If at first you don't succeed

I've been playing with lesson one of Maggie Grey's on-line class for those of us who have bought her latest book "Textile Translations: mixed media". As usual Maggie has given us a lot to think about. I had all the ingredients except Quink but I did have another brand of black ink so in my usual impatient way I jumped in with both feet. I

Following Maggie's instructions I created the surface from which I would make a lovely little Wigwam book (my name for it not Maggies) In the morning when everything had dried it looked nothing like Maggie's. It had very strange big orange blotches where the undissolved salt lay and I'd put the gesson on a bit think, it remained white.

I was very disappointed with it and about to throw it in the bin. But I didn't, I tried again. I wiped off the excess salt, sprayed the whole thing with Colour Wash paint and left it to dry.

This time it turned green and orange, better but a still a bit odd. Another try, I painted it again this time with the ink and then wiped most of it off with kitchen paper as it had turned completely black!! When this layer dried it looked better a bit like rust and verdigris but not the blue/grey or Maggie's piece.

I tried rubbing aqua and gold wax onto the surface to highlight some of the green and gold but they just got lost. I painted a mixture of aqua and gold acrylic paint with a dry brush, just touching the surface lightly and then decided to leave it alone or I could really ruin it. When this all dried I quite liked it all I had to do now was sew the edges and put in the papers.

After all this paint etc the surface was sewable but only with difficulty. My fingers get sore enough testing my blood four times a day and I was reluctant to try sewing by machine. In the end I decided to lay two sides together in the order they would be sewn and using an awl poked holes at regular intervals round the edges. I used these holes to do buttonhole stitch round the edges. The pieces were then laced together and I sewed in the signatures that I had created from swiped and stamped distressed ink pads.

Finished wigwam book forgot to mention that motifs were added before all this mixed media bit began.