More Stitching and Reading

Hello, fellow crafters and readers! I look forward to Tuesdays and Wednesday to see what my stitching pals are up to!

I've been making books with coptic binding -- when I have time. My brother Eric is here for the week with his family and my daughter is home, so there is lots of family fun going on, especially lots of eating! Really, you get two Jewish mothers cooking, and the amount of food provided is overwhelming.

Back to crafting, here are my lastest creations.

There is just so much lovely paper out there. I feel like I could make an endless number of these. Stitching the binding is rhythmic and relaxing, but preparing all the pieces is a lot of work that involves sharp cutting instruments.

I'm still reading the same books as last week:

 

And I'm still enjoying both. WTF is described as a cyber-thriller, which is accurate, but it's more than that. It is a novel with fully formed characters that asks compelling questions about our growing Internet connections. Sweater Quest, one woman's story of her attempt to knit an Alice Starmore sweater, continues to hold my interest. Written in a breezy, humorous tone, it has a lot of interesting information about knitting in general, as well as Starmore.

It is so nice to crawl into bed each night and have two good books to choose from! 

I'm joining Ginny for Yarn Along.

Can't. Stop. Making. Books.

It's a beautiful day here. Not a cloud in the sky, a mild 82 degrees. As part of my effort to live healthier, I biked to my parents' place this morning and had breakfast with them. I ordered oatmeal, even though pancakes were on special. Did I mention the wind is gusting up to 25 miles per hour? As a result, the ride home was on the slow side.

I've become slightly obsessed with making books. Here are just a few of the covers I've put together in the last week:

I love all the beautiful paper out there, and this is the best use I've found yet for it. These are all papers that I've brought home from various trips to Berkeley. Some of them have been waiting for the right project for years. My favorite paper is this one by the talented Geninne Zlatkis:

Before I went to Berkeley, I made the book below, using a page from an old atlas, and in Berkeley, I found the perfect little pouch to carry my book, a pencil, and some markers:

Have you noticed the blue mug that is showing up in a lot of my blog photos? Joni has one just like it that I've envied for years. When we found this one in an art gallery that features local artists, I just had to bring it home. It's the closest I can get to having coffee with her every morning!

I am glad to hear that I'm not boring my dear readers with socks because I have quite a few more to go! And I am liking All the Light We Cannot See a little more than I was earlier this week. It is kind of long and slow-moving.

Stitching of a Different Kind

I took a class Saturday at Bare Knuckle Arts, the studio run by a former colleague. It is the third class I've taken there, and they have all been fabulous.

I have wanted to learn how to do Coptic book binding for ages. I've tried to teach myself from books, but I just couldn't figure it out. The name comes from the fact that this type of binding was used by Coptic Christians in Egypt as far back as the second century AD.

Our teacher, Kerri Cushman, who hails all the way from Virginia, had the covers premade for us so we could dive right into the binding process. She made the whole process easy as pie. My first attempt is downright presentable.

Isn't this cool?

Most of the work is in the set up: making the covers and the inside pages, and poking all the holes (and making sure they line up). Once you start the Coptic binding, you can relax and enjoy it. You just fall into a rhythm -- but don't fall too hard or you'll make mistakes. (As me how I know!)

The last thing I need is one more craft, but as an inveterate writing and sketcher, I'm telling myself that bookbinding isn't really a NEW craft, but rather an expansion upon the ones I already do.

I wanted to make more books as soon as I got home, but I've stuck to my schedule of cleaning up my craft room and organizing photos. My parents passed along a ton of photos in May, and I am happy to say that they are now all organized by date in photo boxes. Not a very exciting Sunday but a pretty productive one.

I hope your weekend was good.