In the year 2007 I resolve to: |
This is the last of the fruitcake. Martha Stewart came through - the cake was delicious! I've always wondered if the people who make fruitcake jokes ever tried REAL fruitcake? Not the quasi stuff with the red and green plastic fruits. But the ones made with REAL dried currents, raisins, dried apricots, figs, dried bing cherries, and real candied ginger? I believe in garbage in, garbage out. Despite my misgivings about making this cake so late, it turned out really well. I've been dousing it with my vanilla rum about once a week and you can really taste the vanilla flavour.
This book is made with unbleached recycled paper ~ 136 pages. The signatures are separated with the same paper as the covers - Thai kozo with banana fibre inclusions. It's machine made but really is a beautiful paper. I used the deckle edges on the inside so the paper blended in with the outer covers. I used cream coloured waxed linen thread to go with the linen tapes. I'm quite pleased with the cuts this time. I punched them with the chisel from the inside and it gave the outer covers a much smoother look, without exposing the inner board. The cuts are just a tad smaller than the width of the tapes. The linen tapes were definitely much easier to glue down than the grosgraine ribbon from the first book. 
I think this may be my favourite book so far. The coptic binding allows the book to lay nice and flat when opened. Not only does the spine fatteners separates each signatures nicely, it gives the outer spine a nice uniform look to show off the binding.
I'm expanding my bookbinding skills and have been trying different ways of attaching the covers. Cailun.info has lots of great tips on using the tapes as hinges. He made it sound so easy. Ok...it really wasn't that hard but I did made a few mistakes. 
I used my carving chisel to set the holes. It does give a nice straight cut, as Dennis suggested but I cut my line just a bit longer than my ribbon. This gave the ribbon too much wiggle room. Next time, I'll cut the line just a tad smaller and cut from inside to outside. The bevelled cuts exposed the inside board. Also, I didn't plan my stations well. I had to double back a few times to keep the pattern consistent. It made some of the signatures a bit bulkier than the others. The ribbon is a polyester grosgraine and it does not hold glue well at all. In order to attach the inside paper, I used a bit of book binding tape over the ribbon so the glue would have something to grab onto. 
I wanted to create a journal that knitters can use. Something small that you can toss in your knitting bag. The finished size is roughly 4 3/4" x 5 3/4". There's 160 lavender graph pages inside so you can jot down schematics as well write notes on your knitting. The sheets are acid free and contains 30% recycled wood product. 
The coptic binding allows the book to open flat, making easier to make notes while knitting. The thread is red waxed linen. There will also be a ribbon closure on the outside but the ribbon I had planned on using didn't match the cover. I'll have to head over to the fabric store in the morning.
I think I understand the Coptic stitch now. Once I figured out what I was doing wrong, it wasn't so bad attaching the covers on at the same time. I've been pulling tight - it should be snug but not overly tight. The trick is to snug up the stitches inside the signatures but not pull too tight on the chains.
I have a weakness for fruitcakes. I love them! The best fruitcake I ever had was made by Robert Clothier (he played Relic on the old TV show Beachcombers). At Christmas time, he would bring in a huge fruitcake to where I used to work. No one else liked fruitcake so I always end up taking the whole thing home. He made the cakes from scratch and they were delicious! Usually, I start my fruitcakes late September or early October. This year I'm very late...just made mine today. The recipe (I think it came from a TV Guide - ETA - it came from a Martha Stewart recipe) makes a nice small loaf, unlike most recipes that makes 50 pounds of this stuff. This fruitcake is very very rich. Tomorrow, it will be wrapped up in cheesecloth and doused with vanilla rum until eaten. I'm not sure how it will taste, with having so little time to sit, but I'm looking forward to this.
But the one of them suffered a slight misshap - I was a bit overzealous in creasing down the endpaper...
It kinda makes you wonder when the highlight of your day is that you made paste. It's really good paste but still paste. Wheat starch paste for bookbinding. I have a couple of test samples drying right now. So far so good. This paste is easy to use and easy to clean up. It doesn't seem as strong as PVA glue but the starch glue is archival quality.
This is a silk noil that I've been spinning for quite a while now. It's taking a long time because I'm still picking out bits of leaves as I go. No matter how thorough I am, I always find clumps of VM tucked away in the fibre. I've pre-picked this fibre several times. It's really beautiful to spin. I love the lumpy bumpy texture of this silk. I have some tussah that I dyed the same colours which I will spin and ply with this.
I was going through some bags and found this little guy. I made him years ago when I used to make miniature teddy bears. This one is special because it's a No-No Bear. When you move his tail, his head turns as if he's shaking his head to say No-No. He's about 3 1/4" tall. I loved making little bears but it was really hard on my hands. The stitches were so tiny - about 35 stitches per inch by hand. Once in a while, I would try again but I just don't have that dexterity anymore.
The basic stitching wasn't hard but I ran into some problems trying to attach the back cover and the last signature at the same time. I think if I had three hands, I would be ok. The book does open nice and flat but there are very small gaps (~1/4") between the signatures when opened. Is that normal or the results of bad stitching on my part?
From there, I moved on to bags. I revamped the Knitting Bag, made it taller, added an inside pocket and extra outside pockets, loops to attach things to (like keys & umbrellas), added buttonholes so I can use these sheep buttons, and made the handle longer. In hindsight, I think I should have made the loops with the lining fabric and used a fabric stiffener for the sides as well as the bottom. The material is a cotton floorcloth canvas - really heavy duty stuff - but because the bag is taller than the other bag, the sides are a bit more floppy.
It takes almost the same amount of time to make four books as it does one. Instead of staring at your book, waiting for the glue to dry, you just move on and glue up the next block. The photo album at the end was the most difficult as each page had to be cut separately and interlined with the glassine. The binding is done in the Japanese stab binding tradition. After all that work, my final holes were croooked. I didn't noticed it until the binding was finished. Lesson learned...it's worth the hassle of setting up the drill press.
It's Saturday morning and it's the kind of day that you want to spend bundled up inside the house. You can't see the rain pelting down in this picture. Some of the Twisted by Choice gals are heading over to Langley Weavers & Spinners sale this morning. Husband is running on Sunday so we're going to spend a nice quiet day at home today. It's been a very long week at work and it's nice to be home relaxing with nothing planned but a bit of knitting.
She has only buttons - all different kinds - new, vintage, EVERYTHING!! It's located on the outskirts of Gastown. Be prepare to spend hours going through all the drawers. I found a really neat looking button that I'm thinking of making into a brooch.
I felt like sewing tonight so I made this...
I love the Fall season! The weather this year has been exceptional. We had a few days of rain but it's been mostly sunny. A lot of the plants have started to die back but there's still a lot of colour tucked away here and there. It's like finding treasure. Our yard is slowly being covered with leaves from our trees and the neighbour's trees. It's a never-ending chore to rake and re-rake the leaves. Good thing we have a teenage kid. :D
This is my first attempt at sewing the head & end bands. Bookbinding is really an ugly process. You're looking at all the bits & pieces, covered with glue. 
Then suddenly, you put the cover on and transform the whole ugly mess into a book that actually looks like a book! In hindsight, I think I should have practice the headband sewing on something first. You can't see it but the bands are lopsided. The cover is handmade paper - not by me - and the paper inside is recycled paper.
I like this book. Instead of using binding tape, I used dyed abaca rope. The cover spine had been slit to pull the rope through and tied. The cover is handmade paper but I tried distressing it to give it a leather look. I diluted water and glue and painted it on. 
The back cover was done first and I used even strokes. The front was painted randomly and it seems to work much better. Again, like the whole headband fiasco, I should have practiced this first. 
Gaye Hansen is an excellent instructor. I've heard so many good things about her classes before and I'm glad I had the opportunity to take this workshop. The last time I actually made any books was close to twenty years ago. I had forgotten so much. The little blue book (our practice book) is covered with Japanese paper and fabric binding. The larger book is covered with fabric from Maiwa and put together, using all sorts of wonderful add-in pages.
It was good to do this workshop and refresh a few things and learn a whole lot more. One thing about these workshops is that you're not just learning from the instructor. The work that everyone was doing was amazing. So many ideas and so little time. I feel like a diver coming up to the surface too quickly. I really need to go into a little room and decompress. Unfortunately, I had to go straight back to work today. It was really really hard to concentrate...my mind was on paper.
I'm halfway through the body of the BPT sweater. The pattern is for a top down cardigan - my favourite way of knitting a sweater. When you're done, you're really done. No sewing the pieces together. I'm finding this sweater is a very good traveling project at this stage. The cables are very straightforward and I don't need to drag a chart around with me. I think when I get to the sleeves, it will be a bit awkward knitting on transit. 
Usually for a top down sweater, I like to put along the back, a few rows of short row shaping for the shoulder. I didn't do that with this sweater because I think the hood will give it extra length in the back. 
The white stuff is pima cotton ~ 1" staple. The brown stuff is the Foxfire organic cotton ~ 3/4" staple. The pink stuff is cotton/silk ~ 1" staple. 
The liquid had been strained out and saved. The pulp is still quite chunky. The fibres are soft but not sure if it would make good paper. I think it will have to be blended with something else - cotton or linen perhaps.
I've decided to try and dye the cotton linters in the liquid. That way, if the pulp doesn't break down completely, I can use it as an inclusion. Cotton, by itself, makes a very soft paper so I will add some abaca to give the paper more body.
This is some of the merino/silk from Mud River Angora that I picked up at Fibre Fest in April. 50gms at 265m, navajo plied. This stuff was so much fun to spin. I think the blend is 70% merino and 30% silk. 
The plan was to boil the sunflower stalks, save the liquid for dyeing, and use the pulp for papermaking. I started with 500gms of sunflower stalk, cut into 2"-3" pieces, 90gms of soda ash, and water. The soda ash will help break down the pulpy bits. The pot will sit overnight and the boiling process will begin tomorrow. 
