MORE PROJECTS:
Carousel Book
Magic Box
Blizzard Book
Turkish Map Fold

This is a long stitch book in which I sewed two signatures at a time, crossing from one to the other in the middle two pairs of stations. (Two pairs make two crosses, so when you get to the head/tail, you wind up in the same signature you started at the other end.)  This produces X's on the spine.  It's a simple enough variation on the long stitch that I'm sure it has been done before.  Still, I've never seen it, so I give myself credit for inventing it!  With X's on the spine, this book had to have X's on the cover and X-related content.  The X Book:

The Calder sculpture is in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, although they haven't exhibited it for years. Alas. To showcase my Calder-inspired poem, I chose to make a Chinese Slat Book which hangs together, not unlike a mobile/stabile.  The slats, like the six stanzas of the poem, are divided but unified, strung together into a complete work.  If you'd like to read the poem, you can find the text here.

I had fun making Signs.  I made the paste paper covers, as well as the pages, which are paste paper made from the pages of a couple of broken books -- an old physics text and a book on Korean art.  I learned the little photo-holding windows from Kath Steinsberger, and  I took all of the pictures of signs in Southwest France in June and July, 2014.

Turkish Map Fold / Letterpress Printing