summertime stitchery

in which our plucky heroine learns some new twists to a former handcraft long neglected...

I'm rather pleased with my new sketchbook, made in the Medieval Islamic Style bookbinding class that just finished. I combined several different papers in the text block, including graph paper, as my intention was to use it as a kind of scribal commonplace book. If I have notes of various options for detailing marginalia and suchlike, it will be very useful when I don't want to be tethered to the assorted screens...

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~ 100 day creativity challenge - day 35 ~

when last we left the bindery, the primary end bands had just been stitched, and the next step was to stitch the secondary end bands, here begun in two colors of blue, and the stitching forms tiny herringbone stripes...

the headbands help protect the spine of the book, and in this style of binding, the covers are basically the same dimensions as the text block, unlike in European style binding, where they extend outward slightly

the foreedge is lined with a scrap of silk ikat fabric... and the inclusion of graph paper is visible

the fore-edge flap folds to the inside, thereby further enclosing the text block

This shows how the cover flap lies neatly underneath the front cover

the completed book is a good size for pocket or satchel, being large enough to be useful and small enough to be easy to carry...

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I was there
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beauty in the time of isolation - day 131:

blossoming passionflower

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I've been continuing to tote Nandina along on my morning sanity strolls, as long as the online floral challenge continues, and today we found some pokeberry growing in a nearby alley (actually not far from where the passionflower that also caught my eye. A few years ago I dyed some wool yarn using poke berries, and it came out a vivid burgundy red color, very beautiful. If I can find enough berries this year, I may try again. It would be really fun to make Nandina a tiny cardigan using naturally dyed yarn

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	scribal sketchbook	light bulbs replaced	-
2	x	x	-
3	x	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - Last night a FB message from Duke James prompted me to go outside and look at the moon... it was in a rare alignment forming a triangle, with Saturn and Jupiter the other two points, very vivid and beautiful, and the night was clear enough that I was able to see it above the neighbors house roof.

Saturday snippets

in which our plucky heroine spends a good chunk of the day painting...

today was mostly about online crafting, whether in making progress on my small handmade sketchbook in the Medieval Islamic Bookbinding workshop, or filling in the painted borders on the Court Baroness scroll I am making for Countess Elisabeth during our almost six hour long Crafternoon. I am going to call it a win, partcularly compared to earlier in the week. That the temperature dropped down at least 10 degrees helped, as did a long morning of grey sky.

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~ 100 day creativity challenge - day 35 ~

partially completed upper scroll border, still needs whiteline details on the foliage and the large initial letter in the lower left ...

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There are times when I positively hate being as short as I am. Trying to reach the light fixture in the laundry area*, where even with my stepladder and standing on my toes I can barely touch the tiny screws that hold the glass cover to the light fixture. I need to keep clambering up and down the stepladder to reposition it so I can safely keep one hand on the glass while the other turn the screws to loosen it. Whew! mischief safely managed, and the dead light bulbs are replaced; I ordered a small supply of new LED light bulbs from Ikea, which should obviate the necessity for this to happen again anytime soon!

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beauty in the time of isolation - day 130:

a bit of online research, this is some variety of Abutilon

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	x	light bulbs replaced	-
2	x	x	-
3	x	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - the miracle of modern technology, that lets us share pixels with one another and approximate being together. And friends that show up each week...

*this is the only fixture in the house that I cannot reach, as the removal of the former floor in this room dropped the level a good six inches, thereby "raising" the ceiling height...

Friday fragments

in which our plucky heroine made it through another week in seclusion...

I haven't a lot to say right now, the isolation combined with the heat of summer is wearing on me.

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~ 100 day creativity challenge - day 34 ~

this month in the Tiny Rag Doll World group on Ravelry, the challenge theme was "historical or traditional clothing"... since Nandina already has a Viking Age set of clothes, I decided instead on the 1960's. I decided that these were her mom Kenya Ogidni’s clothes (saved from her own younger days) - a dashiki and a miniskirt.

I used the pattern for Dawn’s Short Sleeve Blouse as a starting point, and then altered it to have longer sleeves and be tunic length. I sewed it from thin white linen, and the fun part was looking at lots of different images of dashiki fabric online and using my collection of sharpie pens to draw on the shirt to get a suitable effect. I colored the fabric after I turned the top to the right side and pressed it, but while it was still flat, before I stitched up the underarm seam.

The big challenge with the sharpie markers is that the ink sort of “wicks” into the fabric, which makes it a bit difficult to control, and makes a lot of the edges sort of blurry. I have three different sizes/types of sharpies, the regular “fine point” ones, the “brush” markers, and a few of the “extra fine point” ones. The good thing about the sharpie markers is that the ink is alcohol based, so that it will not run if it gets wet, and if you use a really light touch, it is possible to use one marker over another. I did that to the color of the red quarter circles, and then to add the black really fine lines of decoration.

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have some lovely pleasant sounds for today:

" Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 until February 1971, and again from October 1974 until their final show in July 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann earned the nickname "the rhythm devils". "

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beauty in the time of isolation - day 129:

there were two bees, but one flew away...

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this seems like useful mental self-care information... "Move Over, Love Languages: Do You Know Your ‘Route of Safety’?"

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a sweet little fun aside : "A Parrot Needs A Box Fort"

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July SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	deerskin pouch	sage pruned	yard waste bin
2	bone needle case	some plum pruning	recycle bin
3	3 jars applesauce	cut unruly rose canes	yard waste bin
4	2 jars orange marmalade	all the taxes done	recycle bin
5	three aprons for Mud Bay	pruned grapevine	yard waste bin
6	Kestrel mask	removed comfrey	yard waste bin
7	7 pints of plums	filled planters	recycle bin
8	2 pints plum syrup	transplants in	x
9	tiny knitting	x	x
10	tiny knitting bowl	x	x
11	book cloth	x	x
12	Nandina clothing	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - homegrown tomato goodness! I had the best BLT supper ever tonight - a large Oregon Spring tomato, warm from the backyard sunlight and deep red, almost as big as my (albeit rather tiny) palm, sliced onto some local sourdough toast, with some bacon pulled from the depths of the chest freezer where I stored it away in March (from the massive pre-pandemic shopping trip) knowing that there might be summer tomatoes.