Catching Up

2015.  I try to take at least one workshop every year in order to improve my bookmaking skills and add to the features I can use in a book.  This year I returned to Long Ridge Farm near Keene, New Hampshire, for a session titled "Tactile Notebooks and the Written Word" with Sandra Brownlee.  We made books for our journal entries but the workshop focused more on a thoughtful approach than on specific skills.  I really enjoyed the week.  Encouraged to think more about content and reflection, I was especially pleased with my final product, a book cover made from silk fabric that my mother-in-law had dyed and painted years ago.  I quilted around the abstract shapes, ending with a cover that is a pleasure to hold and that brings back memories both of Mummer and of the summer workshop.  The main purpose for the covered journal was for travel notes from the season's trips to Iceland, then England/Scotland and finally Colorado/Utah.

Hornvik, Iceland, near the Arctic Circle

Nancy with a fish caught in the fjord near Patriksfjiordur.

The medieval wall next to our hotel in York.

Tactile Notebooks workshop at Long Ridge Farm.

It hardly seems that it has been over a year since I have added to my blog.  Since the summer of 2011, I have been making some books for gifts.  In 2012, I focused on paper making.  In January, I took a class at the Venice Art Center from Sandy Frick.  We made paper from abaca and then used plant parts to print on the paper.

At the end of July, we drove to New Hampshire and I participated in a three day class called "Pulp Clouds: making paper from local plants," presented by Velma Bolyard.  The class was held at Nancy Zeller's Long Ridge Farm, about 30 miles from Goshen where we spend time every summer.  I learned a lot about making paper in this workshop.  We used a variety of plants to make our paper, including hosta, day lilies, cat tails, cedar bark, and milkweed.

After the class was over, I decided to make more milkweed paper from the plants in the field behind the house in Goshen.  I cut a big pile of stems.   It was easy to peel the outer green layer off the stems because the plants were still young.  The pods had not ripened and burst open yet so I was unable to use the fluff in the paper.  I cut up the green outer bark into about 1 inch lengths and when I had a good layer of them in the bottom of the kettle, I added water and cooked them with about a cup of washing soda added.  After several hours, it looked as though the material was breaking down.  The cooled pulp was run through the blender and put into the paper making tub with additional water.  The resulting paper was a pale tan color with a nice texture.  I believe if you harvest the milk weed after a frost and let it dry before processing, you will have a pale paper.

Today I cut up bamboo sheaths which I will cook and blend tomorrow for making paper.  It will be interesting to see what the result is.  I watched a video on making Korean Hanji and I can see how far my processes are from their professional work but, even so, I was quite pleased with my summer results.  I hope the bamboo paper is even better.  It is time to create some good quality paper.  I am getting older so I must begin THE BOOK pretty soon!

2012 Papermaking

The Clam Shell Book Box

The clamshell book box would have been big enough for the pamphlets after all. But I went ahead with the new book/book box combination anyway since the slipcase for the pamphlets was finished. Dark blue and purple batik cotton fabric was used to cover both. First I used HeatnBond on the fabric to keep the glue from seeping through the material. I have used it before although I am not sure it is necessary if the glue is applied in the right consistency to the boards.
Now that I have finished this matching set, I have moved on to another book. I have the paper folded but still am in the process of deciding which book form to use. I am torn between doing a quarter leatherbound project and doing something Coptic or Ethiopian style. Neither the clamshell book nor this current one is printed. Rather they are both blank books.
Plans in my mind include completing the Magnusson family stories, my boat trip journal, and a book of poems that I have written over the years. The latter is a very small collection so it might be something I could print on my press and thus use for THE BOOK. THE BOOK is the one that will be comprised of paper that I have hand made, text that I have written and printed on my hand press, and a binding that I have completed myself using my own hand decorated paper for the cover material.

It is with some regret that I have completed the very last binding of Pike Stories. The pamphlet bindings were fun. I used a combination of coordinated batik printed fabrics that I purchased. Yellow food coloring dyed the thread well enough to use it to sew the five signatures. Each one is sewn with a different pattern.
When it came time to make the box, first I created a clam shell box, but I soon realized that there wasn't enough of the fabric to cover it the way I preferred. Therefore I made a simple slipcase book box covered in some of the same cloth as the pamphlets. I will use the clam shell box for another project.
There is a waiting list for the papermaking class I wanted to take; thus I doubt that I will be able to attend. Perhaps I can manage to learn the art of making and dyeing paper the Japanese way on my own if I can locate the proper supplies.
Luckily I have found some new information to add to the Magnusson family history so I am hopeful that there will be enough to make an interesting story.

Finishing Pike Stories

There are now fourteen copies of Pike Stories completed. The pamphlet bound copy is not covered yet, but otherwise the project is finished. Research has begun for the Magnusson/Kirby volume. I am hoping to complete a papermaking class this summer; in the meantime, I have been making various types of bindings to keep in practice - a few more albums, miniature books for thank you's to the quilt square makers, and the last of the Pike Stories. The latter were completed with cloth covers.

Two copies of Pike Stories are ready for their covers - three if you count the pamphlet binding. Initially, I intended to give all five remaining volumes fabric covers and have several different kinds of batik fabric to use. Already I am bored with that idea and am thinking of something different. Two of the recent bindings have handmade endbands. They are perhaps not made with the exactly correct type of thread but I will keep experimenting.
Too many months have gone by since my last entry but I will hit the high lights of the year since April. Cousin Siv and her husband Thomas visited us from Sweden for a few days in April. In May, David and I flew to England with Alan and Meredith. We stayed in Chelsea in one of Chad's houses, just off Kensington Road, while we toured London. A weekend in Wiltshire at Edington Priory followed a stop at Stonehenge and Avebury. We also visited Bath and Salisbury before we jaunted off to Amsterdam for a day and night. One more day in London and then we went home. The travel bug has bit me again; I hope I get to Morocco in the spring.
At the end of May, we enjoyed Meredith's graduation from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. General Petraeus was the commencement speaker. June included a week in New Hampshire tending to repairs and upkeep in preparation for celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary there in August with a little party.
During the summer, the months flew by and not much book work was accomplished except for the two bindings mentioned above. I made paste paper and marbled once and I constructed a leather-covered box for a fund-raising book basket.
Early in August, we drove to Rockford to see David and Louise Mayhall for a day, then continued to the house Chris bought near Edgerton, Wisconsin. We visited for several days, including a stop in Lake Mills where we talked to Dick and Bonnie Porubsky and enjoyed lunch with Ruth Wollenburg. Our journey continued north to Sault Ste Marie, across Canada to Montreal, and finally down into Vermont, ending in Goshen, New Hampshire, in time to finish the preparations for the party. Our friends the Mayhalls, Bill and Corinne Sachs (also from Rockford), Chris, Kim and Trevor, Alane, Jamie and Tucker Harrington (from Connecticut), Liz, Tony, Zak and Al Greer (from Rhode Island), Patty and Albert Ash, and Alan helped us celebrate with a lobster bash, decadent cake from Rhode Island, sparkling wine, music and lots of talk all in the Pike party tradition. The big surprise was a gorgeous anniversary quilt that Kim and Meredith had conceived, with squares made by friends and family. Meredith did the final construction. The quilt hangs in a place of honor in our family room.
We stayed another week in NH to recuperate before we started for Florida. At Lorton, Virginia, we boarded the autotrain, thus shortening the drive home by about 800 miles.
Covering a photo album for a memory book was my Autumn task along with research for the Magnusson family book. The next educational experience on my agenda will be a papermaking class in order to complete the paper for the "ultimate" book.