Decorated Paper for Bookbinding

Last Saturday afternoon there was a demonstration of 'Patterning Leather and Paper' in Malvern organised by the local branch of the Society of Bookbinders. This was run by Stephen Conway who is a Designer Bookbinder from Halifax. The organiser had sent a note round saying this was a demo and lecture but bring a plastic apron and gloves just in case. What happened was that Stephen Conway (demo-ed for 45 minutes and then said 'Now you have a go'. So the next few hours saw 13 people getting very messy with acrylic paint, leather dyes, varnish and - - - . Not to mention using crumpled paper and bubble wrap. The above photo shows what I came home with! Each sheet is bigger than A3 so there is quite a lot of paper to work with. There are two sheets of red with curved white lines. I rather liked the first one so did a second sheet. I had thought of the paper as being end-papers but the tutor said (re the two red/white sheets) that he would use them as a book cover with a black spine. Now there's a good idea.

Some weeks ago I was at a Gardening Show locally and saw the work of a local furniture maker. Since then I have commissioned a plan chest to hold my paper stash. I did not want a very large one and it had to go on top of a bench upstairs. So it is four drawers high and will hold A2 paper. I am looking forward to reducing the paper stash to order! It will be in sycamore with a black walnut carcase.

The 12 shaft loom arrived on Monday but I was so exhausted by  the morning's goings-on that I have not unwrapped it yet. The exhibition which was in St Martins, the Bullring, Birmingham had to be taken down and removed. I arranged that I would also take down someone else's stuff and take it home with me as she is on holiday. The Bullring is a pedestrian precinct. So I spent some time on the web finding the nearest carpark to St Martin's. I put the postcode into the SatNav and I was delivered to the carpark entry. At 10am it was empty so I placed the car as near to the lifts as possible and walked round to St Martin's - four minutes. I took down my stuff then Sarah's and discovered that several of her pieces were glassed and framed, that she had a full-size mannequin, wearing a jacket and that there was a head piece of tulle mounted on a full-size bronze head. Panic. I walked round to the car park with one load (not easy), returned and was considering all this stuff on the floor when someone else volunteered to help carry. Was I grateful!!  By careful planning, we did all the rest in one trip. On reflection, I should taken my sack trolley.

So today (Tuesday) I am off to Nottingham to see an exhibition on silk as reported by Cally Booker recently.