Thursday, September 25, 2014

Treasure journals

  About 7 years ago, I won a Quilter's Journal as a door prize at a local quilt show.  At first I thought I would never use it, but I have.  It is about half filled with ideas for quilts I wanted to make,  pictures torn from magazines that I found inspiration in, and lots of quilting motifs I wanted to try.  I also clip in handy info that I use often, like measurements for tote bags and things I found on blogs and printed off.
   Then 2 years ago, Sir Old Man bought me another journal made of totally re-cycled paper.  The cover is made from a Scrabble game board and the pages are office letterhead stock that was never used.  I decided to fill it with free motion  quilting motifs as I accomplished them.  It is not a sketchbook, but rather a reference diary that is easy to refer to when I am looking for a design to stitch.

  The sewing room was re-organized when Hot Legs arrived, and I went thru a big clean out and ended up with a  stack of "items" that I just did not want to toss, yet what to do with them.  I had paper gift tags from all the items my daughter had knitted for me, bookmarks, napkins, cards, and such.  That kind of stuff.....that for some reason I needed to hang onto.  I had them stuffed into a folder.  So journal number 3 was born.  I glued items into a smaller journal, made  pockets of the notecards and glued them in.  They are great to hold the bookmarks, and items I might use someday!  I recently discovered this is called a "junk journal".   Maybe so, I think it is a treasure journal of tokens I find inspiration in.


  The treasure/junk journal is the small one in the left corner.  I used a bit of thread painting when I made the cover.  And I have had to add a cord to wrap around it as a closure.
  Anyway, I treasure all three because they hold a wealth of past experiences, and inspiration for the future.
  Got any treasures?   You might need a journal.  :-)
Happy stitching.

7 comments:

Dana Gaffney said...

I always kept a journal of my quilts, print out a picture and add notes but found it's easier to keep on the computer since the pictures are already there. I like the idea of the free motion journal though, it's a great idea to have those ideas all together in a book. Stealing your idea as usual :)

Mary said...

I do some of the same things you do, though not nearly as neatly organized. Thanks for sharing this inspiration!

Vroomans' Quilts said...

These are lovely. I tried to do this in the beginning, but found keeping quilting journals on-line was easier.

Janet O. said...

Yes, I have "stuff", but I think I need to hire you to organize it for me. I like your style. : )

Deb@asimplelifequilts said...

So fun to peek inside these... I think we hang onto things for good reasons and it's great when they find a home.

Terri said...

I do have a couple of scrapbooks of my inspirational clippings, patterns and some are just kept as color combos. Trouble is, I clip out at a greater rate then I paste in. So I have lots looseleaf. Right now I don't care. It's all packed for a move. . . for a year I've done without them. Never at a loss for an idea though. Love seeing yours. Makes mine more acceptable. (I'm not the only crazy one. lol)
Hugs

Karen said...

I don't have any journals but think it would be a good idea. A long time ago, I took a charm quilt class. The instructor suggested we carry a small notebook in our purse with a snippet of each fabric we had already cut a "charm" for our quilt from. She did hers by fabric color in different sections of the book. She used a glue stick to adhere them to the pages. You could refer to the notebook to see if you had already purchased that fabric or already used it for the quilt.

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