Weaverly

Black & White & Red All Over

Book time. These are the raw materials for a black & white striped book with red endpapers.

Covers pasted up. I added rectangles of scrap paper to cover only the bare boards on the insides of the cover, to level out the surface. These will be completely covered by the endpapers after the book is sewn.

I like to place additional elements on the front cover to indicate it as such. And what will we bookmakers do for pasting-up surfaces when they stop making phone books (any day now)? 

What color waxed linen for the spine sewing? Choices, choices.

Black or red? I think it will be black.

Sewing finished and endpapers glued in.

Now I'll wait for the glue to totally dry and put this newest blank journal in the press for a couple of hours to keep it from splaying out.

 

A Hole in the Sky

Living here in the piedmont, there is very little opportunity to see the sky without trees appearing somewhere in the frame. Last night as I was taking my after dinner coffee on the deck, I looked up and saw this typical sky view.

My morning walks are mostly about trees and sky, too. Imagine my shock when I saw this great big hole in the sky over my neighbor's front yard:

She did what we are all doing now, scouting out the diseased trees and limbs and removing them before they fall on our houses in hurricane season. But it does leave a great big hole in the sky, where four trees used to be. Takes some getting used to.

Hard to believe all this stuff was thirty feet in the air only yesterday!

Another way of looking at them.

More Than One Solution

Put on your thinking caps, people. I found a very good list for you: Ten Lessons the Arts Teach, by Elliot Eisner. My favorite is this one:

The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

—•—•—•—•—

I've been designing some small repeat patterns for a 12-shaft dobby loom. The hypothetical loom has four additional shafts for selvedge. Here are some of the initial results.

Dishtowels

There was a lot of kitchen activity this past weekend, and I passed by the oven at precisely 9:57 Monday morning, I was struck by this interesting composition of dishtowels.

All handwoven of course. And yes, we do love pretzels.

Cutting Off Ceremony

We had to film this ourselves, because our crew went to a baseball game at the last minute. And the beverage wasn't very good, as you will see. It was a festive occasion nevertheless.

Logo & A Little Housekeeping—& the Survey Results

Final steps: I wove the logo and some extra background weave for a hem turn-in, then a bit of plain weave to hold things together temporarily. Then a dribble of fray control along the plain weave edge.

A closer look at the logo; you'll have to stand on your head, I'm afraid.

The all-important lease sticks are inserted behind the heddles. 

All is quiet. Hushed. Expectant.

But while we're waiting, I'll just tell you about the results of the survey. First, the very surprising results of question #1, "Are you interested in any of these topics?" Not what I expected at all. Click to make it more readable.

As far as the question about class format (live lectures, online classes, etc.), the answers were all over the place, no clear majority. People's choices were based on proximity to classes, time constraints, finances, etc., which was about what I expected.

A majority of respondants would not travel to SC for a 3-day workshop.

Most of the respondants posted additional comments with excellent suggestions. I'll be digesting those in the days to come, and expect to implement some of them. Thank you all for taking the time to weigh in.

Colophon

Just wove the colophon; there's maybe enough warp to weave a little logo, and then a hem. Then a cutting off ceremony. I've never had a proper cutting off, just a virtual party. It was fun, but a real party with champagne would be nice, too. With video cameras standing by. Can I persuade my young videographers to help out? Hm-m-m.

And always interesting to see what's going on below, as the cloth winds onto the cloth beam:

Almost pitched this one (the camera took it by itself - it sometimes does that), but on second look I rather liked it. A really nice composition:

Sharp Pointy Things

Where on earth did these come from? Now that they're here, I'll let them stay. Sharp pointy things. 

That's the end of a section. Room for just one more, I think.

 

Home

Home from the hospital at last! She is doing very well. Thanks for all the good wishes.

SketchBook and the Daily Journal

There are probably a few more daily journal entries to be eked out of this warp, before the knots advance to just behind the heddles. For the current design, based on a drawing executed in the SketchBook app on the iPad, I've switched one of the pattern yarns; I ran out of the off-white rayon I had been using, and substituted a beige linen blend. Amazing what a difference this makes in the total look. Here it is half finished.