Bobbin Lace Making

two finished pieces

 I've taken up-mildly-bobbin lace making. It goes slowly (oh so slowly) mainly because it's so mindful. You can't let your mind wander too far which means it requires a full attention span-and mine ebbs and flows. I'm teaching myself the same way I taught myself to bind books- reading books. Every book about bobbin lace making I've found is published in the 1950-1960s and has the tone of a little old lady down pat. Like with book binding, I take shortcuts (for instance, I do not trace my pattern, pre-prick, and retrace the pattern again) which I'm sure are scandalous and you'll notice my cushion is not a cushion at all. I love doing traditional crafts and all but I'm still a modern individual here.

piece still on the 'cushion'

Around the house

 inspired by a picture-I made my own coat rack out of 10 bamboo sticks (from the gardening section) lashed into a semi-teepee shape which works splendidly as a simple, usable coat rack. While this is not quite a piece of furniture that I'd move with, it fills a much needed niche in my life.

I picked up this old school desk at a charity shop for under 10 quid about a year ago. It's since been used as dinner table, calligraphy table (one of my ink bottles fits perfectly in the inkwell), and we-have-so-much-stuff-table. Though obviously solid antique pine, it was not finished at all (as I gather is typical of UK school desks of the time) and so under our misuse, it had gotten stained, scratched, and water damaged. and let's not forget, this was a school desk and so inscribed by folks like D. Williams in 28/4/63 while he sat at 12 'clock 10th level french class so it's not like this desk was not already abused.

 With a bit of mineral spirits to clear off those stains, a bit of sanding to even out some of the scratches, dents, and water damage, and some penetrating resin finish....it looks better than it probably ever did and is loads more durable while still retaining the charming antique school desk look that made me buy it in the first place.

Artist Books

I have a confession to make: I've not made an involved book in over a year. The last 8 books I've made have been purpose made 1-2 signature books with very simple covers. Instead my more "artist" books have become much involved and I have 2 in progress right now.  Unusually for me-the point of these 2 books is not the book itself but what's inside. Here's a sneak peek...though I doubt I'd be able to show you much more in the next year...

Es la mañana...can you guess the poem?

I'm teaching myself non-metallic illumination. Despite my mother's insistence that I must've been a monk in a past-life, I am not good at traditional illumination. My lines waver up and down and my letter weights are not consistent. My illuminated initials (one per page) are far from symmetrical. However, this book is far from a pristine book with its individual tea dyed pages-in more than 9 different techniques and that centipede stitch keeping it together and snaking across the covers is not a symmetrical beast either so I'm embracing my inconsistencies....which fascinatingly doesn't make the process go any faster.

I've also taken up a number of other creative crafts which will make up the next few posts on this blog because like my books, my idea of how creativity can be applied has expanded and with my current unemployment, I fill my time to the lip of the glass.

Dissertation

All of my energy and mental control was put into this. A MA dissertation. Due to strange timing issues I didn't end up at the binders in time. So I stared at some "velubinding" methods and concluded it was simply a post binding. Or in other words, a mechanized Westernized Japanese stab binding. A 5 hole binding stabilized with strips of mountboard with further stabilizing done through a 3 hole binding through the textblock itself. Fully satisfies my department's requirements: "bound securely and able to be displayed in a glass cabinet"

Orchestrelle

cover is a 1920s advertisement for the Orchestrelle set upon a background of an 1800s manuscript of Ishtar

simple coptic

Steamship

Cover is from an 1872 newspaper special of royal boats and their associated personalities. My favorite bookshop here in sheffield has tons and tons of these interesting old clippings and I now have a small stack of them waiting to be made into books

simple coptic

Night Sky

doubled over twisted link and kettle

Let's Just Make It Work

would work well as a budget book cover methinks

doubled over twisted link and kettle

Trees in the wind

made with a friend, this is a closed spine book with various layered 3 signature bindings

it's nice end paper, no?

Please

another twisted link and kettle

Alice

background of nice gold/green brocade with a Mervyn Peake's Alice in the corner


Simple twisted link and kettle

ok, a confession. I've not really made any books for months...time, space, etc all conspire against me. I AM working on a massive autobiographical artist book though that is all crazy and ambitious and involves tons of turkish map folds...we'll see when that gets finished! haha.

Totally

I love, love, love these illustrations

standard coptic

Get a Book from Me into Your Home!

SO! I've made an online shop through Etsy. I'm now in the internet-selling-my-books business!

click here!

Soaring Song

background is a map of Sheffield (Rivelin Valley, 1920s) with birds cut out of a 1800s manuscript of Ishstar

lately my bindings are lacking much creativity...simple coptic. but I tried out dyed, waxed linen thread (the so-called proper thread for this work) and all I can say is NEVER AGAIN

Doubt Less

cover from a Sheffield magazine

binding is a multiple distance coptic

curve

simmery silver cover w/ caterpillar stitch on cover and a modified leather binding

Angles

cover is this stunning iridescent paper

coptic modified into angles

Drops

simple little book with a modified leather binding

Ideal Spanish Lady Take 2

cover is the same drawing as last entry's but the original tracing paper used as carbon paper sealed by silvery matte medium

a standard coptic


interior pages are purple/blue dyed, textured by lying on my tile floor, interspersed throughout

Ideal Spanish Lady

cover is a redrawing from a 1932 Spanish magazine cover with the Neruda quote: "Zumbando entre los arboles, orquestral y divino"

binding is a coptic with off set, modified center stitches

Folk Musician

cover drawn on tracing paper then glued down

a slight variation on the zig zag coptic variation

blue flower embedded front sheet

blue papers mixed in

Varias Ventas

ads are from a Spanish magazine (blanco y negro?) from ca. 1932

Fretboard

a present for a guitarist friend's birthday. Since the only drawing things I have are apparently water based which inevitably smears upon application of the matte medium I use to seal off my covers, I lit on the idea of drawing it on tracing paper and then simply gluing the drawn side to the cover. simple innovation that erases all that frustration!

binding is a twisted link and kettle with doubled over variation

Artist Cards

So when I first created this blog and begun to sell my books, I also developed an artist card. Since the first one, I've gone through 3 designs but the basic premise has remained the same; my artist card is a mini book-zine to stay true to my DIY aesthetic.

my first card was not at all slick-handwritten, glue sticked, photocopied much like the zines of the 90s underground scene.

the text is the same as the sidebar to this blog.
I went through some other designs that I was not too fond of so they had limited runs and I couldn't find evidence of my taking pictures of them...

My current one is very different. It incorporates my own photos as backgrounds to each page and was designed on the computer.

the text is a little more philosophical/political and less autobiographical than my original one, but it's in a way, much more my own than previous ones......and though it doesn't quite fold too well (illustrator and me printing don't quite work out too well) it is my favorite

Dandelions- teaching book