So many hobbies!

My first machine quilting

 

My first... and it's terrible.  <grin and shrug>  I have new-found respect for those folks who machine quilt.  Paying someone to do it for you is worth every penny!  Trust me on this.  The quilt doesn't look too bad from a distance but up close it's not a pretty quilting job.  The whole quilt was just for fun anyway so it's all good.  I'm just going to need to practice on a lot more doll quilts or minatures before I do another lap size quilt.  Most of my problem with uneven stitch length was due to the fact that too much quilt was crammed under the arm of my sewing machine and that made it hard to maneuver the quilt.  Oh, and the back's got a big old fold right down the middle.  Oops.

 

I finally finished the tunnel book from the class I took months ago.  I'm afraid the picture isn't good enough to see what's going on.  There are 3 "pages," not including the front and back, and you look through the book to the back.  The black wings off to the sides are the wrap-around cover.  I loved this class but, as usual, I'm not happy with my book.  I'm definitely my own worse critic.  To me, it doesn't have the oompf I'd like.  Of course, I'm not remotely objective about it.  I'll have to wait for another opinion.

When I was little, my grandma canned sour cherries.  I remember how good they tasted and was known to drink the cherry syrup right from the jar (when no one was looking, of course).  Imagine how amazing cherry milk shakes are when made from home canned cherries.  Trust me, they're fantastic.  Anyway, I'll be picking and canning cherries this weekend.  And thinking of Grandma.

Tools

There's something to be said for using beautiful tools.  Sure, you can buy your tools and art supplies from K-Mart but they'll be cheaply made and of poor quality.  You'll probably find them to be inadequate and frustrating.  I grew up using cheap, plastic dry measuring cups with the handles broken off and had the measurement worn off.  They worked, sure, but the experience was definitely uninspiring.  When I moved into my own place, I bought myself nice stainless steel measuring cups and every time I use them, it's pure pleasure.

Dan Essig and a friend made the tools in the above picture.  I came home with this:

I plan on having some very happy moments using this chisel.  I'll be sure to let you know what I make.
 
 

Coptic Book with Wooden Cover - part 2

I'm not feeling too well so I'm mostly going to post pictures.  Apparently, my gall bladder is on the fritz.  Go figure.

The window is covered by a piece of mica tacked down with teeny tiny brass nails less than an 1/8 of an inch long.  I tried out agates, arrowheads, shells and beach stones but couldn't decide on what to put behind the window.  Then I got the idea to knit up a tiny swatch from my handspun.  It's only an inch by about 1.25 inches.  I used size 2 needles.  The book itself is 3.5" x 5".

 

The mica on the inside is tied on the front of the book.

 

This is Donna's book.  She did a beautiful job.

Coptic Book with Wooden Cover - part 1

I love taking classes.  I've been binding books off and on for about 20 years and just this year started taking classes at Hollander's in Ann Arbor, MI.  I'm so fortunate to have a resource so close to where I live.  This weekend's class (see title above) was taught by Daniel Essig, a nationally known book artist.  I highly recommend wandering around his site and seeing his books and sculpture.  His books are clever and fun.  Windows, arches and doors just beg to be opened and looked into and Dan's books are treasures to be explored.  He's also a great teacher with a dry, hilarious sense of humor.

The covers of our books were mahogany wood that were beveled, distressed, painted, sanded and waxed.  The outside edges of the front and back covers were rounded then gouged, poked and nicked to give a weathered, used look.  Then 3-5 layers of milk paint were built up.  After the final layer of paint has dried, dust masks were donned and 220 sandpaper was used to sand down to expose the various layers of paint.  The final treatment was to rub Kiwi shoe polish into the covers.  Dan had shoe polish ranging from clear to black. 

 

Since I actually remembered to bring my camera, I took full advantage and got shots of my favorite covers.  The first one is mine.  Natually, I prefer everyone else's over mine.

 

 
 
 
 

  

Can you see why I loved everyone else's covers over mine?  I'm amazed at how beautifully they turned out.  I'll have more pictures from the class on Tuesday.

Shirts and book stuff

My second bookbinding class was this weekend:  Tools and Tricks of the Bookbinding Trade.  We learned things that will make bookbinding easier and made tools that are easily portable.

 

The contraption on the right is a collapsible punching cradle for punching holes to sew a book together.  We also made a sleeve to carry the cradle when not in use.  The punching cradle I have at home is made of wood and is not something I can take with me if I need to travel for whatever reason.  On the far left, I made a brush rest out of polymer clay - very handy when you have a gluey brush and don't want glue all over your work surface.  From the middle top down:  a soft weight, two polymer clay punches, a solid weight and lastly, a bamboo paper knife.  With the exception of the bamboo paper knife, I'll use all of these tools.  I'd use the bamboo knife if I could get it sharp enough but my sanding just seemed to dull it.  I've got a metal paper knife so I'm not very motivated to spend more time sanding.

 

We put together this little 3-section book during the course of the two days.  The last two sections are blank but the first section holds all of the nice tips and tricks that the instructor had come up with since she started bookbinding.  She taught us four ways to miter corners on paper covers.  I know the paper is dark, but I think you can still see how the corners in the picture are mitered.  The corners were lots of fun.  Apparently, I'm good at what we were learning because I was always the first one done.  It was kind of nice.

Saturday night I created some t-shirt designs to sell on Cafepress.  They're not up yet - I'll do it tomorrow - but I've ordered shirts for myself.  I've got ideas for a couple more but they're still in the idea stage.  Here's the first one:

 

And the second one:

 

These have meaning for me and I hope they'll have meaning for others.

Half-leather book binding

 

I had forgotten how much I liked bookbinding.  The class was offered by Hollanders in Ann Arbor, MI.  Tom and Cindy Hollander were wonderful teachers; very encouraging and supportive.  I'd never worked with leather before and we learned to pare down the leather's thickness so it wouldn't be quite so bulky on the turned ins on the spine.  There are two kinds of adhesives used in bookbinding:  PVA glue and paste (either wheat or rice).  Leather doesn't react well to PVA so paste is the adhesive of choice.  It dries slowly and can be repositioned and manipulated it for a longer time.  Very useful.

 

Cindy taught us the fine art of hand sewing end bands.  Most end bands you see on books are machine made and glued in.  These take longer but are physically sewn to the spine and won't come out.  Besides, they look nice.  From Tom, we learned to round the spine which is something I'd only read about but wasn't really able to understand until I saw it done.  The Hollanders basically tag-teamed the instruction of the various parts of the book, each one teaching what they do best.  I have to say, I really enjoyed it.

 

The last thing we did was glue on the cover papers and then glue down the end papers.  Much as I'd like to play with my new baby, it has to stay in my book press 4 or 5 days till it dries... then I'll be showing it off to everyone I know. 

It's a good thing I've already decided to skip SOAR this year because there are two classes I want to take in the fall: one taught by Daniel Essig and a marbeling class. 

Bookbinding

My travel book is drying in the book press.  I started by sewing together the book block:

The spine.

The bookblock.

The case.

Each signature (section) is sewn to tapes.  The tapes are then glued into the case and hold the book together.  Because I'll be adding lots of stuff to my book, I needed to make the spine fatter than the fore edge of the book.  To do this, I used a thicker binding thread to swell the spine and I added narrow pieces of thicker paper in the bookblock.  The goal, when the book is complete and all the tickets, receipts, post cards and photos have been added, is to have the spine be the same width as the fore edge of the book.  If the spine is wider than the fore edge, it will put strain on the spine and eventually damage the book.  Fortunately, this book has lots of pages and I have plenty of room to add whatever strikes my fancy.

I cast on for the smoke ring tonight but there isn't much to show at the moment.  I've done a purl row, knit row, purl, knit and now I'm ready to begin the pattern.  I want to get a couple pattern rows done so I know what I'm doing before I leave my knitting books behind.  I'm using a 24" circ. with Knitpicks new Options needles in the laminated Birch.  So far, I give them two thumbs up.  They're very glossy so stiches slide much more easily than I'm used to.  They'll take a bit of getting used to but so far I really like them.  Because the needles are laminated, they're much stronger than a plain wooden needle and so they're able to get nice pointy tips on them.  I likes me the pointy tips!  I ordered steel circs for sock knitting but I realized I probably wouldn't be able to take them on the plane.  I placed another order for two 24" circs with size 1 Birch needles and I'm hoping they arrive tomorrow before I leave.