Me Made May '13 Week Two

Sunday
Skirt is me-made. It is in fact the first thing I made out of fabric off the bolt. It's two colors of mechanical homespun woven with a pinstripe design made into a panel skirt. I picked the homespun because it felt substantial and the resulting skirt has seen me through yardwork without appearing to even get dirty but no one told me how it frays. And it frays and frays so that there are years of inept patching woven into this skirt. A couple of months I finally sat down and made it a proper waistband and finished off all the seams with zig zags so it would stop fraying itself apart.

Monday
The skirt is a knock off of an American Apparel design. I bought mine almost a decade ago and I adore the swoops and hugging of it that when it started to develop holes I knew I needed another. But when I went back to the shops I realized that somewhere along the line they'd decided that this skirt needed to be clingier and shorter and just. not. right. So when this gorgeous viscose jersey called my name I knew it'd become a new one of these.

Tuesday
This shirt started life as one of M's shirts. When he culled his wardrobe I snapped it up to transform it into a top for me. It is also the first piece of dressmaking I ever blogged about .

Wednesday
I can't, for the life of me, find my picture for this day. Luckily, I've just blogged about my skirt. After wearing it all day in rain and shine and wind I've determined it really needs a hem or something that will prevent it from flying up at any provocation.

Thursday
The shirt is retailored. I needed a white polka dot shirt for something or other but I could only find one in a few sizes too big. So the side seams went in and the neck got rebound with some slight gathering to fit it to my frame.
The jeans are definitely one of those garments of mine my mother wishes desperately she could throw on a bonfire. They are 13 years old! Well at this point it is probably more accurate the legs and hardware are 13 years old. The upper portion is practically patched at every point and not neatly-after a certain point I gave up matching thread, patch, or even making sure my hand sewing was even. They are my art jeans. I wear them when I'm being lazy (because they are fantastically comfortable) or doing something messy. They are full of memories. From the first giant red stain I got while making a model of Jupiter with my best friend of that time (turpentine didn't get it out), to painting my high school gallery, the first bright red patch from my friend's mother's sewing box to painting my attic library, to when a friend said "oh it won't rip" and proceeded to rip a new hole, to oil block printing and screenprinting, these trousers are very old friends.

Friday
The shirt is Steph's Blank Canvas Tee and I got the bands wrong 2 out of 3 times. Nevertheless I really like it though next time I plan on cutting a smaller size to get the neckline a bit snugger.
Oh and remember Monday's skirt? This is the original that I copied. Most of the side seams are now darned.

I spend Saturday dancing so I was in my rapper skirt.

Don't Let Your Mind Bully Your Body

You'll remember that the last book I posted on here was kind of a stab binding hot mess despite the complete awesomeness of the binding. I had indirectly discovered Becca Hirsbrunner's blog with her organic bindings through incomplete sources and just got too excited to be too precise. Well, here's another of her designs but this time I made it with my more typical forethought.

This time I used Becca's tutorial except that I wanted the binding to take up less of the text block so I eliminated one on each side to make the whole binding 4 holes deep instead of 5. This got rid of one of the nice weaved lines but I think it remains elegant.

I had tension problems due to waxing my thread so the spine wraps are not properly horizontal but since I hadn't made this before I didn't want to make them too tight that I'd be weaving furrows into the cover (I've done this before with a different binding).

Pretty much, I love it. This is a little book with a sharpied cover with that elegant binding that comes to a knot at the center.

3/4 Circle Skirt

So before I could be sure I'd be able to make at least 6 triple circle skirts with bright orange waistbands, I needed to be sure that I could do waistbands. Serendipitously, my local fabric shop brought in this range of gorgeous colors of knit fabric so I could give into my WANT of those beautiful colors of knit. This was before Christmas so my best friend got a 3/4 circle skirt out of a turquoise that I thought would be perfect with her eyes and job (yep! yep!). Her partner got a green skirt of her favorite design (a knock off of a major chain's skirt) that I thought would fit perfectly into her wardrobe's palette (yep! yep!).

For myself, I made a 3/4 circle skirt out of purple. A perfect casual skirt for me that looks fine with tshirts.

I use this excel worksheet I made a long time ago to calculate the radius of the waist circle and the radius of that plus the skirt to the hemline circle. I then use my measuring tape like a compass marking the semi-circle with pins that I then cut along. If I fold it correctly, there're no seams-this skirt has one seam. The waistband is a simple rectangle folded over the elastic, edges tucked in, and finished with a zig zag. Then it gets sewn onto the skirt right sides touching and given a minor press to lie flatter around the wait to reduce bulk. The result is a skirt that falls like it has gathers but actually doesn't have any.

Me-Made May '13 Week 1!

So it's Sunday! And I've been eagerly reading everyone's posts about their me-made outfits and I'm happy I'm not the only one who has loads of things in their closet that have not been blogged. I even have the excuse that I've only just started blogging my dressmaking attempts....

Anyhow! So you'll recall that my Me-Made-May pledge used both retailor and refashion in it. I used both in a conscious effort to include the garments in my closet that only needed small little adjustments to make them more wearable. These adjustments can mean something like a reshaping of a side seam or a dye bath. I very much treat my clothing in a make-do-and-mend fashion and a lot of my clothes are almost a decade old!

Day 1

The dress is vintage, probably early 1970s because of that elasticated waist and the brand tag is the "just moved to Germany" style. I was looking for a neutral casual dress that would be light and airy but robust enough for picnics and such. This fit the bill with its shirtwaist style, high comfort level (there's a back vent!), and pocket with its pocketkerchief, but there was so.much.fabric. in the bodice. It bloused out and made me look about 10 pounds heavier while simultaneously the buttons popped open ready to showcase my bust at any quick moves. So! I took in fabric into the raglan sleeves while simultaneously easing out some fabric for my bust. With some snappers in between the shirtwaist, it stays shut-pulls but stays shut. The side seams got remolded to counteract the blousy effect of the elastic gathering and here it is!

The belt is my favorite ribbon belt. Look for it again and again as it's the most versatile of my DIY efforts.

The not seen slip is not a successful slip. It's going on my remake pile. It pulls across my hips hindering my movements which is silly considering the volume of that skirt. The waist falls down whenever I bend over. I will see if some shirring will fix it but likely, it'll get torn apart and made anew.

May 2nd

Look at the sun! It's warm enough to not need a cardigan! Second day like this all year!

The skirt is the first appearance of this blog of this zig zag knit and it certainly won't be the last. I usually hate pencil skirts, mainly because RTW woven ones make me look like: "oh the '50s called, they want their birthing hips back!" and then when I turn around the only adjective that comes to mind is "bootylicious". Not that these are necessarily bad things but people have talked to my crotch. Never not awkward. Not this one though, this one instead has inspired loads of people to ask if I've lost weight (nope) and to tell me I looked sleek. I guess it's because the waistband nips into my waist comfortably but the fabric is not working hard around my hips/posterior. The zig zags also probably make the eye wander down to my legs instead of letting them stall at crotch level.

Not me-made: the shirt is a faithful 7 year old band tshirt I got at a Gogol Bordello show. The shoes were bought in Cyprus and I'm looking for an affordable replacement. 

May 3rd

Mountain weather means that when I set up my bookstack it was sunny, it was cloudy when I took this tired looking picture and sunny again when I sat back down at the computer. I love you mountains-always change.

The cardigan started out life as a rather insipid gray color and I wore it mainly because the style was perfect for hot weather/cold office changes while I lived in DC. But somehow it got these strange peach stains (sunlight?) and white under arm circles (sweat) and it was not really a great cardigan. It got relegated to the back of drawers for the 3 times a year I needed something like it. However, when I took a batik class I asked the teacher if I could use the purple vat leftover after class for a more basic fabric dying. I was warned that the sweater would always need to be washed separately and that the fabric might not take the strong batik dyes but I hated the cardigan so much with its gray, peach, and white 'motif' that I dunked it in anyway. It was a good risk because I love its color now (though the gray buttonholes due to the thread being polyester was a little odd surprise).

The shirt is from the odd woodland/countryside fabric I grabbed during a spree in Walthamstow so be sure to watch out for its reappearance in a full blog post. It's a simple box blouse.

Not me made are the green jeans but they are a very odd size: 11 ½. God knows what that means but other than perhaps a little more room in the hips or a shorter inseam (for those horizontal crotch wrinkles) they fit perfectly in a way that I'd never expected from skinny jeans on my figure.

Day 4

The dress was a refashion from two of the photographer's cast off shirts (both are good quality shirts, they just don't fit him anymore). It's a color blocked dress with the blue collar replacing the beige collar and the blue sewn onto the bottom of the beige shirt with full length placket. It may have been the first project with my real sewing machine or it may have been made on the faker. Either way, I've buttoned up the cardigan to hide the worst bust darts in the world. Ok, they're not that bad especially since they're probably my first attempts at brand new bust darts ever but I don't want the sewing world to see them. The skirt rides up a lot so I think it's slightly too long in the torso with tightness right where my legs do motiony things. And the style...it's not really mine. It's quite office-y/preppy and I'm an archaeologist...I suspect this should get chopped in two. I quite enjoy the swoops the skirt is doing (following both bottom hemlines) and think with some shortening/creation of a waistband I'd find it much more wearable. The shirt needs those bust darts sorted out and then perhaps a peplum to make up the length that's needed to make it a stand-alone shirt. What do you think is appropriate for the bottom of a men's button up that ends at natural waist?

The belt is a reprise of May 1st.

The tights are hard to see (like my surprise! red hair) but they have multi-colored polka dots drawn on them. I went around for a week with polka dot legs after making them but thankfully they have not washed out of these tights!

Not me-made are my shoes, the slip you can see peeking out, and cardigans. Those are actually my excavation shoes. Usually my summer shoes are torn apart by August, what with the heat, dust, dirt, and daily wearing through hiking, beach going, excavation, and pavement pounding tourism but these survived the summer and looked okay once they got washed twice. I guess though I paid £5 for them that brand name actually meant they're better quality than my usual £5 shoes? The slip was a clearance rack find with a  sleekish silk chiffon bottom with the finest soft jersey knit top. It's a bit big on me and I shortened the straps but I'm pretty sure that making it myself would've be both more expensive and more hair pulling.

Pledges

We all have these grand ideas about how we're make our lives better. We make goals for ourselves and swear we will stop eating fried foods forever tomorrow, start learning that language next week, and take up fencing next month.

Well, one of my grand goals is to understand my clothing choices. I have a personal style and I have those garments that have survived multiple trans-Atlantic moves and still get worn every month at least. I also have things I simply never wear. I fondle them and think about how awesome they are and then don't wear them. It's odd and I don't truly understand why. I have already done a wardrobe inventory to identify fit and garment problems which led to a massive "mending" and "retailoring" pile. All of these clothes went under my machine to fix too long hemlines, too loose side seams, and awkward collars. But it still seems like I spend most of my time in 6 different garments. So I've decided to take part in Me-Made-May 2013 to spark myself.

 I, Teresa at unwornworld.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear at least one me-made or reworked garment each day for the duration of May 2013. Any garment worn may not be repeated until 2 weeks later.

Hopefully this will make me A. get dressed everyday and B. figure out why my wardrobe seems so small despite being so large. I will post my pictures once weekly on Sunday but cannot promise they will be good quality. I've given myself a bit of an out but I will endeavour to not take it.

That leads me to my second major grand goal. Spend less money. I don't buy new clothes often as it is but I really shouldn't ever especially since you can get such good stuff second hand! For instance I once got a brand new Hell Bunny dress (retail £65) for £5. The other day I grabbed a like-new Diva corset (retail £175) for £7. That's still money I ought to not spend but they are so much better buys than a new knit top from H&M. Yet I think half of what's stuffed in my drawers are RTW new sales buys-why do I do that? No public accountability perhaps. So here it is:

I, Teresa am taking the #seamlesspledge until I gain my doctorate. http://bit.ly/tktV04 The exception to this are bras, tights, and socks.

 Hopefully, this will make me finally tackle my goal to make undies because that is both something I can make and something I cannot buy in a charity shop.

Croquis

You saw my personal croquis in my post about rapper skirts. I'm quite excited about her because it gets me excited about new projects and even better, gets me to think about pre-planning of projects. See, I recently inventoried my stash along with ideas about what the fabric should become on a personal springboard account and I have so much fun seeing my fabric and what it'll become...you know, once I finish stage one of paperwork.

Making a croquis is surprisingly easy. There are few great tutorials hanging out about the internet but here's my take.

First, you should take a straight forward picture of yourself in your favorite underwear against a contrasting wall. Or you can take a page from Oona and take some sassy poses. I chose a pose in which my arms are not against my body because I know that in my sewing design I need to clearly delineate my hips which is harder to see with the arms right next to them.

I imported that photo into Inkscape and connected my graphics tablet (I use a Wacom Bamboo). Select the pencil tool (draw freehand lines tool) or F6 and trace fairly carefully around your figure. I tend to zoom in and do it in line bursts but if your hand is steadier do the whole thing at once.

Once your line is drawn, switch to the edit paths by nodes tool (2nd from the top) or F2 and hit ctrl-L to simplify your line. Nudge the line to match your silhouette as needed node by node.

Wha-la, your basic croquis.

I skipped my hair because it's long and not really a style so my croquis is bald. Other than that there's other marks that are really useful on a croquis. I mark my knees so that I can accurately gauge skirt lengths, elbow marks to gauge sleeve lengths. My bust got marked for necklines and high bust considerations and finally natural waist and what I call comfortable waist must all be marked for it to be truly functional.

Now there's a fully functional figure on which to draw any designs making sure that the garment proportions fit my unique ones. For the actual sewing plan, I usually mark all the measurements as well.

Other things to mark if wanted- collar bones and belly button.

Black Hares graphic design

My current ongoing graphic design project is for The Black Hares. I'm enjoying it primarily because I have a definite fondness for rabbits/hares and also I'm pretty much given free rein in my design (b&w being my main constraint).

Their logo was hand-drawn and then digitized. The text came first mainly because I wanted to break away from my usual font ruts to create a text that suits the chaotic pub environment they are usually in. In fact, I went to one of their sessions and sketched out my ideas right there at the beer-damp table. I wanted the hare to be in a dynamic position and decided that the spirals were infinitely appropriate to folk music and so the hare was born.

I've since modified the logo to form the website banner, facebook buttons, and cards.

A little less often, I make gig posters for them. I employ a stencil vibe showcasing their two instruments making it rather clear this is a band gig poster. The relevant information (location, time, date) is slightly buried within the graphic elements but still clear at all sizes-Goudy Bookletter is really a great serif font for that.

Butterfly Stab Binding-The Magic Lantern

Ah, at last, a book.

I have this big folder on my computer full of things I'd like to figure out how to do myself. Many of these are things I'd only be in the position to make in the unseen future but hanging out in there was a picture I'd found on tumblr

of this amazing butterfly stab binding. I thought sweet and saved it.

I finally got around to trying it out. There were a lot of missteps (some of those holes have thread going in at all times...so tricky to figure out), a lot of thread knotting itself (grrrr...) and just general redos. The resulting book can only be a practice book due to the stretched out holes (there's no way to make that sound not dirty) and a general skewedness. My holes were not symmetrical which further lead to confusions and it's not even! GRRR! (it means the cover is gonna rip easier/not last-it's also a totally a rookie mistake) Plus I totally forgot my original plan to do it long-ways....

Still I'm happy with it! It's been awhile since I A. made a stab binding book and B. made a totally new binding so I'm pleased with it.

After I finished it occurred to me to search for Becca Hirsbrunner to see if she had a blog. Sure enough, she does! With a tutorial for the binding. Another to file under the "could've made your own life easier" category but I'm totally excited. Have you seen her bindings?! I think I want to do the stars next!

Orange & Black Tommy (Top Hat & Bow-Tie)

Ah, first a description of what a Rapper Tommy is. Also called a character, they are a sharply dressed person who is meant to engage the crowd with the dancing. They sing a calling on song meant to grab the audience's attention and generally make jokes all throughout the dance. Our Tommy is also a musician so he got a sash but Tommys do need to look sharper than everyone else. We combed the charity shops of Sheffield and found a dinner jacket that fits him (well, sort of, it's just slightly too big in the shoulders but I seem to be the only one who notices). So with that main base, it was up to me to make the bright orange accessories. He got a pocket triangle (actually a failed sash end!), a bow tie, and a top hat.

I've sewn up a variety of fabric hats mainly of the Scrooge night cap variety. I have been meaning however to take my hat making repertoire up a notch and begin with a flat cap so I had buckram in my stash. Now I had expected it to become a Renaissancey flat cap for M's Balkan Bandit stage costumes and I figured that'd also be a step up in difficulty so I was looking forward to it. However, it came to be a few days before our competition and we still hadn't been able to buy a top hat for under £absurd. So...I made a top hat. Why not?

Well, 3 curved hand needles (one of them was a book binding needle!), a burn, and 3 shattered machine needles later I really questioned my sanity/ability-to-evaluate-my-own-skills. It was certainly a learning experience! I didn't have millinery gauge wire for the brim rim so I doubled up jewelery wire and shattered my machine needles. I didn't have any mull so I used dressmaker's felt creating a thick and stiff body that was so thick my needles bent rather than make it through though thankfully it stays very upright! Ironing the buckram together really didn't work despite the internet telling me it should have and when the steam made my buckram soft I panicked and burned myself off the buckram. And let me tell you I am thrilled I needed to trim it with bright orange ribbon because the glue stains from my failed top to brim technique are hideous. I hated the crown to side attachment so much I sewed a strip of bias binding to hide the top. Oh, and despite my trying to follow the standard ratio of top hat to face height it's like 3 inches taller than any other hat! This is a special hat.

Which looks spectacular from afar!

the trailing ribbon breaks up the expanse of black from the back

I have to keep reminding myself that this was my very first hat, that I drafted the pattern myself, pretty much guessed at the construction after a half hour on the internet, and that while I look at it and see construction/technique failures, everyone else is just like "What a tall top hat on that dashing fellow!" It really just demonstrates that we are our worst critics. Though I cringed every time M handed it to an admirer.

That bow tie is embarrassingly easy in non-fraying fabric. Ready? Sew a rectangle, turn it seams in, and whipstitch closed. Pinch it in the middle  more or less evenly and sew it ruched. Wrap a thin strip around the middle and sew tight on the back. Sew to an elastic that is slightly looser than the neck. Boom-bow tie. (yeah, this Kitmistress was not going to tie a bow tie before every round)

Orange and Black Musicians (Sashes & Embroidery)

Our rapper musicians, being men, could not be expected to wear the same skirts as the dancers, so their kit went back to the rapper basics of sashes.

I ran into difficulties however in making the sashes. To make our musicians match the dancers the proper thing would be to make the sashes out of the knit fabric which would be fine but sashes need to lie flat at the hanging ends.
My first attempts ranged from sad to outright pathetic.

a few of the "successes"

Finally I had to give it up-this knit fabric was too stretchy that despite dunking it in starch, there was no way to stop it from rolling before bunching out awkwardly at the ends. New fabric had to be found.

Now, I'm not sure you've ever tried to find orange fabric in Yorkshire. The only real choices all tend to be either too red or too seem destined for health and safety high vis wear. In the end the high vis option won mainly because I found this delightful mystery fabric in the Hillsborough fabric shop's clearance section. It's a tough fabric that is actually almost self-interfaced so it holds basically any shape you sew it into.

£1.99 a metre? that's 80p a sash!

So despite it being its own light source (while it was laid out in my sewing room I kept thinking I had left the lights on overnight...instead it was just the fabric reflecting the overcast light), this was going to become our sashes. With no need for interfacing, buckram, weights, cardboard, etc, it was a simple process to sew 2 rectangles together, starch and lightly iron (it melts at higher temperatures) it flat, and whipstitch the ends closed. Easiest sewing project ever? Yep. Does the kitmistress need to keep ironing the tying wrinkles out? Sadly, yes.

Of course I didn't leave well enough alone and decided I'd embroider a monogram on them. A simple typographical design that would be able to be easily but stylishly rendered with stitches. Which lead to me running out of black embroidery thread and discovering that Sheffield shops do not stock black embroidery thread. o.O    So 2 of the sashes are embroidered edges and only the Tommy's sash is filled in. Anyway! Used backstitch to outline the SSR.

oh right, and those are the trophies we won.

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Orange & Black Dancers (Design & Skirts)

So I dance rapper dance-it's a Northern English traditional dance involving stepping, swords, and teamwork-see Sheffield Steel Rapper dance here. As we're a new team, we needed to think about our costume. I got elected kitmistress and set out to outfit 6 dancers, 2 musicians, and 1 musician/tommy.

That's right, those skirts you see moving there? I sewed them.

Traditionally rapper dance costumes are shorts, knee socks, and sashes but we wanted skirts because, well, we're an all-women's team so why not. With practicality in mind, I knew skirts would be of knit fabric so I sketched out a few croquis ideas. A simple circle skirt base (#1), a wildcard with asymmetry and attached sash (#2), and one with a panel mimicking a sash (#3)

And the first one won. It's a triple circle skirt in reality: full circle overskirt, orange half circle skirt layer with a 1/4 circle lining to prevent riding up and sticking to tights. Each layer is a different length to allow for peeks of color. The waistband allowed for the pop of color and the whole thing is one piece. It's super easy to pull this skirt on and off and the knit allows for weight changes without any worry. The all cotton jersey I sourced makes the whole thing machine washable and it doesn't crease even when shoved into a tiny bag. All in all, extremely portable and versatile. I hoped, as kitmistress, that once I sewed them up, I'd basically not have to worry about them ever again.

And indeed, that has borne out!  

looking good after lunch-we're standing basically still-only peeks of orange at the bottom

still looking good after a day of wear!-depending on movement more or less orange showing

So construction details?
The lining is cut out, the one seam sewed with a small tag with dancer's initials and hemmed via narrow hemming foot.The orange layer is cut out, one seam sewed shut and hemmed via narrow hemming foot. The black layer is cut out in one piece and hemmed via narrow hemming foot. These three layers are zig zagged together. Waistband elastic is sew into a circle. Orange fabric cut in two rectangles that are joined. The orange is wrapped around waistband elastic stitched as closely as possible via zipper foot. This is attached to the skirt itself via some more close stitching via the zipper foot. So the insides are nothing pretty but I left them intentionally raw so that modifications are nice and easy.

in action the orange is very striking!

I am proud that despite sewing 6 in a single week and the very centrifugal forces that act upon our skirts during our spin there is not a popped seam to be found!

Bones

I haven't made an entire, more-than-one-signature in over a year now but happily, it was like I'd never stopped! Apparently, I won't lose my bookmaking skills despite no practice. It might be because while I don't make books nowadays, I do think about making them and it was a very complicated dream in which I made a Belgian Secret Binding that made me finally make this book. It's for my master's dissertation adviser and really I ought to have given it to him back in January or February. Unfortunately, this is typical-I can go years without giving gifts out and then suddenly, really randomly, I make up for it.
Anyhow, onto the book itself!

my adviser is an archaeozoologist and though I am not, I nonetheless have the Collins bone id guide from which I traced these bones in order to cut them out of the greenish/blueish cover paper. The bones expose a light green brocade paper underneath. It's a slightly odd sized square.

the end paper is a British bought paper and was chosen b/c I admire his very methodical approaches to archaeological problems and this strikes me as a very methodical paper.

I was stymied on what binding the book wanted and ended up with my coptic zigzag-partially b/c I love it and partially b/c it put me in mind of the jagged ends of broken bones...which is what an archaeologist usually sees

Button Up Refashion

Don't mind the contrapposto...or the pink

My boyfriend recently culled his button up shirt collection. I was right next to him helping the process by going, "really?! that one?" but he was far more ruthless than I could ever be. This shirt was the first of the pile to get the refashioning treatment since I love menswear tailoring and pin tucks/ruffled pleats more than it's probably healthy.
Since L men's is rather boxy, huge, and unflattering for me I started out by tearing out the side seams and removing the sleeves (aprox. 7 inches too long for me). I let out the sleeve seam allowances to provide a bit of a cap but sewed up the sides into a more curvy silhouette. I removed the collar but sewed up the collar stand because that provided just enough of a collar to make it girly/blousy but still mensweary. I added some bust darts to take up the strange amount of fabric above the *ahem* curvy bits and added some more buttons (and buttonholes) to hide the aforementioned curvy bits. The sleeve caps got bias bound to finish them off and the bottom got cut and sewn into a new curved hem. Ta-dah! A sleeveless blouse that's long enough to cover the posterior with some fantastic pleats! (and no, it'll probably be never ironed again)

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 has been 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.
So I created a simple 5 hole binding stabilized with strips of mountboard along the spine 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