6/29/10

Remnant Daybook; A Record of the Journey

Bill and I are heading off for a relaxing stroll-about in Quebec City this week, where we'll stay at the Auberge J.A. Moisan, a B&B touted as the oldest continually-operating food store in North America. A little gourmet breakfast, a little sampling of old world wares and lilting French wafting through the air. The new camera will be there to capture the essence. We'll wend our way down through Niagara Falls so we can spend some time contemplating our insignificance before heading back to real life. I have some moleskine's packed, but wanted to bring something else for jotting down reflections on the journey.


I'm a fan of Mary Ann Moss's "Remains of the Day" style journal which has started a stitching revolution, so I modded my own version to make this remnant daybook. I started with some pieces of watercolor paper that were sized to the old book cover I wanted to use. "Police Records : their installation and use" ala 1940's--how does a book like this end up in the antique mall? I washed the papers with watercolor and let them dry. Then I sat down at the sewing machine and started stitching on bits and bobs of unfinished projects, photocopies, book pages and a little ephemera. After this was stitched together, I went through with more watercolor and pastel to juice it up.


The binding was accomplished by cutting some strips of fabric about an inch wide and the length of the book, then stitching a page to each side of the strip. When I had as many as I wanted, I stacked them in sets of three and stitched down the middle to attach them in signatures to a wider strip of canvas which served as my binding cloth. This was then sewn into the spine of the old book and reinforced with glued fabric strips. The pages lay perfectly flat and open when writing and it's got plenty of room for notes, thoughts and stuff we pick up along the way! Bon voyage and watch facebook for twitter updates.

15 comments:

  1. that's one fancy schmancy journal for a road trip! a work of art already...enjoy yourselves and travel safe.
    xo

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  2. oh, what fun Kelli!! Have a great time.

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  3. Aren't her classes fabulous?!

    Your book looks so luscious and yummy, it really looks like it had to be completely rewarding to work on.

    We've got Niagara on our soon to-do list, so I'm excited for you! Do you speak French?

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  4. Je ne compren pas le francais. I tried to learn via Mango Language and cd, but soon realized that although you can ask a man how he is, you cannot easily understand his answer. Better to look innocently around and beg for mercy. Merci.

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  5. your journal looks gorgeous, have a fantastic trip! We want to see a few pics of finished pages when you get back ;-)

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  6. I love the colors and the idea! Thanks for sharing.

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  7. Love your journal and thanks for mini tutorial. I also love seeing Remains journals. They are so cool. What a fabulous journal to take on your trip, have a good one :)

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  8. Talk about yummy beautiful journal - I love sewing in papers too but usually I use recycled envelopes and not precious watercolour paper, I might try it now though. Have a great trip!

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  9. What a beautiful memento of your trip it will be. We spent an afternoon in Quebec City in March. We go up there to ski.It's one of my favorite cities--not that I've visited many.

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  10. Show me Niagara Falls! It's my hometown (the US side). Bet it was inspiring...


    Sharon at e14studio

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  11. ahem. I happen to know you're home now. Journal photos please?
    xo

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  12. Wow! Beautiful journal! Great color. I have no idea how you did it, but I love it.

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  13. So beautiful - I always love your colours. I have linked to this post in my latest blog post, and I have become a follower so I don't miss a thing :-)

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  14. OMGGGGGGGGGg what a wonderful journal!!!!!!!!!!
    love your blog

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