Bible Repairs

On Christmas Day, while we digested the huge lunch ‘im outdoor’s Nan had cooked us, we somehow got onto talking about her Bible and how the cover had come off. It looked like quite a simple repair to me, so I offered to take it home and rebind it for her.
It was only when I got home that I thought – What am I doing!?! This is her Bible – quite an important book in her eyes!
But I made up some paste, removed the tatty bits that were still attached and made a new cover.
I’m really pleased with the end result, all it needs is the title in gold on the spine, but I don’t have the means to do that at the moment. Maybe one day.
I hope she likes it, I’ll find out on Sunday when ‘im outdoors takes it over to her.

Copyright

Anyone who has read my blog in the past couple of years will know that I make stuff and write stuff.
I read hundreds of books and blogs and design websites (just look at the list on the right!), and anyone who makes or writes stuff like me, will know that anything can give you inspiration. A story you read, an article in a paper, the way a branch of a tree sticks out and looks like a scary man. Any of these things can make a spark that gives life to a project.
Now you might be wondering why I’m telling you all this, but it seems that while the web is great for getting our stuff out in to the big wide world, it also makes it easier for people to copy what we are creating. Now when it’s something written it’s quite easy to do something about it, but what about when its your design or your blog?
Luckily I’ve had no such problems, but others have – click here and here to read more about this.
This is something I feel very strongly about. The handmade community needs to stick together and fight this. This is people’s lives they are messing with. Not all of us are big multinational companies looking to make a profit. Most of us are just trying to make a living doing something we enjoy. Where is the harm in that?

Christmas Writers Group

The Creative Writers Group met for the last time this year, and considering we weren’t sure if it would continue this time last year, I think we’ve done quite well.
I felt strangely powerful to find that people had actually had a go at the homework I set last month, some of which was very successful.
And I even had something to read out, although it had nothing to do with the homework and isn’t finished.
I won’t post it here as it still needs a lot of work, but the Writers Group was the perfect sounding board to check I wasn’t wasting my time. We all agreed that I need to cut some of the stuff from the beginning, where it was very obvious to us all that I’d been writing my way into the story.
But that’s the joy if editing. Let the words bubble out of you head and onto the page, then give it a couple of days, or weeks and go back and cut all the mess out until you get to the good stuff.

Homework this month:
Create a character based on the connotations of their name when their first name is the name of a pet, and their second name is the name of a neighbour.
Now think about what they look like? What their occupation is? What they spend their money on? What’s their greatest fear?

Now write a story or poem about that happens when your character desperately wants something, but this desire is frustrated?
(borrowed from Mslexia)

The last bookbinding class

Last night I had the last of the bookbinding evening classes, after last week was cancelled due to snow.
In all I’ve enjoyed the classes and think I’ve learnt lots. But I found it hard work doing these in the evening after a long day at work, and was disappointed to start with, that the classes were more focused on repairing than starting from scratch.
But I finished the two big books I was working on, and I’m very pleased with how they turned out. Hopefully my mum will be too, but anything has to be an improvement on the poor book she gave me a few weeks ago.
Hopeful I will be able to use what I learnt in the last 10 weeks to improve the books that I make.

Oh dear

Oh dear I’ve been rather lax with the blog these past couple of weeks.
Of course I’ve been busy as normal, but the real problem is that I haven’t made anything to write about. Essays about the courage of children in late 19th century novels really doesn’t count.
Bookbinding last week was cancelled due to heavy snow but has been rescheduled for this week, so hopeful I will have 2 finished books to display at the end of the week.
And I attended the gem and bead show in Farnham last week, so have some new beads to make into a necklace at some point.
Also the website for Garden Escapes is close to being finished, so there are many projects on the go, just none ready to show to world yet.
Must try harder.

Bookbinding Evening Class wk8

No bookbinding last week as we went to see Bill Bailey live in London. He was very good.

So with 3 weeks left of the course I find myself with 2 projects to finish. The large book I bought from the library and took apart, needs putting back together and my Mum found a book which had lost its spine and both covers have come off, which she wants me to recover.
I spent most of last night by preparing my Mum’s book, and sewing the big book together.
I also watched as Sarah showed us how to round the spine of a book – you wouldn’t believe you should use a hammer when bookbinding.
And I learnt how to make a weavers knot. Very useful. It’s very similar to the sort of knot you make when casting knitting on, and means you don’t have to have masses of thread getting all knotted up as you sew your book together. It also means if you break the thread you can carry on. I also showed her a couple of the book I made last year which she was quite impressed with

Borrowing Dogs

Yesterday we had another Lunchtime Writers Group. Once again we had some lovely pieces read out. I’m particularly jealous of the new developer who had just joined my new team and came along. Not only is she a graphic designer and a web developer but the piece she read out was the prologue to her novel (80,000 words in already) and was really good – very polished and professional and I think we all wanted to hear more.

I had a poem I was going to read out, but I lost my memory stick with all my work on so couldn’t print it out. Luckily it was safe at home so no big disaster.

The poem is inspired by all the poems for kids that I’m reading for the OU – Children’s Literature course, and of course my love of dogs.

Borrowing Dogs

Every morning at 7.58
I walk a bouncy white husky
Past our flat.

Every Monday night
I wait outside the chip shop opposite
With a curly spaniel.

Most evenings before dinner
I walk a shiny red setter
Up the road.

On Saturday mornings
I trot with black dog and white dog
In their numbered racing jackets.

And this week I’ve played
With the small black and white builders dog
Through the kitchen window.

Bookbinding Evening Class wk6

I was incredibly tired last night, so didn’t seem to get much done in the class myself. But that didn’t matter too much as there was so much else to watch.

First Sarah showed us how to make paste paper.
You start with a small quantity of paste, similar to the recipe here, and mix it with acrylic paint to get the desired colour.
Once it is mixed well you apply it to your paper reasonably thickly and then the fun begins. Using anything at all you can make marks in the paste. It could be as simple as folding the paper in half and getting a stippled effect when you pull it apart, or more complicated by dragging an old comb or fork through it. Looking in the books Sarah bought to the class I saw how people had added extra colours to their paste after applying it to the paper, or drew on the paper with wax crayon first.
Once your paper is dry you only need a small piece to cover your book with, so can choose the very best part of the design.

Also being tried out last night was the stylus tool and the heated letters, both used for titling books with coloured foils, normally silver or gold.
To use the stylus tool you start by making your design on tracing paper – in this case the design was copied from the original cover of the book.
You then tape the foil and tracing paper to you cover in the desired place and using the heated stylus copy out the design. We were all very impressed how well the design came out.
The other way of doing this was to use letters similar to those used in a printing press which were mounted on a piece of long thin metal with a wooden handle. These were also heated and then pressed into the foil on to the cover of the book. Any excess was rubbed off with a little sandy brick dust and again we were impressed with the end result, especially as it was much harder to get them straight and the spacing right when doing this by eye.
This will be similar to how I get my design stamped on my books, if we can get the stamp to work properly.
All in all a good evening.