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The doubleweave piece, "Triangles," designed in Repper and begun last week, is now finished. It will probably wind up as a book cover.
A new piece, which I call "Irongate" because of its resemblance to a wrought iron gate, is now begun. It, too, will be a book cover.
Today marks the completion of four years of Weaverly. Join me in a glass of champagne this evening.
This piece of lampas is ready to bind. Here's a closeup:
After the sewing, I turned to the band. I wanted to improve the look of the band attachment. Splaying out the end of the band and glueing it to the reverse side of the cover seemed like an improvement on the overhand knot. Here's the glue still wet:
…and here it is dry, with the other end of the cord, tightly wrapped, alongside.
The front of the finished book:
…and the spine:
…and the inside of the front cover:
I wouldn't call this a great leap forward, just a small step. But I'm happy that it's done. I've been obsessing over that knot for a while.
That's the final screen shot from the Repper & Photoshop Class I taught this morning on Weavolution. "Triple Play" is the complete name, the third element being the participants' weaving software of choice.
I love teaching these classes. They leave me drained, but exhilarated. Talking nonstop for two hours is not my usual behavior. But the good side is not having to pack a lot of equipment and go through airports.
My students came from all over. Some did actually attend in their pajamas. Hey, it was 7 a.m. in their part of the world!
They taught me some interesting tricks about good quality of internet transmission in these Weavolution Cyber-Fiber classes. Here are a few: if your microphone doesn't work, try plugging it into the receptacle in the back of the computer, not the front. Some front jacks are non-functional. If you are having trouble with transmission in Google Chrome, switch to another browser. If your microphone doesn't work in full screen mode, switch to reduced screen mode. And be a courteous classmate, and keep your microphone muted unless you want to ask a question.
OK, now down into my studio to make books!
This is a little book that nearly didn't happen. The cover is a scrap of fabric from a series of aspect ratio samples, woven before I dove into a large piece. I was about to throw it away. The paper is leftovers from other books, retorn & interleaved. I had the most fun with it! I was able to try out new glueing methods and a new type of needle, both of which worked well.
The Sunny South. Well, I can't honestly say that it's been particularly sunny here the past few weeks. But whatever it's been has been conducive to plant growth. Let me back up a bit and remind you that I was born and raised in New Jersey, within 30 miles of New York City, and I am not a native Southerner. So even though I've lived in South Carolina for over 38 years, I've never gotten used to having this kind of thing in midwinter:
That's right, roses and camellias blooming like mad in my back yard. The roses are in the foreground and the camellias in the background.
In another part of the yard is this humongous camellia bush, a tree really. This tree was buried in a forest of brambles before we cleared out the space around it this year, and made room for the tree to breath. It's been here longer than we have; I honestly don't know how old it is. It produces white camellias, a few at a time. This single bloom has been greeting me every morning from my kitchen window for the past few days. A cheery sight. That's what I like about the South.
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em…(Kenny Rogers, please forgive me.)
The following picture is courtesy of Bruce. It documents what I've been doing in the studio the past few days. I tore down 50 sheets of 21" by 30" Frankfurt paper (by Zerkall of Germany) into signatures for 16+ books. There are certain economies of scale when you organize things this way, and the time did go by rather pleasantly, as the repetitive motions are conducive to thinking and planning. While folding and tearing, I caught up on my favorite knitting podcastsand a podcast on the history of Japan. And then there was the live broadcast from the Met on Saturday—La Fille du Régiment.An enjoyable couple of days.
Now there is this to show for the time spent (my favorite hand carved bone folder is in the foreground):
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Do yourselves a favor and watch this video. Laurie is a writer, and this is the story of the creation of her "Mad Woman in the Forest" cottage. Enthralling.
Yesterday evening, as day slid into night. The elusive crossover point between natural and artificial light. So hard to capture, as it only lasts for a moment.
This is a lesson in humility. I was supposed to be doing something else today, something that really needed doing, and I was looking for a way to procrastinate. I found it in my studio, a book waiting to be bound:
The text block is an odd remnant of confetti paper from goodness knows where, and was not the best match for the scrap of handwoven double twill. The cloth had been coated with acrylic medium on the reverse, my usual method these days. I thought the fabric face looked a little vulnerable to wear and soil, so I coated that as well. Big mistake. The wrapper cord is already made, and picks up some of the colors in the cloth. There's a lot going on here. Too much.
Here's the reverse, with a spine of black Tyvek glued in place.
The first error is revealed. For some reason my glue didn't hold well. Second error: I miscalculated the number of holes punched for sewing: six rows instead of eight, for the eight signatures. I reshuffled folios and reduced the signatures to six. That made the foredge very messy.
Third error: the matte medium on the face of the cloth turns milky where the holes are punched for sewing. On the inside of the cover this doesn't show, and I never noticed it. But on the outside it is really objectionable. Lesson learned: leave the face of the fabric uncoated.
But the worst error is my miscalculation in cutting the cover—it's an eighth of an inch too short! The pages peek out top and bottom, a real mess of a book.
To remind myself of "haste makes waste," "measure twice, cut once," and other truths, I will keep this book next to my loom for notekeeping. My current loom notebook is almost full, and I was going to start a new one January first. I am chastened.
A really funny coincidence happened today. To back up a bit—last night FedEx delivered my paper order from Talas in the pouring rain, and the box was quite damp. I was really worried, because 50 sheets of fine imported paper is a significant investment. But I quickly unpacked it, and the folks at Talas had done their usual good job of wrapping, and the paper was unharmed. Here it is unrolled and breathing quietly on my worktable.
Today I took a glamour shot of the beautiful deckle edges of the paper:
…while unbeknownst to me, Bruce in the other room was photographing the paper napkins on the kitchen table, and emailing the photo to me (our offices are 10 feet apart, but we email each other several times a day). Here is Bruce's photo.
Meanwhile, in the studio, I was tearing down the paper into signatures:
Now don't coincidences like that send a little frisson up your spine?
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On the loom, another Repper design with a Photoshop Liquify filter action.