Weaverly

Twining and Bookbinding

I've been doing some reading about non-adhesive bindings for books, and I came across the work of book artist Roberta Lavadour, who uses twining in the spines of her books. I had always felt that book-binding and weaving were related arts, but this example moves the relationship closer by a notch. Roberta's website is very interesting, but even more interesting is the video of her work produced for Oregon Public Broadcasting. The quality of the video is excellent, and the scenes of the book-making and twining processes are fascinating.  It's about 7 minutes long, and well worth viewing.

Now from the sublime to the ridiculous. Here's my first attempt at a bound book. The covers are recycled from a box of chocolate popsicles, and the pages are old stationery. But I love it as much as I loved my first weaving, skatey-eight years ago.

A Close Shave

Although there is no shortage of knitting-related content on the web (and yes, I have joined Ravelry) I’d like to add my two cents today. First, here’s a scan of my alpaca sweater at approximately 12x lifesize (click to enlarge to full size). And now that the scene is set, I’d like to tell you about one of my favorite short films.

Adults love Wallace and Gromit as much as children do. Read all about them here. A Close Shave, an animated Wallace and Gromit claymation tale by the enormously talented Nick Park, is a film I’ve watched at least a dozen times in the company of my grandchildren. It has great fiber content! Do yourself a favor and rent/buy/borrow this film and become a fan, as I am, of Wendolene’s Wools and Wallace’s Knit-0-matic. Enjoy the artistry of Park’s rendering of knitted fabric in the unlikely medium of clay. Cracking good!