Over the last couple of weeks I managed to finish my stitched journal of our big adventure round Europe. When I had the idea of a stitch journal I wasn’t sure how it would come out but I am well chuffed with the result!

I took a strip of linen, some threads and a few scraps of lace and linen with me and stitched something to represent each place we went to. Before I went I pulled a thread top and bottom of the strip so I knew the straight outer edges, I also tacked lines where the page folds would be. I had a few places to finish off when I returned as I did get a bit behind, but the stitchings are as follows;

London – star for the Eurostar train and a strip of blue fabric for the English Channel

Ghent – wisteria, it was everywhere.

Bruges – lace

Maastricht- We stayed on a boat on the river

Cologne -Traditional German sausage

Trier- musical notes for an organ recital we went to.

Luxembourg – a very leafy city

Strasbourg – storks

Colmar – canals

Freiburg- narrow rills down each street in the old town

Lauterbrnnen – Meadows full of wild flowers

Lindau – Lake Constance and the lighthouse

Munich – swans

Salzburg – notes for the sSund of Music and Mozart

Vienna – White stallions

Bratislava – River Danube

Lake Bled – island with church on

Venice – Arches on buildings

Bergamo – named after oranges.

Tirano – Start of the Bernina Express which also does a loop the loop

Chur – we stayed in an old prison

Zermatt – Matterhorn and forests

Chamonix – Mont Blanc and other mountains

Annecy – Lake

Paris – Eiffel Tower

Giverny – Monet’s garden

London – Eurostar back under channel

Otley where our other halves were waiting for us.

The pages are stiffened with some pelmet vilene, I wanted it fairly stiff so it would hold the folds OK. The cover is stiffened with bosal, I could have made it with the front and back cover separate, so they attached to the beginning and the end, but I decided I preferred a book with a spine, it does nicely hold it all in place.

I kept the front cover very simple. The name of the fabric I used to back the pages happens to be called ‘Travel Notes’ so a piece of the selvedge seemed perfect for the title.

I bought the two cute little train buttons from Etsy and then added a length of organza ribbon for the tie. I’ve put a short video on Youtube of the book so you can see better how it flows. My daughter is a whizz at these things so she has also taken a video too to edit so I can put it on Instagram!