Continuing on with my stitched backdrawn samples from September, post here, I’ve now had a chance to finish them all and make a sample booklet with the ones I didn’t swap.

During this printing course I’ve accumulated lots of small offcuts of paper which I’m gradually using up in other projects, and on small test prints.  Here I folded a 250gsm BFK Reeves strip into 8 and dipped the edges into water, followed by a dipping into fairly strong coffee.

The effect worked well and I’ve created a good frame around where my pieces will go.  However, this paper has sharply cut edges and I’ve got another piece with torn/deckle edging which I prefer.  So I used the same process on it.

The coffee gives a good overall colour but I wanted something a little more random.  So after it was fairly dry I dipped it a couple more times into the coffee solution and kept turning the piece around so the stain would spread more unevenly.  Of course, when doing this when dry (ish) I got a sharp outline where the coffee has stopped when it hit completely dry areas.  Just what I was looking for.

A simple project but one where I can keep all these backdrawn ideas together in one place for future reference – and it looks good standing on the edge of the cabinet.