I’m always very keen to explore new techniques and concepts. In art there is always a risk of repeating oneself that I want to avoid as much as possible. Tempting as it is to stay in my comfort zone, that can lead to stagnation and disinterest. Having a style is all very well, but I would hate for people to become bored with my Instagram feed because it’s just the same old same old.

Speaking of Instagram, it’s artists on that platform who inspire me to try new things. For the purpose of this post, my biggest inspiration was Wanda Hela Katz, whose handmade books are jaw-droppingly amazing.

I can’t even begin to approach that level of magnificence, but as an artist and book lover I am very interested in combining art with books in a meaningful way.

I bought a few books about bookbinding and set about finding a project that was within my capabilities (given that bookbinding is a very specialised skill and my efforts would be very much at the bumbling-amateur end of the skill set!)

I decided to use covers from books I already had, which I would use to bind a handmade set of collaged papers.

To begin, I tea-dyed some A5 sheets of Khadi paper. To be honest, they turned out so well it almost seemed a shame to put anything on them!

 
Next, I chose some vintage book covers from my collection, looking for covers that were as close as possible to the size of my papers.

That was the easy part…

I decided to fill the pages with a combination of vintage papers and collage made using image transfers on fabric (using gel medium to transfer images from laser-printed images onto scraps of fabric).

Once I’d prepared all the pages, I used my cheap bookbinding set to sew the papers and bind them.

I then added the covers, and also spines also taken from vintage books in my collection, and finally I used vintage CDVs and pressed flowers on the front covers of the books.

To say this project proved to be a steep learning curve would be a massive understatement! Nevertheless, it did make me want to explore the concept of marrying books with art (and in particular textile art) in other ways.

My next project was inspired by many images, the work of Mandy Pattullo, and in particular some of the images in the wonderful book ‘1000 Artisan Textiles’. My initial idea involved sewing a small handmade book into a fabric binding. Unfortunately the vintage papers I wanted to use proved too fragile to be machine sewn in that way, so I hand-sewed the pages together using waxed thread and made a pocket in the textile cover that the little book would fit into.

This worked so well and proved so enjoyable to make that I am now making another of these fabric-bound books. The concept feels like it was meant for me, as it references so many things that are important to me. Not least, it harks back to my teenage years when I hand-embroidered a pair of jeans, and the patchwork quilt I made while listening to music in bedroom. My grandmother, a far better seamstress than I will ever be, completed the quilt once I’d sewn all the patches together.

The fact that I now use a sewing machine for much of my textile art is an added bonus: I had such a fear of sewing machines from my time at high school and the dreaded ‘domestic science’ lessons. I never did manage to get to grips with the sewing machines we used in class, and it took a great deal of courage (and lots of swearing, YouTube videos and a lovely lady at Hobbycraft!) to persuade me to come to terms with it, master it, and make it my friend. These days I love using my sewing machine and am chuffed to bits with all the amazing things it can do.

The book within a fabric binding is very much ‘me’ and something I find incredibly enriching, almost like a lightbulb moment. I can see this going in so many different directions, which is very exciting!

Work in progress: pocket construction to hold a handmade book