Women of Achievement Awards: Books 41-51

For the last few weeks I've been working on a large bookbinding commission.  I was asked by the Women's Center at Lakeland Community College to make this year's Women of Achievement Awards.  The award recognizes women that have made a difference in the lives of other women, and each year the award is created by a local female artist.  This year that was me!

I made 11 art books, one for each of the 10 recipients, and one for the Women's Center to display.  Each book has 3 signatures with a variety of decorative papers, handmade paper, and Mohawk superfine text weight paper.

To make each book individual and special for the award recipient, I selected passages from the nomination letters to incorporate in the book.  I also included in each book the definition of the word achievement.

As an added decorative element, I drew motifs from the decorative papers on some of the blank pages.  This helped to tie the whole book together and make it more of a keepsake item.

I was honored to be able to do this project for the Women's Center and participate in the awards ceremony on March 24th.  I had a chance to meet many of the award recipients and see my artwork on the program for the event.

Books 037-040 and Art Demo

Meet Eva the Girl Astronaut, mascot of the International Women's Air and Space Museum

Over the weekend I participated in the International Women's Air and Space Museum's Family Day by demonstrating and talking to people about book binding.  The event was held at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport and there were all sorts of space related activities for kids and families.

I had such a great time at the event!  I love space and astronomy (as you can see from my Astronomy Alphabet book) and after my demonstrations I got to poke around and have my picture taken as an astronaut.  (Best. Day. EVER.)

Look, I'm an astronaut!  Pretty convincing, eh?

Anyway, back to the books!  For the demo I brought four unfinished books I've had sitting on my work table for a while.  The covers are old cardboard mounted slides, with plain white paper for the signatures, measuring 2in x 2in x 1/2 in.  I got the slides when I worked for the Art History Department of my college.  The slides were old, discolored, and hadn't been used by the department in years.  I snagged one of the boxes as it was being thrown out, and set it aside until the right project came along

The first two slide books I completed at the demo, and the other two I finished at home.  The next book project I'm working on is a big commission, and I can't wait to tell you all about it!  The project will be completed in the next week, so keep an eye out for a post about it.

Books 030-036

This week I tried out a new variation on recycled book structures.  It involves gluing patterned card stock to the back of recycled boxes and connecting the covers using book cloth. The pages are sewn in using a pamphlet stitch with four holes instead of three.

 This is the kind of project that is easier to do "in bulk" as opposed to one at a time.  I made 7 of these over the course of a week. All fourteen covers on one night, the book cloth a couple days layer, and preparing and attaching the pages on Saturday while waiting for software to install on all our computers at work.

At this point I am just over halfway to where I should be on my 365 challenge.  (March 4th is day 63 of the year, I'm only 27 behind...)  The good news is, I have been hired to do a big book binding commission! I am making 11 or 12 books that will be presented as awards later I'm the month.  I've already started the books, keep an eye out for updates!

Current Knitting Projects

I have never been good at sticking to one project at a time.  So, here is an update an all FOUR knitting projects I'm currently working on.

First up is a pair of fingerless gloves.  The first one is nearly completed (still needs a thumb) and the second one is more than halfway done.  I started these right after Thanksgiving with the intention of giving them as a gift.  They ended up too small for the recipient, so I put the pair on hold and went full-speed on a bigger pair (blogged about here.)  I am hoping to finish these by mid-March so I can still wear them this season.

Next, I have the beginnings of a pair of colorwork socks.  This is one of those projects that I started because I had new yarn that I really, really wanted to use right away.  The blue yarn was a Christmas gift, and the self-striping yarn was a purchase from Black Friday shopping.  I thought the colors worked well together and had been thinking about doing a colorwork project using the two yarns together.  I started these before a day-long craft show to give me something to do.  I was worried the gloves wouldn't last for a 12 hour day of knitting.  I have no specific timeline for finishing these, it is just a relaxing (yet not boring) project to work on in the evenings.

My third work-in-progress is a wallet sized version on my Norwegian Knapsack.  My sister-in-law loved my Norwegian bag and wanted one too.  We decided that a clutch/wallet size would be more manageable than the one I made for myself.  It required a little bit of math to get the size right, but is moving along quickly.  In less than a week I have half the knitting completed.  The next big challenge will be adding a zipper to the top.  This project should be wrapped up in the next two weeks.  Out of the four, this is my top priority.

The fourth project I'm working on is just in the beginning stages.  I saw this pattern online a week ago and I keep coming back to it.  It is a thick shawl made with big chunky yarn.  I never got around to knitting myself a sweater this winter (and at this rate it is not happening), so I figured the shawl would be a good alternative.  I am going to use up my stash of leftover yarn from making hats and cowls.  Reds, blues, greens, purples... This shawl will be all the colors.

So that's what's up in the world of knitting right now.  I also have a lot going on in the worlds of sewing and bookbinding... But that can wait for a different post.

Indoor Gardening: Part 1

A few weeks ago I found an interesting blog about craft, diy, food, and gardening called 17 Apart.  One of the articles I found especially interesting was about re-growing celery from the base.  I happened to have some celery in the fridge, so I chopped off the stalks, put the base in a dish of water, and waited.  Sure enough, little celery leaves started growing out of the center!  This got me thinking that maybe I could grow a whole little indoor garden to hold me over until my local CSA starts up again in June.  Even if I don't end up with a lot of edible produce, it will still be a fun project.

I also read a post about doing the celery thing with bok choy and gave that a shot too.  In the week and a half it took me to plant everything and finally get around to writing about it, the bok choy has grown significantly and I planted it next to my celery.  (I realized the leaves went down farther than I expected, so I later trimmed down the white parts to speed things up.)

Meanwhile, at work we have had a bag of onions in a bowl on top of the fridge for a very, very long time.  One of them had begun to sprout, so I figured: Why not grow onions?  When I pulled the bag of onions down from the fridge I noticed a second one had sprouted.  After work I took a trip to Home Depot and bought a plastic window box planter, two bags of organic potting soil, and some supplies to re-pot my houseplants (more on that later!)

Stay tuned for updates on my mini-garden, and re-potting my beloved jade plant in Indoor Gardening: Part 2.

Handmade Valentines- 2013 Edition

Snow is falling, Christmas is long gone, and everyone has gotten used to writing "2013" on their checks.  That means it is time for this year's handmade Valentines!

Ohio cards are some of my most popular handmade cards.  This year's Ohio Valentines are a bit on the Pirate side!  Ohio cards are available by request in any pattern or color I have.  Stop by the Urban Orchid in Ohio City or the Bazaar Bizarre Valentines Show to pick one up.

Books 015-029

Today was a perfectly snowy day, and the best kind of work day.  I had the whole day off to stay at home and get things done.  It has been snowing constantly all day, but is still light enough to be cozy instead of depressing.  So I got to work making books!

The Bazaar Bizarre Valentine's Show is coming up on Saturday, so I decided to make some pamphlet books with a Valentine's theme.  My Ohio pamphlet books usually sell very well at shows.  On a day like this I can make them assembly line style and get a lot accomplished in a short amount of time.  Today I made 15 little books, and I have enough Ohio's cut out for numerous cards.

This also means I am nearly caught up with where I should be on my 365 challenge.  Today is the 35th day of the year, and I've finished 29 books.  Not too shabby!