Beads and wire

These days, I'm working a lot with beads and wire. I am using both bought beads (resin, plastic, glass, lava, metal), but also paper beads I make myself, from some of the numerous advertising leaflets that come in through the letter slot in my apartment building and usually end up, unread, in the recycling bin.

I'm making projects of my own invention, but also cool stuff I have found on the web. Here are some examples of the latter:

Instructions on how to make this beaded fellow can be found here.

The ornaments below are made with wire, some of my paper beads and seed beads and bugle beads. The red star is made with paper beads I varnished with red nail polish, and the four-pointed star is made using the same basic method as the five-pointed ones.

Click here to learn how to make the five-pointed stars and here to learn how to make the little ornaments to the right in the photo. The instructions for the latter are given in words only, and are for fishing line rather than wire, but I used fine flower wire instead and it worked fine.

Click here to learn how to make the flower ornament below. I put accent beads on both sides to make it reversible and also added the seed beads that run down the sides, as I didn't want to have bare wire there. To make them like this, you need to cut your wire slightly longer than instructed. Click here to see a video tutorial on how to make them in miniature.

Net stitch girl

New yarnbombing project

More photos and explanations here.

Yarnbombing project

I embarked on my first (but hopefully not last) yarnbombing project recently.
More information can be found here.

I think I will tackle the flagpole next.

Baby lindworm

Meet the latest addition to the menagerie: Slinky the lindworm. She is a water creature, but I was able to lure her out of her tank an into a small washtub, and from there onto the floor, so I could photograph her.

"Must I come out? I really like it in the water."

Who can resist that baby face?

Lindworms can grow to tremendous size in a short time if given gold to sleep on. 

We intend to keep this one small and manageable.

Side view.

"Well, I'm going back in the water! See you later!"

Finally, a post

It occurred to me the other day that I haven't posted here for ages. So here is a very small sample of what I have been doing since I last posted. I have been delving into crochet lately, especially amigurumi.

I recently came across a free pattern for a dragon by crochet designer Lucy Ravenscar. She calls it her Fierce Little Dragon. The pattern is available for free on Ravelry, and she has at least one other dragon pattern available for sale on Ravelry and Etsy.

I gave it a bit of a tweak - I couldn't resist giving him a little tuft of hair on the top of his head, and I also added the point to his tail. I also twisted together a couple of pipe cleaners and put them into the core of the tail so I could pose it. I only wish I had done what Anita did: she added wire to the wings to make them poseable. Check out her version of the dragon - it looks really good.

Posing for the camera.

"I'm just stalking the camera. Really, I am. I'm certainly not giving you the 'cute puppy' look. "

"Please, mom. Picke me up. Please, pleeeaaaassseeee!"

"When will you be done with the camera? I wanna play!"

"Weeeeeeeeee! Freedom at last!"

More versions:
Coney Crochets made it in purple.
The blogger at Crafty Bit made it in grey.
Julie made a big one in blue.
Finally, here are more dragons by Lucy Ravenscar.

Going in a new direction...

If you come here regularly, you may have noticed something different about the header. This is because I am expanding the blog. I haven't posted about bookbinding in ages, which is mostly because while I am still doing it in the classroom, I haven't had anything new to say about it lately and have only finished one at-home project since last summer. I do have a few new bindings to showcase and will post about them when I can be arsed to take photos, edit and post them.

I have been decluttering my apartment lately, prior to setting up a studio in my spare bedroom, and my book presses, paper and leather are all packed away in storage, so I have been practising my less space-consuming hobbies, like reading, drawing and crocheting.

When I was looking at the comments on my drawings and collage, it occurred to me that since I already have blogs to showcase my bookbinding and photography skills, why not blog about my other hobbies as well? After all, I like to imagine I have some skill at rock-painting, crocheting and drawing. Of all my hobbies, photography and reading are really the only ones that need blogs of their own, so I decided to simply expand this one to include some of my other hobbies.You can expect developments (and posts) soon.

A look inside one of my notebooks

I have a number of notebooks I have made that I use for myself, usually books I have been unhappy with in some way and didn't want to sell or give away. Here is one:



This isn't the original cover - I stencilled the original but always thought it was ugly, so I covered it with some old stamps I had on hand. It's still not finished - I think it needs a little more spontaneity in the top half and I'm waiting to acquire some stamps to fix that. I keep this particular book at work and take it with me into meetings to doodle in, because doodling sharpens my mind and helps me focus on the subject at hand. Here are some scans of what I have put inside the book so far (click on thumbnails to see full size):




Some are works in progress, others are fully finished.

Little red book

My latest project:


I used red clothing leather that is too stretchy to use for covering book boards. I have a whole hide of it that I am keeping for when I have time to take a leather-sewing course, and then I plan to make myself a purse out of it. What remains I will use to make more books similar to this one. There are 4 signatures, each made from a sheet of paper approximately A4 in size, folded in half and half again. The signatures are long-stitched into the leather cover, with beading added afterwards. Finally, I added a closing strap. The flap is part of the natural contours of the hide, only I rounded them a little.

Fat little notebook

Here is my latest creation:

The boards are covered with black-dyed wolf-fish leather.


It's 13 signatures, bound with coptic stitch. For some reason, I find it much easier to get even stitches when I use sewing thread. When I use bookbinding thread like I did here, the stitches tend to come out uneven.

There is a little surprise inside the boards:

Coptic map books

Here is another recycling project I have wanted to try for a while: map books.



Both are bound in the same way: 4 signatures stitched together with coptic (chain) stitch and the boards covered with pieces of maps. The book on the left has an added spine covering of tanned and dyed salmon skin with natural contours left intact. I may add leather to the second book as well. Ideally, I would like to find fish leather in one of the colours used in the maps - green or tan for preference.

BTW, the book on the left looks skewed because tension in the leather keeps it slightly open. It should get better after a few hours in the book-press.

Finished the beaded doily book

I covered the boards with hand-made paper of a colour similar in tone to that of the beads. I then cut the doily down to the right size and carefully pasted it down onto the front board. After gluing the boards to the leather spine I strengthened the bond with rivets.

I am mostly happy with the result, but I think it needs something to brighten it up, possibly some splashes of colour on the doily.
I think I will make another one - in pink.

Another recycling project: notebook

This is my latest project:

The signatures are long-stitched into the spine, with beading added later. The leather came from some garment, possibly a pair of leather pants.

I will then add the boards, gluing them on and probably strengthening the bond with rivets or brads. As to the cover decoration, I have plans for this paper doily:

Recycling project: leather notebook

The cover of this notebook is made from recycled leather. You can see from the flap that wraps over the front where the piece of leather came from: it used to be part of the sleeve of a leather jacket. My grandmother had already taken the jacket apart and all I had to do was trim the edges of the round part to make them more even, and cut the piece down to the right size for the paper. I then sewed the signatures in using long-stitch, making a cross-stitch pattern on the spine. Finally I added the beads to the spine and a strap for keeping the book closed.

I think I may finally be ready to start making books to sell. It remains to be seen how I will do it - perhaps I will sell at craft fairs, or if I am lucky I might find an arts and crafts store that's willing to sell them on consignment. Or I might open an Etsy store.

New cover for the travel journal

Out with the old...


...and in with the new:





How it was done:
I began by cutting out a piece of paper the size and shape of the area I needed to cover, and arranged clipped images on it until I was happy with it. Then I photographed the layout so I wouldn't forget it. I then ran a dull knife gently under the glued edges of the leather spine where they rested on the boards and gently lifted them about 5 mm and gently pushed them up. Then I set about gluing down the collage. I made the front cover collage on a piece of office paper which I then glued down on the cover, gluing the edges of leather down over the edge of the collage. This was a bit thick and bulky, so I did the back cover collage straight onto the boards.

Finally, as it is difficult, if not impossible, to put gilded lettering on the spine, I made a label from a piece of millboard, wrote the year and the contents of the book on it, and attached it to the exposed stitching with bookbinding thread. In the future, I may replace this thick label with a thin one that can be tucked into the book like a bookmark.

The collages:
The images I used all came from tourism leaflets and brochures. The front cover images all relate to the northern part of Iceland, and the back cover images to southern Iceland.

New travel journal

I’ve mentioned my travel journals before, and now I have a new one to add to the collection. It covers my recent week-long camping trip around the country.


A look inside the journal.

This book was a journal-from-scratch project like my last three travel journals. This means that I didn’t pre-make a book, but brought loose signatures with me and journalled on those, and then bound up the book when I got home.


The Polaroid Zink printer has made journalling from scratch much easier – I used to leave blank spaces on the pages of my journals for photos I would later print out at home and paste in, but it was always a hassle, especially when I forgot what photo I was planning to insert where or had left too small or too big a blank. Having a printer with me has all but eliminated that problem, and while the photos are small and the quality not always the best, they allow for more spontaneous journalling.



I decided not to do a full hollow-back binding for this one because it is only 2 signatures and I like experimenting with different techniques, so I made a long-stitch binding similar to the red notebook I blogged about earlier, using the same stitching pattern.

I was feeling singularly uninspired when I designed the boards, using some scrapbook paper I had found that has a map of Iceland on it:

On the back I chose a similar-coloured paper that looks like a watercolour wash. The plan was to glue something interesting onto the back.

Then I decided that instead of traditional pastedowns, I would collage the inside of the boards with photos of places I visited, clipped from tourist brochures:


Now I am unhappy with the outside of the boards and am considering a collage there too. I will post more once I have finished the project.

Taking inspiration from found and second-hand materials

I am a great scavenger and often pick up things without having a specific purpose for them. Sometimes they linger for years before I either find a use for them or get rid of them, but the particular item that inspired my newest book was put to use within a couple of days of discovery.

I often visit a charity shop that sells all sorts of second hand stuff – just about everything save clothing and shoes. They have a give-away table where items they know or think they can‘t sell end up, and I have often picked up interesting old books there. On this occasion, however, there was this blue strap thing with eyelets. I think it was probably a belt or it might possibly have been part of a guitar strap:


It was about 70 cm long and made of lined faux leather. Having recently finished a book that was sewn straight into its spine, I though I might do something similar with this, so I took it home with me. On second thought I decided that it was probably not strong enough to take stitching without tearing, but maybe I could attach it to a book as decoration.

A couple of days later the idea was fully formed and I started looking about for other materials for the book. I had decided that it would be coordinated in tones of blue, and chose pastel blue paper for the pages. My stash of decorative paper did not include any blue paper that was a good match for the faux leather, so finally I settled on using pink paper on the boards, and found a suitable paper sample I‘d got with a scrapbook magazine. It was printed to look worn, which suited the faux leather piece, which doesn't exactly look brand new. I chose pink thread to sew the book with, and found some left-over mill-board in just about the right size. Finally I went out and bought some brads in the same chromium finishing as the eyelets.


And here is the finished product:


The details count – I didn't set out to do it, but as it happens, all the lines of stitching were visible through the eyelets.


I still have about 60 cm left and am considering what to do with it. Maybe I‘ll go out and look for perfect blue paper for the cover and make that all-blue book.


P.S.
On my way back from buying the eyelets, I visited the charity shop, and bought a cheap piece of art glass which I am planning to set into the front cover of another book. I‘ll feature it here once it‘s ready.

Riveted

Here is my latest creation – a riveted book:



The book is two thick signatures sewn into the tail end of a spotted wolf-fish skin. I have allowed the sides of the leather patch to retain their natural contours:


The method for this sewing pattern is shown here:
Leather journal photo tutorial
The directions are a bit confusing because there are so many photos, but persevere and you'll soon figure it out. I found it helped to print out the whole thing and cross out the photos that weren't helpful.


Here is a close-up of the stitch:

Ignore the knot - it appeared as I was making the last stitch and I was unable to unfasten it so I left it where it was so that I wouldn't have to unravel the stitching and start over. Look at the beautiful texture of the leather!


Here you can see better how the book is constructed:

Before glueing on the boards, I punched the holes for the rivets where I wanted them in the leather and aligned the boards on the book, marking with a pencil where the rivet-holes were to go. Then I punched the rivet-holes in the boards, applied glue to the underside of the leather (wiping away the glue that welled up through the rivet-holes before it dried), re-aligned the holes in the leather and boards and pressed gently to attach the two, repeating on the other side. Then I put the book in the press for about 10 minutes to allow the glue to dry a bit and finally I applied the rivets. The rivets strengthen the adherence of the boards to the leather, and are also decorative. The paper covering the boards is handmade (and not at all easy to work with).


Here‘s how the spine looks on the finished book: