A hand made book cover, and are you a lucky winner.

Hello. What a difference a day makes, warm, sunny, and wonderful here, lets hope it holds out. Thank you for your comments on the previous post, you have given me a lot to think about. I hope you don't mind but I took a day off blogging yesterday to give the slow readers chance to catch up, ha ha. Well that's my excuse anyway. 

I've made a cover for a book, to give myself a bit of practice. I thought I would do this first before making an actual book. Cut a piece of the fancy paper a fraction wider than the book, and a few inches longer. Add some stitching to the front. The chain stitch is in pink but it doesn't show up very well on the photo. Didn't have a plan, just stuck the needle in. I did it quickly.   

Blanket stitch along the top and bottom edge .

The inside of the cover. I stuck a piece of self adhesive paper over the back of the stitching to cover it up.

And what was the book? An old copy of Ilona, by Hans Habe. A friend found this book in a box in a charity shop about 25 years ago down in Southampton. When she saw it she thought of me. It was first published in Great Britain in 1962, the German edition was printed in 1960. This one is in English but I also have copies of it in both German and English, five copies in total.

The story is in three parts, three generations of women. Ilona the mother, Zita her daughter, and Eva the granddaughter. It takes the reader through Vienna and Budapest at the time of the Emporer Franz Joseph, the St Petersburg of Rasputin, the Italian front during the first world war, Germany under the Weimar Republic, France battling with inflation, Germany during the nights of bombing, America in the course of the second world war, and finally liberated Europe. It's a long time since I last read it, I must read it again one day.

I have a bit of news for you. Surprise surprise, another secret prize draw. Remember the green bags that Janet made, she has donated two of them (both cats), to be given away free to two lucky readers, so I asked her to pull two names out of the hat from those who commented on that particular post. So step forward........
CAZ and HELEN D. You are the winners.
Please send me your postal address either in an email, or a comment which I will not publish. Ta very muchly.

Off outside now to get a few rays of sunshine. Toodle pip