I have been taking photos for Michael to work on for his Garden-thru-the-year book. This is anemone blanda atrocaerulea of which we have many. It seeds itself round the garden and pops up everywhere - like our cyclamens but unless absolutely necessary, neither of them are ever weeded up.  The flowers are about an inch across.

Michael has pages of paintings of cyclamen coum but has moved on to these anemones. He was quizzing me about how the book would be bound. I want to do this book in various forms of Coptic binding. I would like to try some of the more complicated bindings. Also Coptic binding allows the book to open flat so he could have a painting across two pages. And then I could use guard pages which would allow a little text but not much.

This is an example. This is my journal for designing books in. The guard section has start dates and what I did finally. The following pages contain design ideas. This is the start of 'Sir Patrick Spens'.

But  I must not be deflected into starting in earnest on that book. I have just made a horrible discovery. I joined a Complex Weavers Study Group last September and though that I had a year to practice in and then in September 2011 I would have to produce some samples to share around. Well I was wrong. Delivery date for the first lot is May 1st. I have designed what I want to weave but it needs 24 shafts which means the Megado. But the Megado is waiting for the next warp to be tied to the ghost warp and woven (6 yards of it) and I have not finished dyeing the warp yet. That has become this afternoon's job. And I would like to use the ghost warp a third time. Oh dearie, dearie me.

The only saving grace is that the samples are only a sideline for this weaving. I intend to use the main part as  an entry to a Midlands Textile Forum Exhibition in September. 

Must go and get on!!!! 

Last Lot of Indigo Dyeing

On Wednesday, all the indigo dyed skeins were dry enough to weigh and sort. I had one mid-indigo skein too many and was a little short on very dark indigo. So I revived the indigo vat in the afternoon, added some Spectralite and overdyed the spare skein to a nice dark indigo. I am getting what is really navy blue this time around.  And since I might as well take advantage of any indigo vat going, I overdyed two pieces of fabric which I knew I would never use in their then state - came out nicely. I also dyed one of the calico shoppers. I have this idea of doing toucans or parrots in Mola work and indigo might be a suitable background colour. 

I got round to finishing off the first 'Morning Glory' book. Brown Pastel paper cover with blue Como silk sewing. The title label really is on square! But the morning glory below the Kanji characters is not bright enough. That has been corrected.

The inside of the book - title page.

This one has a mistake on the front cover in the sewing so it will not do for the exhibition. But I always intended to make 10 anyway to give round the family and friends.

The concertina book, 'In The Event' has been printed out on Bockingford duplex Inkjet paper. It looks good but I had not realised that 190gsm paper would be so difficult to crease exactly where you want it creased. It is glued up and has been pressed for an hour. Now out just to make sure it is drying properly. I will press it again before adding the coverboards. With 190 gsm paper, it is quite sturdy and almost stands up by itself. Almost but not quite. I sent away for some buckles and have tried out various closure arrangements. I eventually settled on black grosgrain ribbon plus a buckle at the back. I shall make one or two more of these books but I don't see this being given away.

I got round to weaving a bit more of the double weave book. and am on my third page now. At 36ppi on a table loom, it is slow going. My sister, Dorothy, sent me a book on transferring print to fabric from Committed to Cloth and I need to practice some of the techniques discussed. What is being woven at the moment is a  four page sample to practice on. But I need to try out techniques on something less valuable first!!!

Anne Field, the devore/collapsed weave expert,  who lives in Christchurch, NZ is okay. Although their house is not seriously damaged, their china and furniture is destroyed. For some hours, they had no water or electricity but facilities are being restored. Our thoughts are with her and the people of Christchurch.

More Indigo Dyeing

The indigo dyeing on Sunday was a success. I dyed more than a kilo of yarn to the correct depth of colour and also dyed several pieces of cotton. I am keeping the indigo vat until the yarn is all dried and I can sort it into bags for delivery next Saturday. Just in case of shortage, you understand. It went better than the first day because I doubled the size of the dye bath.

I hope to complete any more dyeing needed on Wednesday as I am desperate to finish the wool/silk dyeing and get that warp on the loom. The Megado has been lonely since early December. 

The double weave for the book is going well although I am still searching for a method of printing text on the Tencel surface. The covers for the Morning Glory book are done, glued, pressed and ready. I only need to add the title on the front and sew the spine.

Most of today was taken up with going out to lunch at the Three Choirs Vineyard -  see here. I have to fetch the Community Action van (which has wheelchair access) get Michael into it (not painless), drive round Malvern and pick up two friends then drive for 30 minutes to the Vineyard.  And after lunch reverse all this. It was  a dank damp day with no sunshine but the vineyard itself looked lovely. They are all neatly pruned and the ground is quite hilly. The vines are all lined up but everyone is different. I wish I had taken some photos. It was a good lunch too.

Transferring Prints to Fabric

At the Bourneville class, I found instructions in a book on how to go from a printed picture to the same on a piece of fabric by way of an Inkjet printer. I tried this morning, taking care to reverse the lettering first. The instructions said 'Print on highclass photo paper, spray the fabric lightly with water, then spray the print (held vertically)  two or three times with water, apply paper to fabric and burnish two or three times'. 

I used Canon Glossy II which appears to be impervious to water. Anyway nothing doing. So I tried Fabbiano Accademia paper - highclass paper but not photo.  If you spray the paper held vertically, all the ink runs down the page so you need to hold it horizontal. It does work - sort of. 

Red is not as good as black printing and black isn't much good anyway. The fabric was just pre-washed off-white cotton. I think this wants more investigation. Use bold lettering? Other fabric?

In between times, I am working on the Morning Glory book.

Preparations are all done for Indigo Dyeing this afternoon.

The photo on the left is a sample for a Double Weave book - hence the interest in getting text onto fabric.

The warp is of two different space dyed Tencels from Just Our Yarns sett at 36epi and the weft is a self colour (blue-green) from the same source. The weave is a 3 and 1 broken twill, making sure that the 3 and 1 is in the opposite hand on the two cloths so that the final result is warp faced on both sides. I did experiment with tabby but the colour of the warp is dulled down a lot. This is a sample with square pages and when I have woven four pages I will cut it off and check it all works. It will be a concertina book. I do have letters I could stamp with but there is too much text for me to be sure of not making a mess anywhere. As the book is continuous, I think this is a mistake. I might stamp the title because that will be shorter and in large letters.  If the worst comes to the worst, I can have Thermofax screens made but that would be expensive. I need to continue exploring this transfer business

Blog Peekers

At the moment I seem more interested in my to-do list than what I have done in the last few days. Partly because a lengthy trip to Worcester Royal on Friday afternoon so that Michael can have his monthly transfusion of Zoladronic Acid has driven previous events out of my mind. I did get to my class on Friday morning and spent the time seeing what happened to the colours of transfer dyes. I was trying to put green leaves and flowers on to a red background but they turned out mauve (see below). So that's put paid to that idea. Annette, the tutor, thinks I would have to applique leaf shapes in dark green cotton to get the effect I want. I have prepared two pieces of red  background stamped with the Paisley pattern wood block so I still have one piece untouched. Some time this weekend I will look for green cotton in the stash.

The most important job today is to survey what has been done in the way of indigo dyeing and work out what needs to be done tomorrow.  And send off the Shuttle to the printer. That's the Kennet Valley Guild Newsletter. It is all done and Michael proofread it on Thursday. I will read it through one last time and email it off. 

The reason for the title is that I discovered last night that the Google has a blog  visitor counter and was a bit flabbergasted by the range - and number - of  visitors. They tell you what country too and provide a map of the world. UK and USA and Canada I can understand but Argentina and India! And a few from Pakistan. I was looking at the summary of a week and I suppose it only takes one person in Pakistan to look up the blog every second day or so to rack up the sort of numbers Pakistan has.  I am flattered in one way but hope they are looking at other (better) people's blogs - Daryl Lancaster, Elizabeth Barton. I particularly like Elizabeth Barton's for her discussions of what an artist is up to.

Morning Glory Title Page

The ink came yesterday and I started generating the final pages for the Morning Glory book. Here is the title page where the Kanji characters in the cartouche say 'Morning Glory'.  This cartouche will also be used on the cover.

It takes me a long time to do all the layering needed in Photoshop. I could finish it today.

We are so taken with this book that we had a great discussion about another book. I want to do a book on the Border ballad  'Sir Patrick Spens' but Michael says he is not competent to do the graphics - not his style. I have been mulling over this for some months and have realised ,as a result of the discussion with Michael, that I see the graphics as being black and white and why not do linocuts? I am thinking about it.

However I did make a suggestion which he is acting on - he will paint one item (flower, leaf, plant) from our garden for each month of the year. I am not sure about the text. Maybe between us, we can find some suitable quotations which would be printed on the opposite page. In 'Morning Glory, a painting and the text are on the same page and a pen and ink drawing on the  opposite page with details of the writer of the text. Yesterday afternoon I went out (in the rain) and and took close up photos of cyclamen (see below) and snowdrops and maple bark. The big leaf in the foreground is about an inch across

I have done a bout of lino-cut printing this morning and am quite pleased with the results.

Indigo Dyeing for Cushions

This is the result of indigo dyeing this afternoon. Cushion weavers were allowed to choose light, medium or dark indigo. The light ones are at the top nearest the camera. There is a very dark one at the lower left - what I call Japanese indigo.

The rest are all medium although there is some variation. When they are dry, I will examine them carefully and possibly overdye some skeins. I still have four not-dyed-at-all skeins but I had no more indigo or spectralite so have sent for fresh supplies. I have kept the indigo bath   and will finish this session off next weekend. 

The different blue at the top but the rear is my own warp, well two of them which are the same as each other but are a lightish mid-blue.

I found it quite difficult to get successive skeins the same shade of blue. The light ones were done at the end of the afternoon when I had got the hang of repeating a colour.

I also dyed two large pieces of cotton by crumpling them and tying up the bundle tightly with string. Both bundles were a bit too large and the pieces have large white patches from the middle of the bundle. I will overdye them but have not decided how. Do I just submerge them and get rid of the white or do I crumple them up differently?

The only other thing of note is that I went to see my GP as my left hand has been troubling me. I expected to be told it was arthritis and take these pain killers, Mrs Foster Not a bit of it. 'Are you quite sure you haven't broken it?' He asked this question at least three times and then organised an X-ray. No pain killers. My sister, Dorothy (a retired GP), put the lid on the day by saying re a possible broken bone, 'Have you thought how you are going to manage Michael if your left hand is in plaster?' Well actually no that had not occurred to me.