yipee

This last month has brought me a great many tatting gifts.  Threads and bobbins from Mom, books from Lisa, and shuttles from my dearest Rick.  I have tatted a snowflake from the "24 snowflake" book and will be picking a project out of the Mary Konier book.  I also received a tatted ornament from a fellow tatter as part of the Intatters Secret Santa exchange.

Another good thing is that I found the money to buy an imposer file and am now able to proceed with the Carol Berg book binding.  Fun stuff for the coming winter months!  I hope, now that the studio is heading back towards organization, that I will be able to make the growing list of books and such for my friends.

Santa Exchange Pieces

These were made for a Secret Santa exchange. This angel turned out much better since I knew what I was doing.  The sunburst is a pattern by Tatbit called Floral Fantasy in Lizbeth size 20 - fall something - color #100.  Sorry about the state of the photos - I hate my camera.

Ups and Downs

The studio is a wreck.  The window was recently replaced and hasn't been framed in yet.  This means that the work table is still down, things are piled everywhere, I barely have enough room to work on the wedding dress, however, I think the bed is still in there somewhere...under all the piles.  Book and box making has come to a halt.

Lace making is in full swing.  That is to say, it was until Boo decided to help Mommy by unraveling 2 spools of thread at the same time.  Not by pulling and pulling it unwound, but pealing it off the balls like an orange.  It took two hours to separate and sort it all out.  One of the balls was to be a gift too, so I have to go buy a replacement.  *laugh*  Maybe I should just set it all aside till after Halloween.

Rocky's Birthday

My neice is turning 12 this Saturday and I'm sending this to her.  It was fun to make and my first attempt at a Split Ring.  I love love love how the coloring turned out.  So not planned.

Torchon Icicle

This month at Lace Guild we did Torchon icicles. I have never done Torchon Ground before and Shirlene Mayo helped me hobble through the learning stage. It's an interesting form of lace making - LOTS of pins, which you can see at the start and where I'm currently working.  I took most in the middle out to see what it looked like.

My husband took a look at my work and said something along the lines of it looking like 3 wavelengths of varying frequencies interacting with one another - especially the pricking.  It was much more scientific than that, but It made me laugh.  One person's lace is another person's wavelength.

Fist Bobbin Lace

Here is a bad photo of my first bit of bobbin lace ever. I made a few mistakes, but it still turned out, I need to stiffen it somehow and then decide what to do with it. Next on the list is the bat.

Home Depot 1 Lowes 0

I have been trying to find 1/4 inch wood that's wider than 6 inches and that isn't a lament. Home depot has it in Poplar 8 in wide *Happy Snoopy Dance*. I think I'll still try to find an online source or see what that local cabinet store (if I can even find them open) has, but I can officially move forward with the Carol Berg rebind.

Teaching people

I have had another person say they would take a bookmaking class from me. I wouldn't charge $400 like the not-so-local Book Arts studio. They do, however, have all the lovely tool * mentally drools over the guillotine cutter*.

This has led me to think about all the "mad skills" that people have. I do believe that people should be compensated for their time and talents. Maybe I'm kidding myself about costs, but I do have a hard time, especially in this economy, charging a high price for a class. On the other hand people shouldn't expect to get it for free. I DID pay $350 to take a book arts classes. Maybe it's just the LDS culture I live in, people think you should give it away free. I don't know, but maybe teaching a class is in my future.

etsy and walmart

Once again this week several people who know I make books asked if I had considered selling them on etsy. And once again I had to explain that I don't have time to make a lot of books right now and that I'm not sold on etsy. You have to pay to post items wether they sell or not. I'm not about to put out money like that with no guarantee of investment. I may look into local craft malls or make a goal of selling at some of the "arts" fairs next summer, but for now I'm just going to make the CB books.

That project moves forward in snail like fashion. One step forward two steps back. Ripping pages, but still don't have hard wood covers. I also wanted decretive corners, but the Lowes "no longer carries that sort ot thing" Lord I hate the WalMartization of America. It's turned us in to red necks. Cheep, but here's no quality or substance anymore. Perhaps that is why places like etsy are doing so well. People actually DO want something fine made and are willing to pay for it.

Mics.

A number of projects are under way in my world right now. Ripping continues on the Carol Berg books as does tatting a lovely green doily. I am attempting to tat something of my ownish design. It's a challenge from a tatting site in which I was given a diagram of the rings and we were to come up with the chains and picots. It's not going baaaaadly, but it isn't great either. I'll take pictures when I get to a "stopping" point (and empty the memory card of Boo pics).

On other fronts that have nothing to do with book making or tatting I was given 12.5 pounds of gourmet artisan chocolate today. I've started a list of "things to make with chocolate". Crazy I know, but I count my blessings as they come.

Suttleless Tatting

I'm working on a doily by the amazing Jon yusoff. It has three motifs that you tat together. I'm doing it in size 40 green (Christmas) variegated thread by HH Lizbeth. So my tatting is a lot smaller than the picture from Jon's site. It's lovely and when I get more done and my end hidden (which I stink at) I'll take pictures.

Last night I was adding a third clover circle when I got to the end of my thread; metaphorically, metaphysically and literally. Here's the short version.

There are 8 clovers, I just started the 7th one when I realized that I had made a join wrong in the 5th one. Do I cut it off and try again or undo all the tatting. (some may say tatting is undo-undo-able, but I've gotten very good at it) It would take me the same amount of time to tat anew as undo and fix so I chose to fix it. *sigh* I was near enough to the end of the shuttle thread that I just took it off for the undoing. Then I started to tat again. As I approached the 8th clover I found I had enough thread to finish, but not enough to loop it all around my hands like "normal" shuttle tatting. So what did I do?

Yep, I took it off the shuttle again and did it with two loose threads. It worked out and the tension is fine, but boy howdy was it a pain. I felt like it was me vs. the tatting.

Today I write fiction and work on the books.

Ripping and Knotting

I'm still ripping paper. Lots and lots of paper. 140 sheet to be exact. That may not seem like much, but that is the amount of paper in the two 280 page books I'm working on. Add to that the embroidery pattern's I'm still working out for the covers...This is a long term project.

In the mean time I'm tatting like mad. In fact I'm going to attempt to teach my best friend Stacy to tat today. Then I can share my frustration about "out of print" tatting books with someone who will understand.

project on hold

This project as been placed on hold till I get my life back in a little more order. It's taking FOREVER to hand tare all the pages in the novels. I must be some kind of mad.

The Berg Project

Here are the unfolded "hot off the press" sheets. I learned the hard way that the paper was too high a poundage; so these books are going to be "tomes" as my husband said.


These are the rough folded signatures. There are 5 pages per signature and the ruler is 2 inches ... that's a lot of book. I hadn't pressed the book yet so I was hopeful.


This is just one section being pressed. I divided it all up into four parts then emptied my shelves of heavy books to press everything. There were three Shakespeare anthologies, a Milton anthology, several art history textbooks, an encyclopedia, and a couple of boxes of old hardbacks. I then left it all for two days.


The books are smaller after pressing, but they are still too "oversized" to do my original binding design. I spent a couple of days working out other designs before settling on doing a case-in (glad I got 2 yards of the silk). I really wanted an exposed spine, but I don't think it would be stable enough as the books are about 3 inches thick.


I'll take more pics and post them this week. The marbled papers arrived and I've been hand tarring the sheets to size.

The Arg of Bookmaking

I've come to understand that some projects are cursed. This one seems to be. Printing problems, folding problems, paper problems, cover issues, embroidery problems, the linen tapes have problems, the marbled papers (actually the credit card) had issues, etc. I'm just waiting for the Boo to draw on some of the signatures when I'm not looking. I'm about to shelve the whole thing. *laugh*

It's a lovely slightly rainy day out. I think I need to go do SOMETHING else.

When You Know Too Much

Have you ever known too much about something? I know just enough about paper to make things difficult in printing the signatures for my latest project.

Paper has grain. It's a bit like a good stake that way. You can cut it along the muscle fibers or across them. Paper has pulp fibers that do the same thing. So, when making a book the grain should run the same direction as the spine.

The difficulty arises when you need 17x11 paper. NO, not 11x17. The second number tells you which direction the grain runs and I need it the 11 length to be the grain.

unfortunately the local prints shops have no idea what I'm talking about...I seem to remember this same problem with the local Joann's store and hook and eye tape...Ignorance isn't bliss, but it makes like a little easier when you don't know enough to care.

Rebinding Favs

I have rebound a couple of my favorite novels and last night I realized that "Breath and Bone" has surpassed "Sunshine" as my all time favorite book.

I have decided to design and *crosses fingers* rebind a copy of it. I've already got a few ideas and I'll need to do some sketches...and find some bones. I'm hoping that I can find Pheasant, or some other amazing flying birds bones. Maybe I need to do two copies and take one to Carol Berg.

We shall see.

Lady Guillotine

Today saw the arrival of my new cutter; Madam Guillotine. She is a lovely thing that will cut through everything I need to build more books. Okay, she doesn't cut through wood, but that's what the saws are for.



I have been struggling with the Davey's Board on my mat cutter and it just isn't woodcarving I basically have to use up a whole blade cutting one cover and I can't even guarantee that the cuttings are as exact as I want them. Not anymore! *muahhhhh* I can not have extremely strait boards . . . which means

BOXES! I can now make boxes as well as books *cheer* I guess this means it's time to order more paper and book cloth. oh darn *laugh*

Yes, I made that

I have been making books for years; mostly for friends. In all that time I have never taken a picture of the books I've made. It's very Zen I think. I make something from nothing and then release it to the world.

I am thinking of really putting time into making and maybe selling books now that I have a studio. All I need is time.

If you have come here looking for a hand made book to buy it will depend. Send me a message and we'll see.