedge to cover the cut side, aiming to have an exposed spine with the original front and back cover. Good plan but the covers were just a bit too big! As the bosal is ironed on it couldn’t be trimmed – I tried!

Plan D!!! I made another set of front and back covers, slightly smaller this time. I attached them to the pages with more beads…and it worked! It’s not perfect, but I’m happy! I tried doing my usual ribbon tie closure but it pulled the pages in too much in the middle and over time I would have a mis-shaped book.

I stitched a title for the front with a slightly darker DMC thread, I attached it with bondaweb, I would have preferred to machine stitch round it but I couldn’t get it in due to the bulk head of the sewing machine.

I’m really pleased with my book but I think I do need to plan ahead a little more! I think another time I may add a fabric border round each cross-stitch, just so they’re not as bulky in the corners. I do like the exposed spine with the beads though.

I’ve made a video of my book which is on Instagram, please follow the link if you want to see the whole finished book. https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc3pU7KgTkT/

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Serendipity, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Foragers Stitch Journal HQAL

Posted on August 23, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’m slowly catching up with my foragers journal, this is a monthly stitch-a-long by Pretty Fabrics and Trims. Towards the end of each month I get a little parcel through the post with everything I need for that month, fabric, wadding, plenty of threads and clear instructions. August has just arrived, but I’m still stitching June! Three weeks ago I was still stitching April…

That border round the flowers took FOREVER!! It’s very narrow satin stitch, it looks effective but it was a so and so to stitch! Several evenings later it was finally complete. I could then trim it to size (9″ square) and machine stitch it to the March page. Apparently the attributes listed are things associated with dandelions over the years.

With both pages complete the next task was quilting. I’m hand quilting all the pages and so far I’m following the suggestion of Sarah Edgar, the designer. She uses a hera marker to mark the quilting design, I tried it this time but it wasn’t clear enough for me so I resorted to little dots with the Frixion pen. Once it was marked, I used 505 spray baste to attach the wadding and then spent a couple of evenings quilting the pages. The finished pages are bound with Liberty tana lawn which is a very fine cotton fabric. There’s no backing fabric so the binding is stitched to the wadding at the back.

With another pair of pages complete, I opened the May packet. May is a lovely design of hawthorn flowers, it was fairly quick to embroider, helped by not having a satin stitched border! The leaves are stitched with fishbone stitch and the flowers are satin stitch and French knots.

I’ve just started stitching June which is elderflower. I’ve a purple elderflower in my garden, my dad used to make rather potent wine out of both elderberries and elderflowers.I like drinking elderflower cordial and tonic, so maybe I should try making some, it might come out a pretty pink colour if I use the purple elderflower!

I’ve a short holiday in Majorca next month, I might take the pages with me and see if I can catch up, stitching round the pool!


This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Deb, Margaret and Daisy

Posted in embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments