Japanese Style Books (4)

The last two Japanese style books. I created some graphics based on plum blossom and printed them on labels to do a proper style of label. The idea is that you write the title in your best calligraphic hand on the blank part of the label.  The book at the top left is covered in cotton fabric with red Canson Ingres inside . The book itself is various handmade papers. The lower right one is paper - I know not where it came from but the sheet was a very odd size.

Inside the cover is a very nice red-brown paper with small sprays of flowers - again no idea where it came from.

I had a collection yesterday and located as much paper as possible but I am still missing some. Where for instance, is the paper which is an old map of Virginia? A precious piece did surface after several years of being missing. That was bought in a wonderful shop in den Haag and has rows of cocktail glasses on it. - nearly full size. I am waiting for the perfect book to use that - not a recipe book. A travel journal for a visit to New York? 

 I have not mentioned the garden for some time. It has been getting on with things - like the biggest crop of soft fruit since we moved in here and a huge of crop of pears on the way. These are now wrapped up against the birds/squirrels. They can have the cobnuts but not the pears or red currants. The fuschias have been very good this year and the hibiscus is doing very well. This is only half-hardy and so is tucked into a south facing corner. Despite the very cold winter, it is doing well. It is quite a young plant - we had flowers on it last year for the first time. As you can see, it is thriving.

A close up is below. Lots more flowers to come

Japanese Style Books (3)

Now that I have fabric pasted to paper in a satisfactory manner, the Japanese style books can be made up. Various styles of binding are shown 3, 4 and 5-hole as well as a 4-hole Kangxi which is the brown one with gold silk binding thread standing up at the back. These are blank books made of handmade paper except for the red cloth one on the left. The next one is also covered in cloth while the other two have paper covers (Canson Ingres). I need to do some labels.

Another view of the bindings.

This is the one with the red cloth binding. The paper is Chinese water colour paper which is so lightweight, it has to be folded so that the fold is at the fore-edge of the book. The drawings are all stencils of caladium leaves done in oil pastels.

I have two more to do. The covers are made and one set of contents is ready. The last one needs some paper. I have prepared some paper for a Coptic binding too.

SHEEP 2010

Today I had a great time. The Sheep Show is held in Malvern at the Three counties Showground every few years and it is a serious affair. There are not many hangers-on about. Lots of sheep, collies and shepherds. To give a flavour, here is the list of talks in one of the marquees. It was packed out when I stuck my head in.

Lots of people selling sheep pens, fencing (there was a fencing competition under way too), medication for all sorts of unspeakable diseases, people selling software to record your crosses, shears, things for doing their toe nails. Even someone selling spinning wheels.

Here is Linda Scurr at her stand with 100 skeins each of a different breed of British sheep. There was a steady stream of inquiries, even wanting to buy the felt portrait of her cat. We enjoyed the ice-cream stand (almost next door) whose unique feature is that all the ice-cream is made with sheep's milk.

A few of the attendees.

And two skeins of Leicester Longwool space dyed pink. How could I resist?

Five completed cotton pieces on to bank paper. I have had mixed success with this procedure previously so this time faithfully followed the method shown in this link. Except that I used wheat starch paste and bank paper and not methyl cellulose paste and kozo paper. It went off very well.  I found that, by the third one, I had got a lot more efficient. Now I need to make some books up!! I have had paper waiting in piles, folded, cut and pressed for at least 6 weeks so some time soon. One of the piles has a whole lot of artwork on it.

But today is still a tidying up day. I have written up the caladium leaves/birds/network draft with copies of drafts, samples of yarns et cetera. There is a lot on this week and I must get my yarn ready for next Saturday's Indigo Vat. I promised Michael I would do some samples of tapestry wool for him, skeins have been wound, five each of two different yarn types. 

The last thing to be done is to wind a warp or rather five identical small warps with a cross at each end. These will be tied together and  tie-dyed for indigo. After it has been dipped to a nice mid-blue,  half the ties will be undone and the whole lot dipped again until the first dipping is dark blue and the second mid-blue.  When dry, the bundle will be undone, and two of the small warps reversed and then it all will be warped up. I tried this method before but found that it did not look very inspiring because I had made all the tied sections about the same length. So how to see before hand? I used EXCEL to generate Random numbers which added up to a length which was appropriate - 56 inches in this case.

Then coloured in squared paper with two shades of blue, cut the paper lengthwise into 5 equal widths, reversed two and Voila! It does mean the tying up has to be done from the centre of the warp or it will not reverse properly. So I am off to wind five warps.

By the way, this page came from my day book. First time a page has ever been transferred from that to my blog. 

Did I say I have done all the accounts over the weekend? In particular, since I stopped work last October, I have come off the VAT system but there was a final round of paperwork to finish that off. All done and posted. Now all I have to do is get rid of 25 years of paperwork! Might just send for a shredding company.

My Halo has been burnished

I have been very hard working today and at 1630 am thinking of stopping off till tomorrow.

1) I defrosted the freezer with all that that means in the way of wrapping up everything in newspaper and washing all the drawers and the freezer inside when it was defrosted. The kitchen was hopeless while this was in progress
2) I have hemmed the Birds weaving ready for Exotica, using bias binding and weighted the lower hem with curtain weights.
3) I bought a cotton dress (circa 1960s) which was a little too small. I have let out the seams where needed and it looks/feels fine now. Michael is highly amused. 'You used to have dresses just like that' Why does he think I bought it?
4) Dorothy brought us a fine textile picture as a present recently. In order to hang it, I had to take down two others (Ravilious book plates) and re-hang all three. Step-ladders, pliers, screwdrivers et cetera.
5) I have cleaned up the garage and cleared the bench top for pasting paper to fabric for book covers. Six pieces of board in the cellars and suitable for this operation were put in the garage. I have mixed the paste needed for this and put it in the fridge. I have chosen six pieces of fabric trimmed them to be about 1 inch all round smaller than A2 because I am going to use A2 bank paper. All the fabric has been pressed and laid aside carefully.

I could do something about the loom bags but I don't feel I have to.

Hay on Wye

Every second Friday, Michael goes to St Richards Hospice (McMillans) where he has a great time painting, drinking (I kid you not, they get wine/whisky/etc before lunch), eating and generally chatting to a group of people in the same situation. It's a beautiful place with an enormous well-laid-out garden which is immaculately kept and contains a very large duck pond. The flowers are all planted in high beds made of old railway sleepers so that folks in wheelchairs can enjoy them. 

Well that's him. What about me? I could stay at home and do some textiley things but that seems a pity when it is so difficult for me to go anywhere more than 20 minutes drive away without organising someone to look after Michael. So yesterday I went to Hay-on-Wye which is a drive of 75 minutes. I went intending to buy some distressed books for rebinding but found nothing that I liked. Instead I bought a raft of art books. A book on Sargent's watercolours for Michael, a book on Bawden in North Africa for me, a book on David Gentleman's designs, a Rex Stout we haven't got. I was surprised at the last. I thought we had everything. I found a crafts shop which had mice made of twisted wire and good glass but only bought three sheets of wrapping paper (for bookbinding).

To get to Hay from Malvern, you need to go through Hereford and there are two ways to get to Hereford from Malvern, one of which is rumoured to be having problems with roadworks. So I went via Ledbury. On the way home I thought I shall be driving past Mr Waller's. So I stopped and bought beef for the weekend. Ledbury is a small town with a bustling main street and five high class butchers and the highest class is Mr Waller's. I have been in a posh restaurant (coq au vin etc etc) and the first main course listed was 'Dave Waller's sausages with onions and wine gravy'. So I bought some of them (the Bosbury Bangers to be precise), some drycure bacon and one of his award-winning pies (pork and garlic) which I started on when I got home because I had missed out on lunch. 

Later on I stitched and cut up the Megado output (see yesterday's blog). There are half-finished projects all over the place and, since we have no visitors this weekend, I am hoping to finish a lot of them.

I am enjoying reading various blogs about CW and Convergence, Cally Booker, Daryl Lancaster, Sandra Rude, Alice Schlein. I wish - - - -

Birds and Caladium Leaves and - - -

I have sewn in all the ends and zigzag stitched in the spacer weaving between pieces and cut them up. Above is Fancies II which is going to the EXOTICA Exhibition at Birmingham Botanic Gardens - see poster. Do come along.

 And this is Caladium Leaves II. Mind you I think I might like Caladium Leaves III better which has only a dark green weft, (see below) but II has been entered for EXOTICA so that's that.

 Here is a photo of both sides of the networking drafting done with pale yellow weft and below is with a dark blue weft. An interesting colour point is that, in the yellow weave, the dark maroon warp looks a nice chocolate brown.

I rather like this one. It would make a good upholstery cloth.

Now I have several pieces of cloth. What am I to do with them? The Kennet Valley Guild  has a thing called 'Rosie's Challenge' which happens every three months. A topic is set and everyone who who can enters their response - knitters, spinners, felt makers, lace makers, braiders and weavers. We have had Kandinsky, Fire (June 2010), anything recycled, Teatime. That produced cake stands full of knitted Battenberg cake and knitted salmon sandwiches decorated with knitted hardboiled egg. Anyway the next challenge is a bag for the September meeting. For some time, I have thought that a bag looped over each end of the Megado's stool would be a good idea for parking loaded shuttles in. I have dug out a book (100 bags and purses) and found a pattern for a bucket bag so this fabric is about to be made up into something useful. Need to hunt for a lining but I am sure I have something upstairs.