Category: bookbinding

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Twining

I’m on a twining roll. Started with paper twist and baling twine on Thursday and ended with the newspaper plastic bags today. Two separate pieces, one technique.

The baling twine and paper twist has some character to it – undulations, an opening on the side, a really nice found stick running through three sides of the piece.

The plastic bags piece has color – from the bags (blue and orange and dark green during winter so you could see it in the snow plus some lovely pale greens, oranges and tans). It’s shape is pretty staid – basically didn’t try anything different do to the very limp nature of the material. Halfway through the piece my love asked if I was making a bag to hold the bags?  Well…. That must be what it is!  Added a twisted handle at the end and hung it in the garage.  More bags to come!

Will get some pics up later this week.  ITMT, pics of the Oxford exhibit, Rock Paper Scissors are up on my Flickr site.

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Catch-up from November and on through December

Boy, time has flown by! Since mid-November it seems like I’ve been deep into one thing and then the next with nary a breath in-between.

The Branson Banana Bash was a rousing success, if measured in trunks bashed, fiber cooked and new friends well met.  No pics up yet on my Flckr site – hopefully over the holidays…. I did get a chance to pull some sheets fromn what was done in Branson and they are nice! A bunch of trunk pieces are currently soaking (actually, they are frozen solid!) in a wading pool and cement mixing tub on the deck. I didn’t think rain would hurt them but I totally didn’t factor in freezing temps. Oh, well, it will just take a bit longer to ret.

A lovely Thanksgiving Day (thank you Karen and Nick!) was followed by a group art exhibit at the Pendleton Art Center in downtown Cinti taking advantage of their Final Friday and Second Look Saturday events. It was a nice showing of nine different arts, a not so bad crowd and lousy sales. Even lousier attendance and sales the following day. We did the December Final Friday, too (which really is the third Friday this month because how Christmas happens this year), and skipped out on the Second Look Saturday due to the overwhelming (NOT!) crowd and sales on Friday.

ITMT, I made a quick project for our Weavers Guild exhibit at XU coming up – a smallish quilted hanging using color catchers. AND I started the large installation piece I proposed for the exhibit. If it all goes well, I will use 200 china silk scarves to hang on the third floor of the Student Center in the atrium area. Two panels that should each be about 20′ x 17′. Keeping each scarf in correct order so as not to mess up the design has been the challenge so far! (The side-by-side order isn’t as hard as the top/bottom order – and then the panel-to-panel order where they meet in the middle – that’ll be the killer!) I’ve got one panel’s worth mudded so far – need to rinse them out and then to start on the second panel. Already checked out hanging supplies at Home Depot.

I’ve had the bass out lately  getting ready for Christmas mass music. Tuning up the voice, too.

Throw in some oddball activities (like putting a new back onto a loved blanket for T&L), some smallish scrumble projects that absolutely required cool buttons from St. Theresa Textile Trove, meeting up with some friends of various stripes, guild seasonal parties, business and friend seasonal gatherings, an exhibit proposal, a workshop proposal,  the obligatory gingerbread cooking baking sessions – and I know I’m forgetting a few things….) and I’ve not had time to get into too much trouble.

The days immediately ahead look like they will be a continuation of same.

Many wishes for a most blessed and joyous season and new year!

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Bits and pieces

Some random bits and pieces of my days lately:

– My love is saving the leaves of all the daffodil plants as he trims them out – instead of throwing them away. He even asked me if I wanted them without my having to ask for them!

– Some major planning was done over the weekend regarding our upcoming family reunion. 78 people have committed to coming. The oldest is 66 and the youngest will be just a couple of months old when we all gather.

– I joined a ‘poem on hand made paper’ swap – that will make sure I do some papermaking soon!  I’m thinking that I’ll use the asparagus stems that I’ve been saving in the freezer for this. Guess I better write a poem, too!

– Using pieces of interior design cloth  samples for small journal covers.

– Working out some kinks in a new mudcloth method that is proving far better than anything I’ve come across so far – other than the real thing in Mali!

-Lost my voice for a few days – it is back but not very strong yet. Deep and husky but not even close to sexy. A tickle in the throat seems to be almost constant.

-Came across four variations of the bullion crochet stitch – very interesting!

-Was part of a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the textiles in the Miami University Art Museum collection – quite wonderful! They have some really stylish jackets from Poland and Hungary that I fell in love with. It was fun deducing the techniques used. And so much done by hand!!!!!!!!!

-Missed a 90th birthday party!  So sorry, Millie!  Hope it was a fun time!

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Earth Day

I had the great pleasure of having a free day today! My normal commitment to the Community Quilt Center was covered by someone else (thank you Mary!).  I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to use the day, but a need arose!

When I did my last batch of papermaking, I realized I really should look into setting up a drying rack to dry the sheets more quickly. There are lots of good ideas out there and one in particular calls for layers of corrugated cardboard to wick out the moisture and a fan to blow through the corrugation and dry things out.

A recent post on the papermaking list mentioned the plastic corrugated political signs as being good to use for the rack. When I questioned how moisture would wick, the person who posted said it didn’t but that the system worked for her.

Well, I HAVE plastic corrugated political signs. I got to thinking that I could punch holes in the corrugation to help with air flow to the bottom of the sheet of paper….and then I thought about using it for covers in bookmaking.

So, down to the studio to try things out. Yes, holes can be easily punched through the plastic to ventilate the sheets, so I think a drying rack will work. Yes, the plastic can be cut for book covers. I tried pasting both paper and cloth on to the plastic covers and it seemed to work fine – as long as I spread the glue on the cloth/paper and then put that on the plastic. Finished up the cloth book with a spine and a little hinge business on both sides of the spine.  Hmmmm, will take a picture tomorrow.

Good thing that the signs will work – my sister is bringing in more of them on Sunday! They still have a pile left over from her husband’s run for city council so I’ll just help them out a bit in decreasing the pile.

A perfect Earth Day activity!