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.
