For a long time. like a year or two, I have had a textblock of 'The Secret Garden' waiting to be bound. The first major delay was caused by one sheet of the textblock being overprinted. But the supplier, Volcano Arts, in the States sent me a replacement. By then I had gone on to something else. Yesterday, I got out the textblock and started work. In my opinion, it is too fat for its page dimensions which are 11.5 by 14.8 cm whereas it is 3.5 cm thick. This is a bit awkward to deal with.
The endpapers are handmade paper with flowers and leaves embedded. With the book being so small, I di not want to overwhelm the book with a fussy endpaper and I thought there was enough pattern on the covers. I am serious about binding a book a week. I am going onto the complete Nonsense Rhymes of Edward Lear. For some reason, I acquired this. It has clearly been a paperback but the covers have been torn off. The first thing to do is to remove the glue and then set about turning it into a hardback. I have four or five more books awaiting bindings.
I also started on the Megado weaving. This is a double width handspun blanket. After trouble with folding to the left instead of the right, I discovered that the fell-line was up at the edges and consulted with the oracle (Peggy Osterkamp's books). I have, for the first time in my life, weighted the edges and it works. Not enough to show a photo of yet but it is slower than I hoped.
Since the weather is hot and sunny, I sought out my kit for Cyano printing. The instructions told me I had to prepare the cloth first so that has been done. It is all a bit difficult because it should be hung up to dry in a dark place - I can see why but I don't have a place like that. So it is drying under a table in the garage with a cloth over the table. It will be ready tomorrow and I have hunted out things to try. I have prepared a one square meter piece of cotton. I will use a stencil or two but I want to use ferns and leaves and these will need holding in place. I have just located a sheet of Perspex and must go and wash it ready for tomorrow.
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