Saturday, March 1, 2008

First Day of March.

SURE and begorra it's another month - this one chock full of 31 whole days of fun things to do.
I have been having one of my periodic body slumps, where sleep is fitful and energy lapses are, unfortunately, the order of the day.
They come and go, and just when I think it will never end it suddenly does.
I'm sorry I haven't been so very faithful to my blogging. I know if anyone checks in regularly it's been pretty boring lately.
I did have my last book making class and have pictures to post of the finished four-needle book we all did. It was a fun book that Patricia Grass has taught fourth-graders to make, so you can imagine the strain on us more mature book makers. We were all able to accomplish it somehow without ever mixing the four needles up.
The first picture, above, is of the signatures sewn together - two strands of waxed thread with two needles on each - one at either end. They are pulled even and then go in and out of the top two and bottom two punched holes.
The paper the book is laying on is its cover, which will be folded, with the top five sheets and bottom five sheets of the sewn signatures tucked into this folded cover. All bound up without the aid of any glue whatsoever. (It's a striped gold, silver and mauve. The paper is "forgiving," in that you can refold it if you miscalculate.)
The back side is black.





Here is the book standing up, the back five pages inserted into the folded back cover.
Below is the finished book closed, with a die-punched piece glued to a black square.
I think the whole book is very pretty. Now ... what should be written in the book? That's for another day, or for retirement.
Lazy femminismo signs off now.

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