My knitting was pushed aside this week,

In favor of books, bookbinding. So today I thought I would distract you all with images of the most recent, and the most challenging. That way you might not notice the lack of knitting content, then again ... given the title of the blog that may be a little optimistic.
When ever I'd Google for bookbinding information, especially for tutorials I'd find many many well put together and informative tutorials and helpful sites. Bookbinders seem akin to knitters, with a willingness to share that can only be called generous. Amongst the information I found there were almost always references to a binding called secret Belgian binding. At first I ignored those posts, the clearest instructions seemed rather confusing ... Diagrams showing many holes and a complex stitching path. So I found other bindings to practice. I bought bookbinding books. Then this week one of my students asked if I knew about the secret Belgian binding, and as a class we had one of those conversations about how nothing on the Internet should really be called secret. After that I thought I really should look more at what was so special about the binding ... And maybe even play a little with it.
I dug a little deeper, well rather I read all the posts I had ignored about the SBB, and found out why it was held in high regard by so many. I also found that the binding had another name, the criss-cross binding, and a few storys that explain different origins here & here. All in all the book seemed to have some clear benefits, pages that lay open flat, a spine as flexible as a Coptic bound book but all covered and protected with a hard spine. So I thought I would try to follow the instructions. It wasn't hard, just detailed, fiddly at times, and I found that I had to read the instructions and follow them - not anticipate the next stage. I was glad I had a few dozen books of different types experience before I started this one.

So I started, and committed to making an A4 book, folded from a brand new pad of quality A3 art paper (expensive!) and covered in bookcloth (also expensive - usually I restrict bookcloth to the spine to make my meager stash last longer). This is the equivalent of casting on with the best yarn in the stash. But unlike knitting, some of the materials can't be unravelled and returned to a neat and ready state if it all goes wrong.
I made the covers and prepared the pages, and then strung the covers together, in this binding the covers consist of a front and back board with a separate spine board. Holes are punched near the hinge edges of the front and back cover boards. The cover is assembled by lacing the spine between the front and back covers. One of those trickier to start, and tricker to explain but actually quite straightforward when underway processes. With the cover assembled the signatures - that would be sets of pages, are stitched inplace. In this binding the signatures are stitched to the lacing that holds the covers together.

I usually find curved needles tricky to use, I can't seem to predict where the point will go and find them much trickier to manipulate than straight needles, they rotate in my fingers and point in odd directions, but for this work I needed a curved needle. The shape was perfect for threading the signature threads under the cover threads. I laced the cover with dark navy and sewed the signatures with white thread.

Here is the book all complete, cover closed and neat. Now I understand the process I would make changes next time. Firstly I would punch with a much smaller hole, and I would use much thicker binding cord. This is ok, but thicker cord would make the binding more visable, more dramatic. I was worried about making the holes too small to pass a needle and thread through three times, which is what is done in this binding. Turns out with this size thread I could have had much smaller holes. Next time I will swatch the thread and hole size before I committ to punching the holes in the covers.

This is the interior view, see how nicely the pages lay open, partly because they are super thick 200gsm Fabrino recycled artists paper. Mostly because of the way the binding hinges each set of pages off a very flexible cord arrangement.
Below shows the rather neat first page view, how the pages meet the covers ... I like this very much. This book took much of today to make, mostly as I didn't know what I was building up to. I think this is a much more time consuming bind than the saddle stitched, Coptic or tapped signatures - and one I will work again. I think for me this may become my sketch book binding. But then again I'm just a learner ... At the start of a journey and I imagine there are many many more binding options for me to discover and explore.

Na Stella,
Take care

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Slow progress

Today its all about slow progress, I cleaned out my wip basket yesterday, and found:

1. a colour work tam (two years old),
2. one and a half pair of colour work mitts (nearly a year old and on 2mm needles),
3. the first ten rows of a shawl (now frogged),
4. an Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi shawl (six or seven months old)
5. the start of a pair of socks,
6. and most of a fine gauge cardigan.

There almost was a purple strip - but that is now done, and now the shawl that came to nothing is frogged that leaves me with five works in progress, the eldest being two years old. Im slightly uncomfortable with that, not having so many wips but that some have been sitting so long.

Some new projects are love at first sight, you know when something just has to be knit, other projects are selected to fulfil specific needs. The tam was for a tam class, the pi shawl because I had nothing suitable to take to knit night, the colour work mitts were also for class. For now I don't have a plan, other than to deal with the wips somehow, and by that I mean complete them - but that is the first step, and that is all I need to do right now.

The long purple strip is done - I'll fill in the details later as this is part of a larger body of work. I used yarn from the local mill, a 200g skein of merino, alpaca, and angora. I cast on 41 stitches using 4.5mm needles and knit a central panel of Horseshoe pattern with a wide boarder of moss stitch. Horseshoe can be found in Barbara walkers Treasury of Knitting patterns, on page 209.

I had a breakthrough on the cardigan, one sleeve done, and the other well and truly started. The cast off bothered me a little, I tried a tubular bind off on the single rib. In such a fine yarn it looked wimpy, so I frogged it and worked Jennys surpisingly stretchy cast off. That looked so much better, I think I also discovered I had been working the cast off 'wrong' until now. For some reason I had only 'processed' a stitch when switching from knit to purl in a k2p2 rib, this time I was working on a k1p1 rib so processed every stitch. The bind off looked different, not better, not worse but different, maybe more zig-zaggy. Given it was said to be super-stretch I worked the cast off with the same needles I worked the rib in - and it is super super stretchy. I like, I liked it so much I also spent the rest of that night casting off the hem as well. I had put the hem stitches on a holding thread until I had decided what cast off to use. It seemed more prudent to test on the smaller cuff with fewer stitches than the larger hip section.

I've also been getting ready, and so far have 8 book blocks ready for my bookbinding class at Unwind. The class is only a few hours so I will show how to stitch a book block, and have one or two there for students to practice on, but I wont get them to make their own book block, that would take too long. Instead I will supply each student with their own blank book block all stitched and taped, ready to go. I was extra lucky in that a local firm had a clear out of letterhead paper, so I scored a large pile of nice thick luxury white paper to use in these blocks. That way we can get into the fun stuff of making and covering the books. If you are into details the top blocks are made using 'proper' book binding tape, the lower blocks with twill tape from the haberdashery shop. Bookbinding tape is starched and easier, but I suspect makes for a book with a stiffer spine. This sort of stuff is all the detail that is missing from bookbinding instruction books, and for good reason. A book with that sort of detail would be tedious to read.
I've a few more blocks to make, and then I need to sort my self for the Woollen spinning class. I'd really like to have the class spinning woollen within the first 10 minutes or so, and then once they can, move over to making rolags and preparing the fibre. That might seem backwards but I think once you know how to do something you are in a much stronger and more informed position to select and prepare materials for doing it. Anyway - to have them all spinning that soon means have a few rolags for each student - no big drama - I just have to settle in and make them.

I've got my first night class for printmaking this Tuesday, so am looking forward to being distracted by that, and our students all start their study this week (tomorrow!) - so they will keep us all busy. There is also a wonderful new book, Knitting, Fashion, Industry, Craft by Sandy Black, brand new (published in Sept 2012). This book deserves its own post, not to be buried deep in a housekeeping post - so I plan to a proper review next post.
Till then, take care - na Stella

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Little tracks

Today's post is about making progress, of the slow and steady kind. Te past week went in a haze of coughing and sniffling, starting with smallest cub on Monday home from school and feeling miserable. Bear was out of town, and so I was the duty- parent. Tuesday was a normal Tuesday with cubs at school and me at work. Then the rest of the week went in a round of first me joining little cub in her cold, then elder cub. Bear came back and seems to have escaped the contagious period, and little cub was at school Friday. I' m hoping this week brings a nice relaxing normal work week, will full health all around.

I've been making slow progress on the newest cardigan, a few more stripes done, and beginning to think about shaping the under arm. I've been reading Barbara Walkers from the top, and realize the shapping I have developed based on my experience with drafting patterns for sewn garments is the same as Barbara's recommendation for shaping the body and under arm curves! Not sure if that is great minds think alike, or zeitgeist, or even duh! I'm tending towards great minds as that makes me feel cleverer. After a week of feeling like my head was full of thick goo - I'm taking any positive thoughts I can muster.

My next knitting project was going to be socks, Handspun socks ... But I've struck a hitch, I can't find the yarn. Not I can't find yarn for there is plenty of that, plenty of sock yarn to hand, and a local supplier happy to sell me more. My problem is that I can't find the yarn I want to use. Recently I spun a green-blue sock yarn from a skein of vintage Purls sock blend, I cabled the yarn and planned to knit a pair of socks ... the yarn looked a little under plied so I ran it through the wheel again adding a little more ply, and sat the yarn in the yarn bowl in the living room. Yarn bowl you ask, what is a yarn bowl. Well around the house there are some lovey items of glass, ceramic, brass or wood that are just there on display because they are too pretty to put away, and because we choose to put the ugly stuff like the crock-pot and the vacuum cleaner away and leave the pretty stuff out. We have more 'stuff' than we have spaces to tidy it to. end result is some things like the lovely large glass bowl in the living room end up being a temporary storage space for spin type project bits and pieces. Right now there is a spindle collection, some more sock yarn I've divided into four to spin into a four ply, and a wee pencil case that stores various fine dpns. There 'should' be a skein of marbled cabled blue green sock yarn here ... but there isn't, still aftr checking all the other places i can think of and not finding it I keep looking in the bowl just in case it has reappeared.

So I've been looking into all the odd places I may have tucked the yarn away in a fit of tidiness and thoughtlessness, I've been finding other things. One of those was a stack of paper that bear brought home. The company he works for recently rebranded, we won't even discuss from what to what, but its just the latest in a long list of changes this time so the firm can create a commercial identity separate to its current owner for a variety of reasons. The paper was old letter head, some heavy thick corporate letter paper, some gridded engineers calculation pads - all with the companies former logo and address printed at the head and foot of each page. Bear hates wasted, loves fountain pens and good paper, so brought the paper home to be used here rather than be thrown out at his work. There wasn't much, a few half used pads, and a part stack of nice letter head paper. But since I couldn't knit the socks I wanted to and as I was bored with the new cardigan ... I made some book blocks from the discarded paper. The first batch were square backed journals ....with rounded corners thanks to Stampbattery who loaned me a corner punch. I've now bought my own.

The second batch were inspired by Zoomer, who showed me her quarter bound books. I loved the look of the spine all plain and serious and the cover more colorful. I want to make more like this .... many more. I love the aesthetic, but also realize this makes decorative paper go further. I get more books for each sheet I buy.

The last set of books were experimental, made from the discarded paper, the batches of which there were only 20 or 30 sheets. Not enough for a full notebook, but enough for a thinner soft cover notebook. Pink and blue are two 'signatures' each, so around 20 leaves, or 40 pages. The brown and green thicker. They are narrow, as once I cut of the company footer and header I had less paper to work with. The green has the binding sewn through the cover, and the brown is my attempt at a soft cover moleskeine style. I followed instructions I found online to form the spine by curve a soft spine strip over a pencil. I can't find the instructions and a few frustrating days trolling through my browser history has not located it. Maybe I imagined it. I will post a link if I ever find the tutorial again.

Wish me luck in finding the lost sock yarn, and the curved spine tutorial (warning: don't google that phrase without the words bookbinding or it gets all medical),

Take care, na Stella

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3 hours later

And I have a mini-diy-spring loaded book press, ideal for working on the binding edge of book-blocks. I do need to make small adjustments tomorrow, such as providing a little more play in the holes in the top platen, and a wee bit of sanding. I'm not even sure I need to decorate it with liberty wall paper, the plywood cleaned up nicely.

Thanks Bear ....as we don't have a powered saw so there was much hand sawing with a fine toothed saw.


Na Stella

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Nghhh!

Today's post is about frustration, I've been making more books, and getting interested in how to make my binding process a little more polished. I love the way coptic binding lets a book open flat, but not so much the way that the spine moves of its own accord when the hard-cover is glued on. That often results in this sort of messy spine. See how the pages Inside the spine are all over the place instead of nicely lined up? I've been playing with journals bound with softer covers, and spines, more moleskein like than a hard bound book, semi soft maybe? The blue one is a bit of a dud, but I'm learning and making each one taught me something on how to make my bound books better. The paper is a lovely Japanese wrapping paper I picked up in Napier, I have one sheet left.

As part of wanting to do-better I turned to the wide world of online content and found some nice tutorials online that involved preparing a book block for casing in. Did you notice, I'm picking up all sorts of new terms, the innards of a book, the pages all stitched together are called a book block. Casing in is the action of inserting the book block into the case, which is another name for a cover. Then there are other terms, like mull, which is a gauze fabric glued over the sewn edge of the bookblock to stabilize and strengthen the spine. Some people use paper, or gauze, or even special Japanese tissue. I decided that this was worth investigation if there was a potential of making a tidier book. I also needed to investigate just how less flexible book made this way would be compared to a Coptic bound book.

Finishing the spine with mull or mull like stuff requires clamping the book block with the spine exposed. I could do this with stiff cardboard and clamps, but saw a neat idea on you tube, I've linked to it here. Why do things the simple way when one can build a jig seems to be our family motto.

Then I saw another neat idea on you tube, for a combination sewing frame and book press. It wasn't the combination frame and press I thought was neat, but the springs to hold the boards apart. I decided to combine the two ideas, seemed like a sensible thing to do.

So Bear and I went shopping, eventually after visiting two big box hardware stores, one engineering place and a closed wood work specialist we found all we were looking for in the sizes we needed. Most places stocked a weird variety of coach bolts, in metric sizes and wing nuts in American non-metric sizes. It matters, it really does, you cant see the difference by looking but if I was to screw a non metric threaded wing nut onto a metric threaded coach bolt ... there would be a promising start and a sudden tightening and locking of everything as the slightly different threads jammed and stuck.

We ended up with this, two bamboo laminated chopping boards, four coach bolts of 8mm diameter, (3 shown), four springs, a set of bumpers, and five wing nuts. Five because I knew if I bought four I would drop one, be unable to find it and end up back buying another one. And washers, the largest we could find to fit the coach bolts, to distribute the pressure as much as possible.

Bear and I marked drill hole positions, using measurements rather than the laminated pattern of the chopping boards. we discovered the boards are not square or symmetrical .... which really annoyed engineer Bear. We fired up the big red drill press, and drilled holes, just like in the tutorial but four not two. I like my big red drill press, it runs smooth and quiet, and was a gift from my dad. I think all middle aged daughters deserve their own drill press don't you? The project looked good, then holes were neat, we stuck on the bumpers, and set about assembling my DIY bookpress.

Right up until the moment of failure it looked like this, very promising, so we inserted a large old dictionary and set about tightening the coach bolts up so the 'coach' part of the head would seat into the wood and fix permanently in place. We tightened, and tightened .....

And the heard a loud crack, the board had cracked. Now if I had followed the instructions this probably wouldn't have happened, but I had to 'Improve' on the instructions, and introduce more stress with four coach bolts than two coach bolts would create. So I headed out to the better of the two big box stores to look for plywood. Plywood is stronger than laminated chopping boards, or so we thought. They had a cut-shop where I was able to have my 600mm x 900mm 17mm thick ply cut to size, but the sign said no cuts under 300mm. So I opted for just over 400mm squarish. I figured a book press made from two sheets of 600mm by 900mm ply was a tad larger than convienient.

This time Bear and I are thinking we might not set the coach bolts so near the corners, but maybe set in a third of the distance from the ends, we can reuse the hardwear, the drill press is set up. The ply is not as nicely finished on both sides as the chopping boards, but I am thinking I might finish the top with a piece of thick wallpaper ....and I have to buy another set of bumpers.

Today my plan was to take the bookblock I had prepared earlier and explore mulling the spine ...but it is 3:30 and this is as far as I have got. Two sheets of ply and hardware to make a diy book-press. seems just like where we were this morning, Maybe tomorrow i can explore mull, maybe not.

I am knitting, my Tempest cardigan grows slowly as only a cardigan knit on 3mm needles can, and I'm still working my way through washcloth textures. Here is variation four so far, seed stitch edges and a kind of modified garter rib centre. I need to look for a few more textures to knit, details next post.

Take care, oh and I haven't dropped a wing nut, I still have all five.

Na Stella

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Finished object, and returning to things left unfinished.

What happened to the past week, forgive me, it has been a week and a half since I last blogged. Things were busy, I suspected I was getting a cold, still do, the preliminary symptoms have come to nothing. Last week was the last week of term so there were things to do. I had a constant stream of students making enquiries about when they would get their marks back. My standard reply was that mine were done (true)' and that I was waiting for the rest of the teaching team to finish (true), and that organizing other adults was at time like herding cats ( all to sadly true). They took it well, the students, and on Friday I handed back what's could, including the three as yet unmarked, with what marks I had and a note that they had passed, one mark was still to come, the so the total would go up.

Then Bear came home, from two weeks in Christchurch helping with the 'rebuild', and the cubs started their term break, with birthday part invites, so the past few days has been a whirlwind of finding appropriate presents, within budget, and ferrying cubs to and from. In amidst all of that I knitted some, not a lot but I finished a sock, and spun, and distracted myself and little cub with sewing a new dress. Today I am indulging in finishing two books for bear, ones I printed out way back in march 2012. Feels nice to have them finally being works on.

Alien pirate socks

Little cubs pirate socks are done, not blocked in water, but blocked on feet, immediately. Being pale green, and with the eyes the skulls have a slightly more alien feel than a pirate feel, I imagine in blood red, white or black these would be spectacular.

Close up of alien eyelet

My change, was to knit the heel flap in eye-of-partridge, and to bind off with Julie's magic stretchy bind off. Oh and to add eyelet eyes to the skulls on thleg section. I knit the medium size, to fit a 9" foot, and have 18 grams of yarn left over. Not bad considering with all the twisted traveling stitches this is a dense sock. I am having thoughts about how I could make use of the skull motif with the eyelet eyes in a more floating alien way on another pair. The pattern is Pirate Danger by Jeannie Cartmel, a well written pattern as far as I could tell. I don't always follow instructions ... so can't be totally sure.

New green dress

Here is the little cubs newest sewing effort, the green floral hidden behind the sparkly silver number. If it were not for the sparkly silver, black jeans, purple shorts and leggings covered with hearts also in her wardrobe I would wonder about the image she presented to the world. Taken on just her preference in dress fabrics, cuts and lengths, she seems to lean towards the uber conservative small town girl. Still that is better the if she were to lean the other way.

Today I am sewing, books this time, guitar chord books for bear. These are two blanks I printed off for the bookbinding class I taught at unwind earlier this year. No one wanted to bind guitar chord books, the class preferred grid, knitters graph, lines, dot grid and plain pages. No worries I knew Bear would want these, and today seems a good day to complete both. Once the stitching is complete, the blanks get a good press to set the stitches, and then I will cut, cover and assemble the covers. I

Book binding, guitar chord books

And finally spinning, I am on leave this week, taken as the cubs are on rearm break. Bear is on leave next week, to cover the other week of the term break. Because I would be at home, and able to spin a lot, I decided to spin on my Philip Poore Pipy wheel. This came after a conversation with Bear where we were discussing how 'full' the house is, how much 'stuff' we both have. I suggested that a traveling wheel in bag plus three other wheels in the back room, and the big Grace wheel in the living space was part of the clutter and I should maybe sell one or more. Bear was horrified, and said no, I should use them. So this week I am using the Pipy, and I am loving it. For some reason I thought woolen spinning was best on a scotch tensioned wheel, but the double drive Pipy is a dream to spin woolen on.

Phillip Poore Pipy

Perhaps once the tension is set to a beautiful delicate pull in, any wheel works well for most spinning? The blend is a carded batt, or batts from Do Arnot, in Oamaru. In the past I have spun Do's batts worsted, short draw and found them not as smooth as the combed top that others sell. This time around spinning fine supported long draw woollen I am really enjoying the carded batts, the fibre flows easily and the prep is fantastic for woolen. What was difficult for worsted is perfect for wollen. The blend is 'Lichen', and a mix of merino, alpaca, and silk with the proportions not identified. The colors are amazing, fawn, gold, green, brown, purple, silver .... all in a combination that works and has life without drama.

Time to go and finish the stitching on the books, and see how little cub is doing with making butterscotch cookies (all on her own - I like this side of growing up).

Cheers, na Stella

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Are we there yet?

Its Sunday, blog post day, and part of me wants to blog tomorrow. For tomorrow I would be there, there being at the end of the lace edge on Rosebuddie. But I'm not there yet, and in fact as parents we have both banned the question 'Are we there yet'. Any cub who asks 'Are we there yet?'is themselves asked if they would like us to stop and they can get out and walk there. We allow 'how far to' questions within certain limits, after the first question we expect them to notice and make note of the distance on road signs. So no ... I'm not there yet, but I'm very very close. I've also got a new sock on the needles to introduce, and its a long weekend here in New Zealand so with an extra day I felt I had the time to finish  some half made books.

Heading into the last corner of Rosebuddie

So this is where I'm at, less than 10 repeats to work and I'll be done. About now I really should check that the remaining stitch count is neatly divided by the number of stitches I need to complete a whole number of repeats. I checked at the beginning but that was some 600+ stitches ago and sometime little things happen to change the stitch count. Little things like when two stitches cuddle up together and act like one, or two plies separate and make one stitch look like two stitches Best to check now while I still have a few repeats to adjust things in should adjustments be needed.;

First sock of 2012

This is the first sock of of 2012, and I think my 53rd pair of socks since 2006 when I discovered sock knitting. This particular beauty is Teosinte, by Anne Hanson aka Knitspot, and I'm knitting it in a Vintage Purls yarn, Archimedes. The toe on this sock is a provisional cast on toe, and is short rowed to create the shape. I haven't done a toe like that in a long time so it was fun to see the toe shape appear out of the short rows as the wrapped stitches were collected and knit. The lace is lovely, and easy to remember and seems to suit a more stripy yarn like Archimedes. I knit most of this at a Staff-development session Thursday of last week, where the Management gathered up the entire teaching and admin staff into one huge space and greeted us for the new year. The institution in which I work has a tradition of greeting the academic year with a whole day meeting and associated planning sessions. After some 11 years I've worked out that the morning whole institution meeting makes for very good knitting time. 

Four more books

And this sunny yarn arrived durring the week, the first installment of Vintage Purls Summer sock yarn club in light lemon yellow with a shawl pattern - Demelza. There was also fudge - but that is long gone, and look little knitterly sticky notes. This is not a colour I would have ever chosen but it is so bright and yellow that I am wondering why I'd never considered this colour before. Defiantly on my to knit list. 

With the extra day this weekend I was able to spend some time finishing the books I had part made. Here are the last four of the six I have mostly done. One or two of these are earmarked for particular friends, one is for me and one is for the birthday stash. You know the birthday stash?  A small collection of things one has put aside knowing that there are birthdays and similar events going to happen. The birthday stash prevents last minute panic buying of weird gifts. Rosebuddie is headed for the 'so you are having a baby' stash, but I'm going to have to add a non-pink blanket as well as not all babies are girls, and some parents really don't like their wee boys in pink or pinky purple.

Some assembly required

Of course these are not totally finished yet, the book blocks (pages) are assembled, and the covers assembled and covered but the two have not yet been attached to each other. That is the next step, but I've found that letting the books dry out completely after each glue step makes the process neater and easier. I'm also playing with different weights of card for the covers. I have not found book-board available locally, but I've not really looked beyond art supply shops and larger stationery stores.  I do want to try Michael O'Brian in Oamaru,  as I have heard that he does sell some book making materials. Problem is that that most times I've been there, its been after hours or he has been just locking up to to go to lunch. There is a Youtube video explaining more about his work here, where he mentions apprenticeships,  part of me wants to inquire about learning bookbinding from him ... but right now there just isn't the time. 

What I have found out is that thicker card is less likely to curve when glued and dried, but is much more difficult to cut to size, thinner car dries into wave and curl shapes when glued .. unless I press it flat until dry. I can press it flat easily, but do wonder if the curl will return if the book is ever in a high humidity area or subject to some sort of mishap involving liquid. These are made with a ply-card, not the thickest I've used, and not the thinnest. I'm still exploring the materials available here and thought the ply - card, made of layers might be a little like ply wood, stronger and stiffer because of the layers. 

Surprise! - these are for Ngaire

There were two that I made and covered yesterday, with brown paper, and the last of the thicker card that I had on hand. I had a request for 'more' of the brown paper covered journals, so here are two more. One has plain paper and one has a knit grid. What I have found out is that books can be made in hundreds of different ways, and right now I'm liking the quite square spine with the french-groove hinge, and the inner book-block coptic bound so the pages open and lie flat easily.

I think I'll head off and work on the last of the edge, and then see if the book covers are ready to have their inners inserted.

cheers
na Stella

Still thinking about it

I'm still procrastinating,

28g is enough for a second wash cloth

So much so that I finished the wristers (sorry no photo yet) and the wash cloth. I tend to enter my project details in Ravely and one of the sub categories provides space to record how much of a skein was used, so I weighed the remaining yarn ready to enter the information. The washcloth used 23 g of the 50g of yarn, meaning I had 27 g left, More than enough for a second cloth. As I'm still procrastinating I started a second cloth, immediately, besides what else would I do with 27 grams of cotton linen yarn? I might be procrastinating about the blanket but I'm still knitting.

Two more knit journals

I've also been procrastinating by making more books, these two are knit journals, so have nice fountain pen friendly pages printed in a knit proportioned grid. The dark grey one is for me, and the animal print a gift. You might notice that the two books differ where the covers attach to the spine. I'm using 4mm thick board because I like nice stiff covers on my books, covers that don't bend. Good for knitting and working in ones lap, nice and stiff for writing on and sturdy enough to live in my knit bag. I'm working out how much extra needs to be allowed for the 'french-groove', that little ditch between the cover and the spine. There is a little bit of artistic choice here, how much larger than the pages the covers should be and how deep and wide the groove should be. Different cover materials also shrink with the glue and allowing 10mm might result in a narrow mean groove with one kind of paper and a wider more generous groove with a different paper. I think if I cut the covers 6mm larger than the pages, and allow twice the thickness of the cover board plus 6mm I might have the formulae right for the papers I'm using. The next one will be the test.

Tidied away

As part of the procrastination I tidied up my craft storage last week, and now have a drawer devoted to book and boxmaking.

Seven more book blocks

Inside I now have seven more book blocks. Book block is the term used to describe a set of pages sewn together ready to be covered. I'm coptic binding the book blocks but instead of coptic binding the covers in place I insert the book block into a hard covered case and paste the flyleaves in place. I like the way the coptic binding allows the book to stay open at each page, but also like the look of a book with a journal style cover with a square spine and french grooves. Some of these have plain pages, most have a knit grid. I'm planning most of these as gifts for birthdays that will occur during the year. Making the covers is the really fun part, so having seven book blocks ready is nice, a little bit like having bookmaking stash.

Vintage wooden darning mushroom with spring band

Today we drove the cubs up to Waimate so they can spend the week with my Dad. On the way back Bear and I stopped in Oamaru and had a look around a few antique shops, I found this neat wee darning mushroom in turned wood in one of the shops. There are no makers marks, and unusually this one has a little fitted clamp that will hold the fabric in place whilst it is darned. I am repeating to myself that I do not need to collect these, I'll  just have a few interesting and nice ones.

1940/50 and perhaps 1960,

Then we headed to the south end of Oamaru where there is a Historic area, lots of Victorian themed cafes, galleries, craft shops and one shop 'Retro-Funk' that specialises in mid twentieth century items. Bear noticed there were patterns for sale, vintage ones. Little cub is wearing the four dresses I made using the last vintage pattern almost all the time, so we had to get this pattern for her. Little cub has been asking if the next dress could have a collar, and this style has a collar, is the same brand (Butterick) and is in the same size, so should be the same nice fit. The other pattern dates from at least 1950, or earlier going by two newspaper sheets that are tucked inside. The original owner has traced off the front of the dress and drafted a shawl collar on newspaper which is dated June 1951. I'm wondering if I'm brave enough to sew one of these vintage styles for me. I like the idea, they look pretty, and these two dresses look shapely and yet timeless. If I find the right fabric I could just try one, and see how that goes. First step should be to toile the pattern in calico to check the fit, so that might be my project for next week, unless something else distracts me. I'm back to work this week, but on leave again for much of next week before the cubs go back to school next month.

I think I'm ready to pick up the blanket and knit .... perhaps my procrastination stage is nearing its end? I'm off to dig the blanket out of the basket and see how I feel about it.
Hope my entry into work for the new year is gently, and that yours was the same.

na Stella

Not just knitting

Hello, during the week Bear went digital, this is a man with a Nikon F5 film camera and previously no wish to use a digital camera at all. Digital is something I've encouraged, seeing my photos as I make them allows me to make better photos. I can't imagine waiting weeks for a film to be finished and then printed, but Bear is old school - and that is cool. The result of Bear deciding to try digital was my lovely Panisonic Lumix camera went out on a site visit with him and wasn't here for me to use - no mid week photos means no midweek post. Not that there was much here to blog, a sock is growing, I've plied two skeins (no photos sorry), and today I made a bag. The bag was a project that started out as a repair and before I knew it there was a new bag in the making. I'm working away developing a 'teachable' book for November continues to keep me busy - but the end is in sight. There are several 4pm to 7pm ballet practices this week, Monday and Wednesday, and a full ballet concert this Friday and Saturday, I'm not sure who will be the more tired, little cub who has to rehearse and dance or the parents who have to prepare, transport and feed the ballerinas and then watch the whole recital.

So a growing sock, Bigger on the inside the second is half done. The corner turned and the leg commenced. Soon I will be able to play with the colourwork at the top. There will be more opportunity this week as elder cub is away to school camp from Tuesday morning to Friday night. Without him in residence I can happily knit on his sock without discovery.

Little cub plays Ukelele, she has done for two years now. The classes are held at her school and are free - one of the retired teachers opens up the library and runs 3 classes a week, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Thank you Miss G! Every Wednesday littlest cub takes her pink ukelele and trots of to class after school, most weekends, and some mornings we hear her singing and strumming away in her room down the hall. The bag it came in was thin and had started to tear in several places. As eldest cub is off to camp we had the sewing machine out and I was stitching labels to the things we least want him to loose. Seemed a good time to do a few repairs, stitch a belt loop back on, top-stitch a hat band in place, and repair the ukelele bag. The fabric of the original bags was - well it wasn't fabric, it was a thin non-woven with no structural integrity at all. Originally I thought I would over-stitch the popped seams, but on inspection I found the seams had torn, and there were holes and tears in a few other places. The next step in the repair ladder seemed to be to open up the seams and patch the thin and worn places ... so Little cub and I started to unpick the bag. As we unpicked it seemed that the best repair would not to be to patch such thin fabric - but to cut and sew a new bag.

I hauled out the last of a roll of denim that I had used to make cub-trousers when both were smaller, and my sewing box. Little Cub chose a cotton quilting print of Paua-shell  to accent the denim fabric. Little cubs nickname is Doodle ... so that seemed a fun word to personalize her bag. The applique was outlined in machine zig zag stitching, each letter in a different thread colour, and that seemed a nice feature to carry through to the handle and the zip. Little cub outlined the 'L' - didn't she do a grand job? She wasn't sure about the 'E' - as it had lots of corners and turns, and left the curved letters to me.

We even added a wee pocket to the back, to keep her picks in, with enough space to add a ukelele tuner later (she is getting one for Christmas but dosn't know that yet).

And I've been working away to develop a nice book to teach bookbinding with at Unwind next March. The class is only a few hours so I've been working out how much I can expect people to sucessfully get through in that time,  And I've been playing with materials, these two are stitched with different weights of linen thread. I like the thinner one better, less dramatic but the stitching holes are smaller and the thread adds less bulk to the book.

I've also been playing with this method of attaching the covers to the book-block (pages). The standard method dosn't use a flyleaf - which is something that 'nicer' books have. The problem with adding a flyleaf is how to stitch the cover to the book-block and not interfere with the unglued flyleaf. Took me the 'map' journal to get my mind around the 'how' and the yellow journal to refine adding the back cover so the inside looked the same. Soon I need to 'test' my teaching on some one to make sure that this is achievable for some one in my class, no point having a method that is so fiddly that no-one else can follow is there?

I've also been playing with paper, the ivory is 80gsm Claire Fontaine, and the white is 90gsm HP, both take fountain pen ink and pencil well which is important. I'm also playing with printing a knit grid on some of the pages, and different methods of stitch binding using the 'coptic' stitch. Heavier paper makes for a book with more of a 'high-quality' feel, and I've already discovered that the covers and flysheets are much easier to glue if thicker paper is used.

Take care - I'll be back with more knitting mid week if the ballet and camp and work dosn't derail me again. There is only 3 weeks until school (cubs) and work (mine) finishes for the year - then there is our long summer holiday break. The end is in sight!

cheers
na Stella