Finishing Touches

So that Valentine Palooza book with the heart stitching on the spine that I mentioned might need something more? Well, picking it up after I hadn't looked at it for awhile made clear I was right about adding a closure. I auditioned several buttons from my button jar and ways they might be attached with some kind of ribbon or thread wrap until I settled on this simple button and loop closure. That's another one of those silver metal buttons that I used on one of the Little Library Challenge books.

But before adding the closure, I added a printout of a gifted heart of flowers design by watercolor artist Ann Butera. She knows how this time of year it is easy to let the weather and lack of real greenery get us down so she shared this with her readers to be printed out and displayed wherever we might need cheering up. I was still a bit worried about the stability of the handmade paper cover even when doubled and I thought that heart would be a perfect addition inside to provide strength and continue the heart theme.

Yes, I cut it in half so that there would be a half heart on both the front and back inside covers. I had my final lunch yesterday with the friend who is moving out of town and presented it to her, hoping she will put it to good use and think fondly of me when she opens it. Hoo boy, we were both pretty unsettled as we parted even though we have every intention of keeping in touch through e-mail and maybe even zoom.

After I got home, I definitely needed a distraction and decided it was high time I block that lavender sweater. I'd ordered up a bottle of the Bath Fiber Wash recommended by OliveKnits in her blocking tutorial but was dragging my feet about actually using it. Even though you don't have to rinse it out after your sweater has soaked in it for 30 minutes, it's still a bit of an operation to squeeze out excess water after draining the sink, then get it laid out to dry - the sweater was pretty weighty even before getting wet. But I'd put it off too long with my usual worrying about an unfamiliar process and how it would go, so I got to it. Before draining the water, I pulled back the sweater to see if I could notice any change in the clarity of the water. Yup, it looked a bit murky.

I placed the sweater in a tub to take it upstairs where I would be laying it out to dry. I soon realized there was quite a bit of water still being held in that yarn so did some squeezing. Oh my, OliveKnits did not lie about what might be lurking in yarn you might otherwise think is clean. This looked part dirt/part dye to me and that part of me that questioned not having to do a rinse jumped to the fore. I ignored it and started the process of arranging the sweater on a large pressing pad I've had forever, checking the measurements given in the pattern and scrunching up those arms I think are too long. It's still pretty damp today and I've added a fan to help it dry a bit faster. Then it will be another case of holding my breath as I try it on, crossing fingers it still fits well and looks/feels more relaxed as OliveKnits suggests it will.

In Praise of Play

Austin Kleon is primarily a writer but he also has certain daily rituals that on the surface look like they have nothing to do with writing. He draws, he puts together mix tapes for himself, he collages. The above is his response to a reader who asked, “How do you balance making fun stuff with doing business? Do you allocate time to simpl[y] make ‘pointless’ things?” (See post here.) This caught my eye because you could say the majority of my creative journey has been being serious about what I was working on and resisting play that felt "pointless" or at least a bit of a waste of time. Yet I have had to admit a time or too when play resulted in something better when applied to a "serious" work. It's probably safe to say that very little play is wasted time.

With that in mind, I was compelled to run the above photo through a palette generator. It's been quite awhile since I've used this tool which can be revealing or frustrating. The photo is from a series taken by Jay Stotts who lives in my area and posts on Facebook. I was immediately drawn in by the palette, thinking it would make a wonderful quilt of peachy fabrics mixed with browns and greys featuring pops of red. 

Well, my eyes see differently from the palette generators; I tried half a dozen (eschewing any with AI) with varying results, most giving me a palette of colors I didn't recognize as being in the photo. Most did not pick up any of the yellow unless I upped the number of colors to the max. The two above are from colorkit.co and colordesigner.io

I tried a different photo and ran it through CSSdrive.com, which I'd used a long time ago. Where'd all the peach go? 

Another try with yet another photo and palette generator, coolors.com. This one works a bit differently from the others I tried in that you can move those circles superimposed over my photo to alter what is getting picked up for your palette. Still, I wasn't getting what I thought I was seeing. Might try working with this some more.

This palette provided by colorpalette.imageonline.co using the solo bird photo above finally gave me the peachiness I was craving and the pop of red but still missed the brighter yellow. Still, I like the first six colors as a possible palette for a quilt.

But for all the time I spent on this, I couldn't help thinking I might have spent the time better and more satisfyingly rooting around in my stash with photo in hand.

Valentine Palooza

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you have experienced some love today, whether coming from a friend or loved one or coming from yourself. 💖 I've finished that book I previewed which was the structure offered by the Handmade Book Club I belong to. Twice a year, a workshop is offered to the public for a small fee to give people an idea of what the club has to offer, and us members join in as part of our membership fee. Since this workshop came at the end of January, the theme became Valentine Palooza featuring hearts stitched up the spine. I'm not much for putting hearts on things, but I have a quilting friend who is moving out of state at the end of March, and I thought this would be a perfect going away present for her. So what's going on in that photo up there? It's the start of the cover for my book.

I have a small stash of large pieces of handmade paper which was one of the options for the cover of this book. Directions required applying a sturdier piece over the spine to strengthen it and I wasn't sure what I might use for that. The workshop includes several zoom meetings where people can share their books and ask questions. It was there that I learned about making a four fold cover. It not only doubles up the front and back covers but triples up the spine. And it is so easy to make. The end folds are the same width as the spine, and folding over each side in turn to meet the edge of that fold marks where the spine folds go. One more fold in and you have your cover.

Double stick tape like Scor Tape placed along various edges holds it all together, ready to add signatures. 

Because the handmade paper has a slight purplish tinge to it, I chose lavender thread for sewing in the signatures. Tip your head to the left and see the hearts!

I'm really pleased that I had paper for the signatures that matched the handmade paper so well. It's a 24lb Southworth Granite specialty paper in gray with such a nice texture for writing on. Even doubled up, the handmade paper cover may lack some staying power, so I might use the trick of gluing the first and last pages of the first and last signatures to the inside of the covers. I'm going to go look through my button and bead collection as well for a possible closure. It's done, but may get a few tweaks before I give it away.

I know many of you are struggling to stay calm while so much seems to be blowing up around us, so I will share that one way I have managed to not let it steal my light so to speak, IS by getting in the studio and losing myself in my work. Once I get going, the world falls away and my focus stays steady. So I was pretty delighted to run across this quotation attributed to Picasso because it sure had been working for me; I think it will work for you if you let it:

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

New Projects For February

I was hoping to have a book to show you but life intervened a few times. Instead, here's a teaser: it will be a soft cover book with decorative stitch positions on the spine - can you see it? I was having trouble getting the camera and my software to capture the handmade paper I'll be using for the cover - it is fairly grey with flecks of color throughout and leaning a bit lavender overall. I found I had some grey specialty paper for the signatures that were a perfect match. I'll be using dark purple thread to sew in the signatures which are all ready to go. Prep of the cover will be an easy folding method once the paper is cut to size.

In the meantime, I've started a scarf from the unraveled yarn, getting past the tricky start to settle into the easy pattern. Perhaps you can see the knit stitches running up both sides? They are the result of a step in the pattern that forms what is called an I-cord edging that finishes the edges as you knit, no rolling or plain edge if it were not there. Very neat. The pattern increases a stitch every fourth row until the piece is about 12 inches wide, then decreases at the same rate until the end. It should work a bit like a cowl but with tails. You can see the pattern with pictures over on ravelry.com here. The bag it's sitting in is one my maid of honor made for me probably in the 1980's. I remember her taking me to a fabric store and telling me to pick out two fabrics so she could make this for me. Are we surprised that I chose fabrics in the brown range?

A couple of quick updates: Not sure why I think I can keep staring down my studio and expect things I can't find to magically appear, but that's pretty much what I'd been doing trying to figure out where my Posca pens went, so sure was I that they should be out in the open like so much of my painting supplies. But what if, in the last time I felt I had to "tidy up" the space including the adjoining bathroom where I often use paints, I actually put them away somewhere, like in the cabinet below the sink? And that is where I found them even though I don't keep other paints there, just stamp pads and various spray cans of fixatives and basting adhesives. I honestly have no recollection of putting them there, logical or not.

And remember my snapdragons so valiantly hanging on in spite of the cold weather? Not long ago I noticed the yellow bloom was gone from the plant in the separate pot. I assumed a deer had nibble it away. A few days later I took a closer look to see the deer had come back and nibbled the plant down to about an inch above the dirt. Another few days later, I opened the blinds to see that the ones in the long planter were gone - totally gone - eaten down to the ground! I have to admit, the forage along the edge of the lawn has been getting pretty slim, most leaves gone, even the white berries almost all gone. A little salad from my planters could not be resisted! Now we've had a good snow with temps below freezing to keep it there, so the snapdragons probably would have succumbed to that anyway.