Some Progress

I was looking out Christmas presents among my Japanese books and decided that this one would be appropriate. The keen eyed among you will note that the stitching has been redone. In stitching the original, I ran out of thread and omitted one stitch and had to tie the ends on the outside (which I don't like) so this one has been done 'properly'.

When finished, it had the honour of being the first in the new book press. All the books intended for presents are okay except one where the covers are curved. I will put that one in the press later today. If it can't be sorted, I will have to rethink that one.

This is an 8-shaft Summer and Winter on the Louet Kombo for Christmas cards. The pattern weft is lurex which looks much better in reality than this photo especially the silver. The red is not so striking and I shall try gold lurex next. This is a rethreaded warp from the table mats but there was not much warp left. So I am going to tie on a new warp which will be plain blue and not multicoloured. I am halfway through winding the warp - 6 metres long. The Christmas cards should take up about another 1.5 metres and then I shall do Summer and Winter samples on the rest. In case you are wondering, the motifs are glass baubles for a Christmas tree.

Tomorrow Michael will be out all day and I intend to have a blitz on textiles. I wonder what what will happen to stop me!! Today we are going to see his consultant in Worcester Royal which means an early start. I have given up on the NHS transport - which is atrocious and we use Matt the Taxi (Access Taxis to the rest of the world) who has a taxi equipped for wheel chair access.

Just Winter, No Summer Involved

Friday morning was spent in a series of expeditions around Malvern getting hold of household oddments. I bought a lovely warm pair of ankle boots which are waterproof (Gore-tex) and a new pair of sheepskin slippers. The last pair were at least 10 years old. 

I also acquired a power extension lead so that my new Anglepoise can operate on the desk upstairs. I have shifted all the bookbinding materials upstairs and can now work up there. I finished off the Wake Robin Coptic book.  I have three Japanese style books to finish off as Christmas presents.

To help me with bookbinding, I am now the proud owner of a book press. which dismayed me with its size and weight when it arrived. Even the delivery man complained but then he had come through snow to get it to us. I got Anne to help me carry it upstairs and install it. 

And the family are giving me other bits and pieces of equipment for Christmas.

I have finishing warping up on the Christmas cards and intend to weave a bit today. Not much has happened lately on the Megado although I have decided that I can't do any dyeing in our unheated garage until the weather gets better. I have decided to go back to the Tencel warp and redesign it to fit on the current ghost warp.

Yesterday we had some old friends round for the day which was very pleasant.

Tomorrow Michael sees his consultant about the bone scan results. I fear the worst. And on Tuesday he is having an urgent blood transfusion. He is having this at St Richards hospice (run by the McMillan Trust) so he will be ever so well looked after. They made it plain that they didn't want me so I can see a lot being done on Tuesday. Alternatively I could just catch up on sleep!

Rayna Gillman has a reference to a very interesting blog on juried exhibitions by Terry Jarrard-Dimond - definitely worth reading.

Summer and Winter

This is the first (sample) table mat in Summer and Winter on 5 shafts. Partway through weaving the patterned section, I changed my mind and the right hand half is the what is on the second (submitted) table mat. It was posted two days ago and I forgot to take a photo before it went.

It is of cottolin and has been an interesting exercise. I have attended two classes with Margaret Roach Wheeler who uses Summer and Winter and thought it was about time I did some drafts myself. The first attempts were no good at all and I clearly had not understood about tied weaves. Eventually (after two tries) it worked. The table mat has come out as I hoped. I have just rethreaded the rest of the warp on to 8 shafts to weave Christmas cards. There is not enough warp left so I am going to use it as a ghost warp when I have woven most of it off. That way I can go straight in to sampling for the Complex Weavers Tied Weaves Study Group after finishing the Christmas cards.

The photo shows what I have done with the handmade paper from Wake Robin Paper Mill. The book is 11 cm square and is made from 11cm strips cut from everyone of the papers. Each small sheet was folded in half which gave me 4 pages. They were bound individually which was not a good idea but I did want all the pages from one paper together. Then each page was treated. On the first page is written what the paper is made from, the second page is block printed with printing ink, the third page is a stencil of a wake robin (American for trillium) using Paintstix and the fourth page has been stamped with letters using acrylic paint.  Given the variation in colour of the papers, most of them take  this treatment quite well. A few are pretty transparent and the acrylic and Paintstix show through. This little book provides me with a record of how each paper behaves.

The weather has been atrocious and driving conditions on the Malvern Hills is interesting. The car gracefully travelled skated 20 yards  down hill on Wednesday and at a speed of about 5mph hit another car. Fortunately for her (unfortunately for me) she had a caravan tow bar! So my number plate is seriously dented but she had no damage. It took me 45 minutes to complete a journey that normally takes 5 minutes. I have chickened out of going to Creative Textiles class in Bournville this morning and also out of going to a class on braiding run by Rod Owen on Sunday. The idea of driving over the Cotswolds fills me with horror. 

The forecast is for much more snow to come and so I will spend the whole of this morning dealing with a large number of small jobs like going to the bank and the tip. I need a new pair of boots for one thing. I have a carer coming in anyway because of the Bournville class. 

It is all very depressing. Add to that, that Michael has been unwell in several different ways at the same time and hours are spent each day getting hold of medics and attending them when they turn up.

A Weekend at a Spa

I have not blogged for several days. This was done last Friday - printing on fabric at Bourneville. Dorothy gave me a bag full of foam letters to use in printing. I did try these last August but failed. They looked very blotchy. Since I am managing to print with blocks at Bourneville, I thought I would try again with the letters- and it worked. The secret is applying the paint. If I apply the paint with a brush or a roller, I get paint down  the edges of the letters which smudges when printed. The secret is to spread the paint very thin but evenly on a plate and use the plate as a stamp pad. The paint has to be re-spread after each use. I used the back of a spoon for that. The same phrase has been used over and over as I have a book project in mind and wanted to check that this technique will work for the cover fabric. There is going to be an artist's book exhibition next year in our local library.

This fabric has been printed and over-printed with a piece of string glued down to a piece of card. It did not survive having the paint washed off but is obviously a useful technique.

This Friday we are going to do screen printing.

From Bourneville, I drove straight to Springs which is near Ashby-dela-Zouche and met up with my daughters, Ruth and Anne for a spa weekend. The weather turned cold overnight on Friday but we were busy indoors doing aquarobics, Fitball and Tai Chi, not to mention massages and thalassotherapy (salt water pool with sprays built in). Oh and a bit of gossiping too.

Here are Ruth and Anne relaxing after their exertions.

And Anne is showing off some very fancy nail work!

A fountain in the grounds of Springs. There were some ducks walking about on the frozen surface of the water and looking very unhappy.

And a very nice pot inside Springs.

I reached home before dark on Sunday. Yesterday (Monday) I finished off the second table mat which looks much better. It was washed late last night and I hope to get it in the post today. It has snowed some more overnight but only an inch or so. I intend to get to Cheltenham today to finish my Christmas shopping. I am working on the principle that, if the carer for Michael can get here this afternoon then I can get to Cheltenham and back.

Anne asked me what my plans for a power cut were. After a bit of discussion, I have bought two new hot-water bottles and put Michael on the vulnerable register at npower. You read lots of tales of woe about utilities but the npower telephonist could not have been more helpful. The cupboard is stocked with UHT milk, bread flour and dried yeast and there is bread in the freezer.

I have done a bit more weaving on the Megado but it is very slow as I have to clear the shed for each weft. Only about six inches left of warp though.

Feeling Better - or - Getting Things Finished

This was a few pieces of fabric  from the block printing exercises done last week at the Creative Textiles' class. My samples seem to be all printed in shades of purple and red. I did not realise it at the time although it might have been laziness and just using up any pots of paint that were lying around. 

Annette suggested that we should bring everything done so far this term tomorrow and consider layering techniques and we ought to do some at home. I did not feel up to much earlier in the week but I did consider the two artists I have been allotted, Annette has given us each two artists to write an appreciation of. Mine were John  Rocha and Albert Moore. John Rocha is he of '24 shades of black' and Albert Moore you can be forgiven not knowing. Think Lord Leighton only a bit sombre. Actually his still lifes of flowers are great but you can keep the maidens.  

 Today I dug out all the things to take tomorrow and decided to do something about one of the block printed pieces (Top left above). I added a bigger fish in Mola work. A bit of velvet dyed grey and pink for the body and orange poplin for the fins.

I am also sewing up a Coptic Book containing the sample handmade papers from Wake Robin Mill in the States. The interesting thing is that the papers have a definite smell (I am not good at smells). They seem tobacco-y. Not cigarette, not cigars but the smell of tobacco leaves in a drying shed.

And speaking of handmade paper, I have received the most fabulous (slightly early) Christmas present from my sister, Dorothy - a kit for making handmade paper. I am itching to get at it but I will be good!!!

I have finished weaving a sample table mat, It has been hemmed, measured, handwashed and measured, ironed and measured. It is within specification which is 36 by 46 cm (+/- 1 cm) excluding any fringes. Mine is 37 by 45 cm but I can't use it because I don't quite like the pattern and changed it halfway through 'just to see'. The second pattern is better  so I will weave another one.

Tomorrow I am going on from the class in Bourneville to Springs Spa which is at Ashby-de-la-Zouche to meet my daughters for a weekend there. Usually I spend a lot of time in the pool but I still have a cold so will have to be careful. I did wonder about going over to Uppingham but gave up the idea when I realised it would take the best part of 3 hours aller-et-retour. However there is a largescale Hobbycraft at Tamworth and I shall take that in! I have a list from Michael already.

Hospitals

Yesterday was spent putting things away or trying to find new (tidy) places for them) - and brewing up a vicious head cold. After not sleeping at all well last night, I tottered out of bed this morning feeling wretched but there was no going back to bed for me. Michael had a whole body bone scan today. This involved being injected with radio active material, waiting three hours and then having a gamma ray camera crawl all over you.

This left me with a lot of time to pass which was spent sniffing and watching the hospital at work. Worcester Royal is a big hospital and it has a huge glass block as its front entrance which everyone passes through. Cowering in a one corner is a Costa Coffee which is pretty big but dwarfed by its surroundings.  Do you realise that no-one dresses up to go hospital? All ages and conditions pass through those double doors and no-one but no-one looks smart. They all look anxious whether they are going home or coming in. Few people come by themselves and there is more hand-holding than I have seen for a long time. A middleaged daughter holding her father's hand, a young mother with a stroppy eight-year-old son. She starts to yell at him, remembers something, bits her lip, turns her head away. A very old lady in a wheelchair comforts a middle-aged man (her son) who is crying. Couples (young, old, very old) hold hands. The only people who look happy are from the maternity unit, ecstatic young men carrying bags while she carries the new  baby.

Now I am home, I am still sniffing and unlikely to do anything useful this evening. I feel so poorly that that does not even worry me. Maybe tomorrow.

Proper Japanese Bookbinding

Today I attended a one-day class on Japanese bookbinding run by the Society of Bookbinders. The class was given by Kathy Abbott and was proper - including the making of paper string to hold the text block together. The text block was made of Shoji which is 43gsm Japanese paper. There was no stiffening cover but decorative paper was glued to the text block and the edges folded in, then sewn. Two patterns of sewing are shown, a plain four hole pattern and Kang-xi which is a more ornamental four hole pattern. I have all the materials to make a hemp pattern and a tortoise pattern in the cover paper so I will have a matching set of four books which I will then wrap in a stiffened cover which does have boards in it.

The class took place in the ARK, which is the church hall at Alvechurch. It won the prize for Ecclesiastical architecture in 2007 and is rather splendid. (Photo taken from their website) Light wood everywhere inside. There was a children's dancing class on downstairs in the hall with high windows. We were upstairs and the window to the right illuminated that room along with windows giving out to the other side of the Ark. The church is to the right of the photo and there is an entrance from the Ark straight into the church.

Tomorrow I must try to tidy up!! There are piles of stuff from different projects and I must either finish the project or put the stuff away. At the moment, the house resembles an archeological dig.