At last Jules Verne book

At last, the first of the two volume Jules Verne is finished. I am not supposed to boast but note the central positioning of the title on the spine. You have no idea how carefully I measured this all up - and it worked! This project has been around for about a year. I don't have to check my records because the photos of the shells were taken by me in Australia and the photos of the strawberry grouper were taken in Kuala Lumpur Wet Market!!The assembly and the whirlpool background were all done in Photoshop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



This is a view of the endpapers which again were created by me in Photoshop.

Yesterday I spent from 0700 to 1300 hours and from 2000 to 2300 hours running three computers and backing up to DVDs, to Dropbox, to Google+. I have reached the end and the Linux machines will definitely be turned off soon. I have realised that I need to install Microsoft Office and Framemaker on the Windows machine I am going to use in future. Currently it has the scanner control software, Photoshop CS5 on it and ROXIO Create . So after a mug of tea, I will try to find the master disks for these programs.

 

Not much textiles happening at the moment. I am deciding what to do about further work on the Castlemorton Common pieces and how to mount them.

Castlemorton Common off the Loom

I took the weaving off the Megado last night. Seen above is Spring through Winter (Left to Right). The width is eight inches and the weave is broken twill but is sometimes 1 and 3, sometimes 3 and 1 and sometimes 2 and 2. And somewhere there is a section of  3 and 1 twill. Amazing the different effects you can get.  There is still a lot of work to be done on them, stencilling and embroidery. I am worried about the stencilling and so there is some spare fabric to practise on.

 

I said that there were shoe boxes of yarn strewn round the studio. The first job this morning is put that all away  and then do the stencilling.

Castlemorton Common - weaving in progress

I have never before woven two warps on a loom at the same time. It takes some getting used to. What you see in the photo is the top section of 'The Malvern Hills from Castlemorton Common - Winter' on the left and Autumn on the right. The foreground of grass and shrubby bits is wound on and not visible. The selvedges are not perfect because of the great range of yarn thickness I have been using and I may have to back the edges with tape. Every shoe box in the stash with little bits of yarn in it is strewn round the studio while I rummage for the next wanted colour. The rather nice space dyed yarn on the hills in Autumn is intended for autumn bracken and the yarn was dyed by Sarah Cage of the Midlands Textile Forum. I have a huge range of blue yarns all dyed by me but I do not seem to have been so enthusiastic about green because there is not much . I am well on the way with Spring and Summer. When they are all off the loom they will all be stencilled with a picture (drawn by me) of the pollarded black poplars. I don't often do 'designing on the loom' but it's quite fun.

 

 

 

The next job in bookbinding is to finish the Jules Verne volumes. I did a cased-in book recently (which I haven't done for some time) and decided I needed to do another one to practise before setting out on the Jules Verne - and the above is it. The fabric is printed cotton from one of my favourite shops - Abigail's Crafts in Stonehouse and the endpapers are from a sheet of marbled paper done by Michael some years ago.

 

 

 

 

Camera Progress

II am rather pleased with this photo taken at last week's camera class. Firstly it is taken on macro and secondly it really is this browny-pink colour. When I took it on Auto, the colour of the flower spike came out sky-blue. The correct colour arrived when I experimented with the White Balance. When I started the camera course, I did not know I had an adjustment for White Balance - or indeed many of the things like F no, exposure and ISO number. One reason for attending the class was to decide whether I needed to buy a posher camera before this summer's expeditions. The answer is that I shan't bother. I won't want to carry around anything heavier anyway.

One result is that taking photos of textiles has become a more time-consuming business as I experiment with the camera settings.

 

 

 Last week I tidied up the studio ready for my grandson to stencil on a couple of T-shirts on Sunday. And I managed to weave to the end of the samples for the Complex Weavers Study Group on Tied Weaves. The above shows the use of different yarns.  I am pleased to be working on the Megado now which is going well but not much of interest is showing yet. I will be weaving some more today so should be able to post a photo tomorrow.

Much of my time in the last few days has been spent dealing with computers. I have got all the photos which Michael set up, on to web storage and put most of mine on to Dropbox. Also I have saved all the old emails I want to keep. I think that is the Linux machines dealt with and I could switch them off but will leave them another week or so. I still have files to be web stored  which are currently on a failing Microsoft machine. I reckon it will be another week or so before I have done as I have decided to restrict myself to 2 or 3 hours per day on this task. Soon I will have to start a hunt for the master CDs  so that I can install the basic programs on the one machine which is functioning properly.

Fortunately the laptop is okay. 

 

 

Orange Tree

Here is my orange tree looking quite good after two weeks with me. If you look carefully you should be able to see that it is covered with orange blossom but - - -

a close-up is better. Isn't it gorgeous? And the room is heavily scented!!

I have been learning a lot from my classes on the digital camera. White Balance last night - and the tutor brought in some flowers to practise macro on. So I tried both at the same time and got good colour as a result. There is every hope thatmy photos of textiles will be more accurate in colour in the future.

Not much on textiles in the past few days. When I have a few minutes, I weave a  few inches on the Voyager. This is for samples for the Tied Weaves Study Group.

But mostly I am sorting out computers. I spent about 5 hours yesterday sorting out old emails. They are now in a place of safety.  But before I do anything like switching off the two Linux machines, I need to deal with the photo albums used by Picasa and operating under Linux. The problem is that Michael wrote captions in Picasa for many of the photos and I don't want to lose these captions. But hwo do I get the controlling file from a Linux Picasa  to be put on a Microsoft operating system. And I don't feel I can move any files around until I have accomplished this.

Off to consult with son-in-law.

PS and NB. I have not really looked at Picasa for three years. I was horrified to see that Michael's setup included over 2000 photos but that my weaving/textile photos (which were never captioned) amount to over 6000  and I know that there are a raft more on one of the computer including all the jpgs which were scanned in from slides!! What am I going to do with this lot.  No doubt there are a huge number of duplicates but it will take me days to tidy that lot up.



Antique Textile Fair in Manchester

For years I have wanted to visit the annual Antique Textile Fair run by the Textile Society. It is held in Manchester these days. And yesterday (Sunday) I drove up there. The above shows some of what was going on. Most of the stuff was vintage not antique, that is, it was 20s or later. Beaded flapper dresses, lovely hats, shoes with stiletto heels and a stall selling the kind of 60s curtain fabric that we bought for our first home. In short not a lot to interest me. There was a stall selling spinning bobbins and fly shuttles. Not that I need a fly shuttle and these ones were in very bad condition and would only have been usable with a lot of TLC. I suspect they were being sold as props for displays. I did find a stand with some chops for sale (metal devices for applying a wax pattern in batik) and they had clearly been renovated with some care. So I bought one for my sister. I also bought a couple of wooden stamps. The only other thing I bought was some rather nice ribbon. A nice day out looking at lots of fabric but I would not bother going again.

These are my purchases. The chop is right centre. The strange paper bag was given to me with the stamps and the chop in. It is made from Indonesian local papers!! I will put it on display. Interestingly enough, I was asked by other stall holders if they could look at it and where did I get it?

Saturday was Kennet Valley Guild day and the three monthly Challenge was 'Chocolate'. This brought out the best in the Guild and I cannot resist showing two of the (all) exceptional entries.

The chocolate cake is by Sal Shepherd and is beautifully knitted. The top is knitted to look like chocolate butter icing which has been smoothed on with a fork. The chocolateswere needle felted by Chris Fletcher who made a gold paper box to fit the four chocolates.

 

 

Now off to tidy up. We are finishing the 6 yards of tweed in the bath today. I will have very clean feet at the end of the process!

Another Finished

As promised yesterday, this is the finished weaving from the Voyager. It is slow to weave and you have to keep a close eye on it to detect errors in weaving. There has been quite a bit of unweaving going on. This is a candidate for the Megado because of the computer, not because of the number of shafts which is only eight. The colours are correct or nearly so. There are hems at each end. Since the warp is a 2/20 cotton, the fringe is not very attractive and, although I have called it a scarf, it may end up as a runner with the fringe removed and stitched hems put in. This is because of the weft pattern yarn which is a two-ply Shetland. But soft it is not. I have washed it and it is drying now but it still feels harsh, harsher than I would want to wear next to my skin. That was a problem with the old Handweaver's Studio 2-ply Shetland. The colours were wonderful but the yarn was not as soft to the touch as that from Jamieson and Smith in the Shetlands.  Although I regret to report that they have reduced the number of colours they sell to about a quarter of what they had a few years ago.

 

So what next. Well I must finished off the Hockney sleeve at the top so that I can deliver it to Guild tomorrow. And then to tie on the Megado warps.

 

Yesterday I visited the surgery nurse to sort out what injections/medication I need for the 'Great Trip'. She did a typhoid injection on the spot and that is it. I am all up to date with everything else. She wants a postcard from Samarkand. It is getting closer and things are getting organised. The trip is all paid for (my bank account feels unwell) but no way could I be said to be living within my income this year. Oh well, I can't take it with me. I am beginning to wonder about packing and whether it would be feasible to post 'stuff' home so as to leave space in my luggage for other 'stuff'.  But is the Post Office gettable or honest in places like Dun Huang? And will padded envelopes and brown paper, sellotape etc actually take up just as much room as the 'stuff'?