Silence...

does not mean that nothing has been happening at Cheese Acres. On the contrary. When the sun comes out, even intermittently, I start running around like a battery powered bunny. Well, almost. (I had actually typed 'batty' instead of 'battery', which may be a more apposite word.)

1. Books have been made. 

The large one is experimental. I wanted to try using a paper bag for a cover, and to try a binding with an even number of holes, like the illustrations to the section on making a sketchbook in Sandra Meech's 'Connecting Design to Stitch'. I've written before about finding these instructions quite confusing: some illustrations show an even number of holes, as suggested in the instructions. Others show a conventional 5 hole pamphlet binding, which is what I ended up using before, for example on the smallest book here.

Both experiments worked. The cover is made from the two sides of the bag, Bondawebbed together. It's lumpy, but quite serviceable - I think. For the binding I used a sort of Holbein stitch, which looks quite neat.  

Then I did what I should could have done in the first place, looked at Keith Smith's '1, 2 and 3 Section Bindings'. He shows several, including one with a similar thread path to mine, but done with two needles. 

Flushed with success, I tackled the middle sized bear book, which is also an experiment. I wanted to make a Sanda Meech style book but bigger, using A3 paper rather than A4. It also worked, though I can't decide if it is floppier than the smaller ones or not.  

2. Embroidery has been done.

These are the last two of the series, because I've run out of the background fabric. 'Teasels' isn't finished, and I've decided to put a border round them all, so there is still a bit of work to do. However, even though I haven't yet decided if they are going to be a concertina book or a vessel, I've started trying out ideas for the backing...

3. Paint has been applied,

inspired by Lynda Monk's 'Fabulous Surfaces': when it has dried, foil and tissue paper will follow. The process described in the book sounds a bit like magic, and I didn't have any Brusho, as recommended, in the right pink, so I used another Colourcraft paint and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

4. Sketchbook work has been done,

based on a photo on Flickr I can't find any more. I seem to be in a floral phase. 

Daisies made me think of lazy daisy sttich, so there is a small sampler of detatched buttonhole as well. I like that daisy, it may reappear in another guise.

5. And finally, knitting has been done. 

I had 4 largish cones of grey left over from my machine knitting days, and several odds and ends of pink and grey, so they are becoming a blanket, using 5 strands together.  I've used up the first pink odd and started an end of grey. It will be slow progress as I only knit when reading subtitles, or after child minding when I'm too tired to tackle anything which needs thought.  

I'm exhausted just writing that lot. Silence will probably descend again.

Playing around...

with my Karen Ruane piece.

Look at this piece and admire the dedication that made me tackle two of my least favourite stitches - cross stitch and bullion knots.

I must admit that I love the look of the cross stitch hearts on silk, so much that I bought some more waste canvas.

And my bullion knots are better now that I know the right way to do them (milliner's needle, wrap clockwise). Not good, you understand, just better.

The more I do on this piece, the more I like it. I can see so many things that I could have done better, but I still like it. As there is a lot of stuff in it which I inherited from mum, I find myself thinking about my somewhat ambivalent relationship with her as I work on it, which is quite bittersweet, and adds to the process.

Working on it has reminded me how much I enjoy flitting from one process/stitch/patch to another - low boredom threshold! Only having a little bit of cross stitch or a few bullion knots makes them tolerable and doable. And, as Karen points out in her videos for the course, you can always add more. I like to kid myself that I have a 'less is more' aesthetic, but  sometimes nothing succeeds like excess. 

I think it may become a work in intermittent but continuous progress, as I make more blocks to add to this one. 

I have also been playing with my tiny Sandra Meech sketchbook. I have a collection of printouts from the Internet for ideas for sketchbooks, and I decided to work my way through them with no very clear idea of where I was going. It ended up being a very productive process, giving me lots of ideas for my piece for the NEC in March. 

Hence the scribble on the yellow spread. 

It is definitely going to be called 'Moving On' (maybe).

It is definitely going to be a small concertina book (maybe).

It is definitely going to have eight pages (maybe).

It is definitely going to include those arrows (maybe).

It is definitely going to involve patching and layering fabric (maybe).

It is definitely going to use the indigo fabrics I dyed with Tiggy Rawlings last year (maybe).

It is definitely going to be hand stitched (maybe).

That led to some explorations of ways to join fabric together - only with paper. They are mostly stitch, although I have to admit that a little glue was involved, purely as a temporary measure, you understand.

The second image is the reverse of one side of the first one, and I included it because I like the way the backs of the stitches seem to develop from the black marks on the left - a B&W print of the over-enlarged detail of foliage on the right of the top image. The foliage is in the apped photo of a truck at the top, except I ripped that bit off.

I trust I make myself clear?

More joinings. I vaguely remember doing something similar for City and Guilds, except that variations of faggotting were involved in that one, and mine, which was black and magenta, ended up looking like a section from a tart's corset. Which in turn reminds me of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, although I don't remember any magenta corsets in that, even on Magenta... 

And as I correct yet another nonsensical autocorrection, I must point out that any post which is even more gibberish-ish (yes, autocorrect, that is what I meant) than usual is all the fault of Paddy the iPad (maybe).

Back to work...

after all the excitement.

Today I did something I haven't done for ages. I made a book.

I recently bought  Sandra Meech's new book, 'Connecting Design to Stitch', which includes instructions for making a small, interesting sketchbook. 

So over the last few days I have painted paper, printed off images and details of images in colour and B&W, and painted some of the B&W images, and today I sat down to assemble them into a book.

Well, either I was feeling very dense today, or there are some errors in the instructions. Has anyone else tried them? I know enough about book making to cope, but anyone who doesn't might get a little puzzled. If you do have the book and you want to have a go, I would recommend finding instructions for making 5 hole pamphlets, and using those to assemble the signatures. And don't use the elastic bands until you are ready to weave the pamphlets together, at which point they work very well...

I do, however, like the result, although this is all the actual  'sketching' I've done in it so far. 

I'm thinking of trying some of Karen Ruane's techniques in it, as well as Sandra Meech's.

I don't like the cover, though, it will have to have some attention - like more emulsion paint.

While I had the paint out I screwed up my courage and overpainted this.

Definitely an improvement. When it's dry it will get a few beads and possibly some more French knots. 

Tomorrow we have a day off from grandchild-sitting, as it's Babybel's birthday - hard to believe she's five! Instead we will be making our Christmas cake, using our usual excellent recipe. Which is about all the preparation for Christmas I shall do before December. Bah, humbug!