Smocked book cover

Last week I entered the fab folds challenge but I have been putting off blogging about it until I got round to calling my sister and banning her from peeking. See for fab folds you have to either pleat or smock a project to be completed in September, and my project is destined to be my sisters birthday present. Her birthday is not till January so it is exciting to think I will have it finished so early and not have a last minute rush.

So I know it is highly unusual to give smocking to a grown up but this will be a classy book cover. I got it from issue 89 of AS&E. A beautiful pattern but I have lost the information on the pattern sheets so am going to have to muddle along with the finishes.

This is the only project that I have smocked that does not rely on using the folds as a main feature. It was rather quick to smock but does not sit as flat as I wished it did. I chose to go black so it is one of those little black books :-)

Next came the seeded beads, I raided Mum's collection and this is the scatter of flowers.

You only put them on the front cover so the book sits nice and flat when you are writing in it.

I have now added the vine that is meant to be scattered with around 60 flowers- bring on that tiny needle...

My biggest worries at the moment are finishing all of those flowers. Working out how to do the beaded writing on the spine without the instructions. Getting the dimensions right to make it into a cover and funnily enough buying the book to go inside in time :-) So I'm off to sew flowers. See you all on the last day of September when this is due.