Further thoughts

After a holiday break more issues for consideration appeared: Sian had highlighted scale and thread structure and I had a huge note on my desk that said 'surface integration' to which I had added 'integrity of shell'!! 
My immediate action was to review the surface structure and think of how it could be improved...after a few hours, many cups of tea, a period of pulling things apart, machining different ideas of radiating threads  a thought arrived saying 'how will the shell covers work?'.   Scale was indeed the first issue to be resolved the shell needed to be large and strong enough to attach the inner pages and would my book need to stand  up alone or was it OK for it to lie down? 
Back to the drawing board and here is what followed:

Ref 4.11-2.1

Ref 4.11-2.2

I reduced the scale of the original fan shape by 70% and added in the horizontal lines that were as much a part of the shell as the radiating lines.  For stability of the cover to the inside pages I would need to ensure that the oblong shape at the top of the shell was firm and large enough!

Ref 4.11-2.3a and b

Considering how exactly the surface would be made and how large,  I wanted an incorporation of fabric, paper pulp and thread.  4.8.4 appealed as a role model but it would need more strength in its structure.  Here is a first stage of fabric and thread,

I decided to distress the finish before adding the paper pulp and the fabric to set in the shell. While they dried - it was taking two days for each side, even with a wood burning stove going full bore- thoughts turned to the hinge!

 The key was a hinge that was strong enough but that blended with the 'fabric' of the shells. Would I have to use stitches on the folds to stabilise the piece?  I did not want to adversely effect the movement of the 'accordion' or impinge on the word flags making them difficult to read.  I was considering using a combination of hand made paper and opaque or tracing paper for the flags. A rough sample of an accordion fold was made, a piece of fabric bonded to pelmet vilene in an earlier module came to hand so had a practice. Image 4 below shows it folded, image 6 shows the inside view with folds machined stitch on the edges.

                                     Ref 4.11-2.4

                                                                       Ref 4.11-2.5

Two razor shells that had been in my treasure box could be used, the theory being that they would cover cardboard 'stays' that attached to the accordion folds.  See ref 4.11-2.6. The bonus of this book began to appear that it would look interesting when open and also flat - was I hedging my bets by not making it compulsory for it to stand up! 

Ref 4.11-2.6

Oh dear after two days of nurturing and turning the first shell set had moved!!! Would this be useable? Onto the next piece and would decided if it was back to the drawing board once I saw how that one worked.  At least the waiting meant I could get up to date with my admin report.

Below more views before  making colour co ordinated accordion  and doing some fine tuning!

   Ref 4.11-2.7

Ref 4.11-2.8

Next steps to presentation piece

Nothing like the onset of the day of reckoning to make you really work out how you are going to complete a piece! Lists of what you have got to do, lists of how to do it, lists of what you may need - but nothing like getting stuck in on stage one to find out that you should have done something else first or there could have been another way to do it!!!  

Ref 4.11.1

Ref 4.11.2

Making internal copy of shell with paper pulp wanted to get the ridge pattern and did a thick layer pressing hard into shell.  It took three days to dry and in that time contempated that I should have layed thread layers in shell to integrate into the piece so when it was dry did another shell to see what looked best!  I also noted that the 'hinge' edge needed to be stronger so incorporated that into second trial piece.

Ref 4.11.4

Ref4.11.3

 The process of making another shell to see if what I thought I should have done first helped to focus me on the next stage.  I wanted to have a more diffused image on one of the shells, so hopefully next stage will come up with the goods!