Finished, yet still a work in progress

The basic (machine) work on my book is finished. Now I'm beginning with the hand sewing, embroidery, etc. that will decorate the pages that still look a bit bare. I sewed the front and back pages together (with some sturdy cotton twill ribbon as a 'hinge'), then machine stitched the whole long tube right sides together, then turned it and stitched the ribbon hinges to each other to stabilize it. I hand-stitched the open end to close it.



You can see the changes I made to the fifth page - the road was rerouted and now meets up with the rainbow rays on the last page.



The third photo shows the reverse side, which has the lines of Tolkien's poem about the future of the road on it. That's why there is no path there. I may do a bit of hand quilting to make those pages a bit more elaborate, or sew on some sparkly beads - I'm not sure yet.






The cover is pretty much finished; I added some grass around the contour of the hobbit hole and two bushes in pots beside the door - a detail that Tolkien himself sketched in his pictures of Bag End. The brass doorknob is an old button I discovered in my mother-in-law's no longer needed sewing basket, after I had searched in vain for something of the right size and material in the shops. The door opens - of course! (I'm a doll house kind of person) - to show me framed by the round doorway of the film site of Hobbiton in New Zealand.