Armed with sketches, research and a good selection of materials I began to try out some arrangements. These were a couple of possibilities that didn't make the final cut...
The fabric ribbon was too fussy where it was (although I found a use for this later). I couldn't readily work out a way to attach the bottle caps and rivets securely (bearing mind that this will be a well-used project when it's finished). The wooden curtain rail ring was also rejected as being too bulky and not really in keeping with the steampunk theme.
Once I'd decided on the layout, I started with the base layer of mixed fabrics, machine-stitching them together first. I used rough hessian, an interesting surface-woven velour and a piece of cotton calico which I'd first distressed by soaking over two old iron weights to give a rusted effect. I machine-stitched the finished front to a separate piece of golden sateen to cover the hinge and create a pocket so the cover would slide over the board.
I added cds for the cogs, copper coins for the smaller cogs and a piece of knotted metal cord to wind between the coins as chainlink. (The wooden hoop and bottle caps shown here on the cds were later rejected).
To give the cds the appearance of toothed cogs, I wrapped them with thick strips of the roughly cut viscose ribbon originally rejected. Foil covers for chocolate coins replace the bottle caps in the centre of the cds.
For the copper piping, I covered plastic drinking straws with copper-coloured viscose ribbon.
I used scraps of waste leather to create corner reinforcements and stitched these in place.
For the large metal piping, I printed out an image from my source
images onto thick paper. I laid wadding underneath and stitched through
this to attach the "pipe" to the fabric, following the lines created by
the riveting to give a more 3-d impression.
For the smaller cogs, I wound a metallic chainlink cord around a series of coins to create the impression of an integrated mechanism. Although this was all glued in place, it didn't feel secure so I used metallic mesh as an overlay and stitched it in place. This created an impression of viewing moving parts from behind a grille. I liked the way this made the coins look less like coins and more like the cogs they were intended to represent by softening the outline of the smaller parts. It also brought the piping into relief, adding depth.
Somewhat frustratingly I didn't take a photograph of the finished cover before I sent it off but here's the most complete version. I'll post a proper one later with the evaluation.
