First Place – Functional – Convergence 2026
After weaving the cloth in 2025, (see the design process here) I set it aside to have eye surgeries and then other projects. I finally put my new sewing machine to the test, finished the book and submitted it for Convergence 2026 Functional Textiles – Lagniappe.
I had thought the book would also be a good keeper of objects and memories so I learned to use a continuous zipper and put zippers in the spine which made each page a container – so fun and fiddly.
Here are some photos of the finished book. Marcia Weiss was the juror for the exhibit. She loved it, gave it first and made me cry. Honestly I was so surprised and happy that my little book had touched someone else.
I struggled with the best way to show the book. No one can touch the exhibits so presenting it on its cover was only going to show one of the pages – no good! Talking to mom one morning, after showing her the zipper spine, I set it down on the table on its edge. It made a crazy asterisk pattern on the table making it possible to see more of the book. Serendipity strikes again. I bought an acrylic disk and zip tied the zipper pulls to the disk to keep it in place, put pool noodles between the pages in the box and shipped it off to NOLA.
There are more fabric books in my future as I really love the idea of washable memory keepers with hours of lap time it their futures.