Rust dyeing and slow stitching part 2

My Rust Dyed Book

After about a month of slow stitching I had accumulated a stack of little experiments in color, pattern, and stitches. I love book binding so it was logical to keep them in a book. Each piece was hand stitched to a single 9x12 sheet of drawing paper, folded. The folded edge is the foredge. 

The outer edges of all the pages were bound with a strip of Rust dyed muslin and then two pages joined with a muslin strip to form a signature. All of the muslin strips were ripped and the edges left raw to match the raw edges on individual pieces.

Dyeing the strips, rusty metal, water, vinegar, and fabric marinated for a day or so.

 Dyed strips washed, dried and pressed flat

Folding the strips to create the binding

First signature completed

First signature closed

All my signatures ready for binding

I really liked the look of a cross structure binding that I saw on Pinterest. I found a great page by Carmencho Arregui with description and instructions. The covers are rust dyed polyester/cotton (made from a friend's old lab coat) and heavily sized green and white pin dot cotton print that really only seems suitable for covering books (or picnic tables) The size of the signatures and the thickness determined the size of cover I needed. I created and fused a sandwich of rust dyed poly cotton, Bosal In-R-Form Plus double sided fusible foam stabilizer, and the green cotton. Because the front and back tabs interlock exactly , the front and the back can be cut together. I only used 2 tabs on the front cover and 3 on the back cover, unlike Arregui's 3 and 4. To cover the raw edges, both cover pieces were bound with rust dyed strips.  

Binding the back cover. This shows the inside back cover. the outside is green pin dot.

Mitering the outside corners was a piece of cake. You can find instructions anywhere. The inside corners were another matter. All of the instructions I could find involved using very narrow binding and depending on give in the binding to make an acceptable miter. My binding was 1/2 inch wide and I wanted a good clean miter. After some fiddling this is what I came up with.

Find the exact point on the fold where the binding has to turn the corner.

With a sharp pair of scissors make a slit along the binding fold from the corner point to twice the width of the folded binding. 

The slit you just made allows you to fold the binding back on itself and bring each "leg" of the slit over the edge of the cover with both ends of the slit right at the corner.

Then you can fold the binding up forming a perfect miter around the inside corner. 

The completed outside back cover ready for stitching. Providently, a few months ago I bought a box of sewing clips, not sure I would ever use them. I couldn't have done this without them.

Pages sewn just to the front cover. This is a very stable binding because the pages are all first sewn to the front cover and then to the back cover. 

And here's the completed book with a button closure because of the bulk of some of the pages.

Front cover

I used green size 5 pearl cotton for sewing pages to the front cover tabs and red size 5 pearl cotton for sewing to the back cover tabs. Both threads were heavily waxed.

Foredge

Back cover. The front tabs were folded over the back cover and machine stitched over the closure straps.

The inside front cover. The back tabs were fed inside the front cover and machine stitched down. The flower covers the attachment point to the button for the closure. The first signature in the book is just blank paper. Ultimately it will contain a description of how the book was made.

Inside the back cover. The front tabs were sewn to the outside of the back cover. I really wanted how a cross structure binding works.

I loved making this, every step of the way.

Rust dyeing and slow stitching, part 1

 My rust dyed book

Rust dyeing is really simple, cloth, rusty metal, water and vinegar. I started with leftover muslin ripped into almost square pieces about 9 inches wide or long, gave them a quick rinse to get any starch or fabric finish out, and layered them, still wet, in a container with the metal bits shown above. Thinking that the muslin needed to stay wet (not sure this is true) to facilitate the movement of the rust from the metal to my bits, I added enough water and vinegar to keep the bottom couple of layers wet and then put a tight lid on the container. The next day, I made sure that the water hadn't evaporated (Tucson summer, triple digit temp, single digit humidity) and rearranged the layers. The 3rd day, I decanted the cloth, removed my metal bits for future use, and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and then threw the cloth in the wash with a load of clothes. After the washer, I laid them out on our front bench to dry.

When they were dry, I ripped each piece into 4 quarters, 4-5 inches on a side. I have just been reading about the slow stitching movement both online and in books like Slow Stitch: Mindful and contemplative textile art by Claire Wellesley-Smith, The hand-stitched surface by Lynn Krawczyk, and From thread to needle: Contemporary embroider art by Charlotte Vannier. These little squares were just crying to be stitched on. My intent was to do one a day at the end of the day as a way to wind down. Here's the first

For record keeping purposes, they will be posted on my Instagram.