Seagull

another attempt

2012-01-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

So, upon consideration, I realized that my blog this morning was pretty bleak-sauce, amirite? Side bar: every time I say something is _____-sauce (which I swear is only like right there as a joke and then in the earlier post also as a joke...it is not something I just SAY, ok? Please...please still respect me) it makes me think of the episode of Parks and Rec where April tells Andy she loves him and his response is "awesome sauce" and she's all mad, but by then end she forgives him and he's like, "I love you too--that's what makes the sauce so awesome!" ...and it is funny. So. To sum up: the sauce this morning was pretty bleak, but that is not how I think I want to characterize my life right now, so I am CHANGING MY REALITY.

So I was just over on Goodreads setting my 2012 reading goal--I think I'm going to do the same as last year, which is 150 books (she casually mentioned so that you will be impressed and she can feel good about the one thing she does consistently and well), and they have this screen where you can see all the books you've read in the year, and it is funny to look at 2012 cuz I've read, like, 7 books so far, and the break down is pretty ridiculous: 2 are cheesy vampire novels, 3 are YA fantasy (all by Holly Black, who it turns out is actually a pretty legit author, so these stack up pretty well compared to other YA fantasy types I've been known to read, but still, you know...), 1 is a zombie comic book, and the other is The Capricorn Stone, by the immortal Madeline Brent, over whom I rhapsodized a couple months ago on this here blog. So, anyway....in case you maybe thought that I had a New Year's resolution to only read Great Literature of Recognized Worth and Merit, you should know that you are tragically mistaken. That's just not how I like to do business.

2012-01-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

Again I am foiled by my disinclination to blog without pictures. I've been looking around for my camera but to no avail. Although now that I think of it, the focus of my life right now is sort of on absences, so it makes sense that there are no pictures. Ok, here are some ideas of things that you are not seeing pictures not of--don't worry these are not ALL going to be horrifically depressing...in fact, let's start with the sad voids, and then work our way to the happy ones. Ahem:

You are NOT seeing pictures of me watching Yo Gabba Gabba with Lucy, making Lydia fly over my head and drool in my mouth, or 'eating' Joycie's tummy until she grunt-laughs, because they are all in Utah now. So, visualize a picture of like, bleak empty rooms and the toy corner of the living room cleared out (Dad did that while Mom and I were still in UT, it set us off on a weeping jag when we got home and saw it. which, in fairness, is not that hard to do these days).

There are no pictures of Ruby letting me just sit on the couch an hold her, although that did happen a few times when we were in UT because baby girl was sick and therefore willing to be cuddled. Is it wrong that I kind of like it when kids are sick when it means they let you snuggle them? I JUST WANT SNUGGLES. If I were a Bond villain I would have like a missile of cold germs pointed at a group of children as my endgame. DIABOLICAL.

Okay, so to sum up in sadness: All my nieces are gone and it is preeeeeetty lame sauce.

Okay but what is good about life? I will tell you.
There is an almost complete absence of cluttery junk in my bedroom and studio, because with the total lack of distractions in the form of love or human relationships, I am dedicating myself to organizing and purging and being productive. IT ALMOST FILLS THE VOID. So, imagine to yourself a picture of an empty room, but this time instead of tragic violins in the back ground there is New-Age-y tranquility music playing and a pervasive sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Now, whether I ever actually sit down and get to work in my nice clean space is another matter. We....will see.

sneaky blogging

2011-12-17T16:52:00.000-08:00

pssst....don't tell Mom that I am up here blogging because I am supposed to be downstairs braising chicken and folding programs or something. But AHA I had to come up to put some more stuff on my iPod (when Mom is in charge of ward parties, I get to be in charge of the music. Let's just say I like to rock all the old ladies' minds, hearts, and worldviews. THROUGH SONG) Anyway. It has been forever since I blogged so I thought I'd stop on by. What I have been doing:

-mourning the imminent loss of Christy, Danny, Lucy, Joyce, and Lydia from my everyday life. They are moving to Utah. Boo.

-planning all the wild decadent things Mom and I will do to sooth our grief and longings. I am thinking, movies every night and lots of expensive eatings out? Christy who?

-I took my cello Josef out for a date to play in the Messiah at Temple Hill, which was funny because it turns out they will let about ANYONE just walk up and play with them. I tried to play soft so as not to ruin everything for everyone with ears.

-I've been frantically bookbinding and doing other crafty things for Christmas presents. Bummer I can't post any pics cuz that would RUIN THE SURPRISES. Let's just say, there will be many smiles and tears come Christmas morn.

-reading Christmas books with Lucy in front of the fire. We have to sit pretty far away or she gets 'sunburned.'

-Go listen to the Annie Lennox Christmas CD. Do it right now. I mean it. Get out of here.

-Did you think I was joking?

cease your clamouring

2011-11-18T22:56:00.000-08:00

Hey hey oh hey look it is me here blogging again. Weird! I guess I only missed 2 days but I felt like quite the truant those 2 nights, going to sleep without plugging in my camera and whatnot! I know I had good excuses both nights... I can't remember what Wednesday's excuse was, but Thursday was our class party so the shindiggery kept us all out late. Here are some pictures from the past couple missed days.

Oh so on Wednesday I went in to the studio about an hour early to meet with Renate and try a bleaching technique on my blue ink book and see what happened. We did it early because a)we were using a chlorine-based chemical nonsense so it smelled and was maybe mildly dangerous and b)she doesn't really want to be teaching us bleaching techniques because it's a pretty extreme treatment and she was only doing it now because she couldn't stand to let that blue ink go and not at least TRY another way of getting it out. I thought that was nice :) It's cool when people you respect sort of geek out about the same things as you. So, we treated just one page of the blue ink book in a bath with like .5% chlorine something or other and the result is the top page below, with the ethanol wash below it, and on the bottom the original coloring:

Pretty wild, right? I mean, obviously it is not all gone, but it's definitely a lot lighter, and also a weird greeny sort of color. It's cool all the different things that you can make happen to paper when you mess with it the right way! She said that the chemical we were using wasn't really the right thing to deal with ink, but it is all they had at the school. I'm thinking I will save this book unbound and if ever I take a class on bleaching techniques, I will have something perfect to test all the different chemicals on :)

Here is that delightful fire damage book that I finished dry cleaning on Thursday. I thought to take a before and after picture of this one page that had some obvious smokey business on it so that you can see the difference that happens:

before:

after:

So, obviously still really marked up and dirty, but a lot of the really dark dark smoke staining is gone! I feel like I really bonded with this book as I dry cleaned it. Today I went back and started the looooooooong process of mending and guarding, which I am thinking will last me well through the winter, but it's kind of nice and okay to think of just always coming back to it and doing all the little fixes one page at a time. In a way, I think that is what makes me not a very good conservator, or at least a not very professional one--I come at all of this as a person who loves books originally at least because of their content--I think that makes it a much more emotional connection than if I came from say a primarily artistic or historical or technical background. I wanna make friends with all the nice books and then fix them because I love them. Which I obviously think is great, but I think it comes across as a bit quaint to the people who do this because it is their bread and butter. I dunno. I'm just saying words.

This is a picture of Emilie looking furtive.

So we were learning about pulp filling, which is when you basically make new paper to fill in for big losses in your original paper. It's pretty amazing--you just squirt the new paper fibers right on there to the old paper and it all just sort of hangs together and is fabulous. So, I didn't have any papers that needed pulp filling, but I've always been really interested in paper making and wanted to try it but never had the materials and whatnot, so yesterday afternoon I sort of dropped all the proper work I was doing and just played with paper pulp instead.

The stuff they were using for actual repairs was like the lighter colored circle in the center--pretty regular paper color and fiber and everything. Since I was in full play time mode I blended up my own pulp using this nasty brown cardboard that we'd been using for something else. So, I have a lot of little samples of brown paper now. Everyone was sort of grossed out--it smelled nasty (we'd been boiling the old cardboard to then take the dirty water, boil THAT down, and have a nasty molasses-y gunk that you then use like a watercolor to paint over your repair paper so it matches the tone of the original paper you are repairing) and you know, brown paper pulp....it's not the most delicate looking of things. But I had a lot of fun playing around and experimenting with it.

Well gang, class is OVER now and I have to say, I am so glad! 3 weeks is really the threshold--I am totally ready to go back to real life! Tomorrow Becca and Kyle are driving down from Springville to pick me up and drive me back--hopefully the snow storm a-comin' isn't too treacherous and doesn't strand us in the wilderness. Then I get to spend all next week with them and RUBY and have funtimes Thanksgivingtimes, Becca's house style. Which is to say, awesome-style. The times, they will be good.

what I've been doing

2011-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Oh man it's only been 2 days and I am already exhausted. For some reason paper conservation is so much more draining than other kinds of conservationy stuff. Maybe it's just that it's a lot more brain-oriented less intuitive. With general book issues, I'm to a point where I basically sort of know what to do, or at least I have some idea, and it's just sort of natural. Paper is still challenging because even though I know all the chemicals and materials a lot better this time around, I still have to pause and think for a while before I say Oh yeah, maybe blah blah blah will do the trick. Anyway, that is what teachers and friends are for, I guess! I flatter myself I'm doing a pretty good job with my non-intimidation goal; I am better at volunteering what I know and asking questions then ever before!

Okay so what I've been doing so far is mostly boring stuff, but this afternoon I started on a cool thing! One of the books I brought (one I found in the SLC bookstore) is this book of Tennyson with a crazy huge blue ink stain throughout the entire thing. It's like it was sitting on the edge of a shelf and someone tipped over an ink bottle and it spilled all the way down. Anyway, I bought and brought it almost as a joke, because it is so intense a staining I thought it would just be fun to see what we could do and what would happen. So, this afternoon I started washing it. I'm only doing one signature to start with (a gathering of 4 papers) so that we can do tests and see what works. So, what I tried today was a lot of total immersion washing in a mixture of water and ethanol alcohol. After doing that a lot I did a few washings in really hot water--like, straight from the electric kettle hot. Here is the final comparison:

I hope it is obvious that the one on top is the one that's been washed to death and the one on bottom that is all pretty and bright blue is what the rest of the book looks like. I'm kind of sad--I've looked at the bright blue so much that I kind of like it by now, and the washed out color is weird and ugly! But I'm going to go in early tomorrow and Renate and I are going to try treating it with another kind of chemical thing that is kind of fume-y and extreme, so we will see what results that produces!

This is a picture I snapped of Emilie, holding a jar of used wash water/alcohol from my book. It came out such a pretty blue! I tried dipping scrap paper into it to dye it blue but it didn't work :(

Okay so here are pictures of what Emilie has been doing. She has this big poster woodblock print on fragile handmade paper, and all along the edges it had these horrible tape stains from where it had been taped to picture mats and frames. Exhibit A is a picture of one such stain:

Exhibit B is a picture of the exact same spot after doing some totally miraculous and magical tape-shiz removal proceedings:

!!!!! It's a miracle!! The dark orangey stain of old tape is totally gone!!! You guys do you get how amazing that is?! It is CRAZY TOWN. It was done by putting acetone-saturated blotter paper on top of the stains, letting it sit and soak in for a while, and then putting it on a SUCTION table (which is a table with a porous top and a shop vac attached so you turn on the shop vac and everything on the table top is sucked down--it's like a reverse air-hocky table.) So the suction from the suction table sucks the acetone solvent-i-ness down THROUGH the paper and draws the stainy gross stuff down with it! I don't know if that makes sense at all but just BELIEVE IT okay?

The other thing I did today was start dry cleaning that awesome etiquette book I posted pictures of before I came here. It went through a fire so the cover is all burninated and there's lots of smoke damage to the pages. The cool thing was that the chemical sponges we use for dry cleaning (which is basically just sweeping the dust and nonsense off the surface of the paper) totally worked to reduce the smoke marking! It was the first time that dry cleaning has made a totally visible difference for me, so that was fun and exciting! I tried to take a picture to show how well it worked but I don't know if it'll show up very well to the untrained eye:

Can you see how there is a hard line in the middle of that dark smoky patch? That is where I swiped with the sponge! There was still a sort of rust-colored marking under all the darker smokiness, but it's a lot less noticeable than the sooty looking dark stuff. So. Anyway. It is fun when you feel like you are making a difference in the life of a book. I, I guess that is the whole point.

Monday Morning

2011-11-14T06:40:00.000-08:00

Okay you guys, I have some goals for this week that I need to always have front and center in my mind, and I figure putting them here makes me responsible to you guys for them. I'm already responsible to Emilie, who I've commissioned to do a slap-point in my face if I start slipping. The MAIN GOAL:

Stop being so intimidated by Renate's awesomeness that it hinders my learning.

That is an important one. That pretty much is the whole goal of everything. So basically what I want to do is act like an adult and not feel like I am the idiot in the room who really shouldn't talk. Which is a hard habit to break, you know? Historically I've pretty much perfected the art of not talking in class and just sliding by unnoticed. But what I realized last night at our meet'n'greet thing is that that was always fine before (I mean like in college and such) because it was just school. It wasn't that important to me, and it was okay for it to all exist in my head and for me to be anonymous. But this kind of school is my LIFE. I NEED to understand all of this and be good at it in order to be good at what I like to do. And I need to start viewing my teachers as well as fellow students as colleagues, because that is what they are supposed to be! So. Little Katy is going to try to be all grown up. GET READY.

The Weekend

2011-11-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

I was planning to linger over this post to fill the long empty hours, but my BBBFF (book binding bff) Emily just got here so I'mna throw y'all some pictures and call it good.

Saturday morning I went for a lovely walk while all of my places were being cleaned. Because there was snow and ice residue I didn't go on my nice river trail :( But instead I walked up an down a lot of residential streets I had never looked at before, so that was nice. Here are some pictures I took:

Today it decided to finally snow all the snow that we were expecting to have yesterday, so walking home from the studio it was crazy town in a way that these pictures don't really capture very well:

Then I tried to take a picture of myself and it went...okay. At least it gives you a better idea about the amount of snow that was snowing directly into my face. It was pretty ridiculous.

The end!

Weekend Update

2011-11-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

You guys, Forwarding and Covering is OVER. Also, I got a score of 4.5 out of 5. Pop pop! Also in our evaluation time I asked Don if I could put him down as a reference when I apply for internships, and he said yes and also I could maybe apply for an internship at his company. MAYBE I WILL.
Here are pictures from yesterday and today:

This book is covered in vellum. ...I don't know what else to say. It's a book I found at the cool bookstore in SLC--turns out the best place to look for cheapish old falling apart books is in the poetry section! I think because they are slimmer than novels, is why they are cheaper. Anyway, this is a sweet little book--it is the poem Snowbound, but John Greenleaf Whittier. I like the way it turned out because the splotching on the vellum sort of goes with the snow-type theme. Vellum is really weird to work with--it is incredibly stiff and not happy to be bent and creased the way you want it to, and even when it does go to the shape you want (like mine has here) it is still really...I dunno, puffy? It does not want to lay flat. Don says I should leave it under weights for the next MONTH OR TWO. Crazy town, right? Apparently a more humid climate will also help, which is good because basically anywhere in the world is more humid than Telluride so it should start behaving itself quickly.

This is the inside of the calf skin book. I chose a pretty conventional marbled paper for this one!

Here's the inside of Pelham, which I showed you before but it wasn't actually all the way done then. This is after set the hinge and glued down the end paper, whereas before I was sort of cheating just to take the picture. Don says (and I agree) that one of the main things I need to work on is all this stuff--the inside hinge and end paper. You can't really tell, but I cut it a bit funny so the leather margin is fractionally uneven. Also I glued some stuff down not-perfectly (I know, a shock) so there's some tension in the joint instead of happy-to-be-opened-ness being in the joint.

Here's Mr. Alum Tawed Pig Skin! It's hard to see detail in all the white but you can maybe see at the top how those indents on the spine are really thick and textured-y? I really like how that looks. What I don't like so much is how alum-tawed feels, which is kind of knobby and dry and weird, and also I'm not super in to the whole dirty-white thing. I guess if I go into my medieval monk persona I don't mind it so much though.

Here is the inside of Mr. Alum Tawed, and let me stop you right there and say OH MY GOSH I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS PAPER. I...I don't know how to explain it. It is weird. It is not classically handsome. It is not movie-star attractive. But we're in love and there's nothing you can do to stop us.

And here is a picture of everyone's books all together! Except that that's not even all of them--2 of mine (vellum and cloth case, which I haven't mentioned here ever I don't think because it's boring and simple) were in the press, and I think other people had some they were still working on too. Anyway, pretty cool though right? What is also fun is that everyone used basically the same leathers and everything but I can still pick mine out of the crowd. That's nice.

2011-11-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

Good heavens, I was just going to turn off my computer and go to sleep when I remembered that I forgot to blog this evening! Sorry folks. I...I know you are devastated to even imagine the bleak emptiness that might have been your lot. But fear not, I have remembered you. Except, thing is, it is late now. Also, tomorrow is Armistice Day, so that means that instead of thinking about bookbinding I've been sitting here in bed all subdued trying to remember all the WWI poetry I used to have memorized, and then been really appalled with myself and forced to use the internets to fill in the lines I've forgotten. Um...instead of saying more words I'm just going to give you some pictures of the people that I love and will be memorializing tomorrow. You're welcome.

robert graves

edward thomas

isaac rosenberg

rupert brooke

siegfried sassoon

wilfred owen

roland aubrey leighton

Pictures of VICTORY

2011-11-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

Okay so you guys, it turns out that maybe y'all didn't inadvertently ruin my life and my alum-tawed last night, as previously ranted about. I went in with heavy heart this morning to show it to Don, and he said it was still usable! It was like magic. So, with light and happy heart, I continued throughout the day doing cool fun stuff. SUCH AS:

So this is what the alum-tawed book looked like when it was all ready to be covered. For whatever reason, I am IN LOVE WITH IT. I was really sad actually to cover it up with stupid mean swine skin. What also happened is that there are some things you do differently when covering with a-t as opposed to reg'l'r leather, so Don needed to do a demo for us, so he just straight up covered my book for me as an example for everyone else. Which, in a way, is TOTALLY AWESOME. I mean it is also sort of less awesome, because it means that I didn't get to do it and get the experience so I a)feel less connected to the book since Don did the big part of it and b)don't know what it's like to cover with jerk swinefleisch. However, the awesome of not having to do it I think on a day like today outweighed the not awesome of not getting to do it.

So the one of the different things about this book is that since we're trying to go all medieval style, instead of using the band nippers to really define where the cords are, you do what is called 'tying up,' in an aptly named 'tying up press.' After you finish covering the book, you stick it in the special press that has all these nails stuck in it and then you use thick cord pulled really tightly from nail to nail to define the cords and the head bands. I didn't get a good picture of what it looks like when you take it out, but I will tell you with words that it is cool because you can kind of see the threading of the cords pressed into the leather. It's just a really homespun kind of look that you get; I like it a lot.

Here is Pelham! And behind him, the random book of poetry that I also did! Woo! I was trying for a shot were you can really see the raised-cord-ness. I flatter myself that I succeeded! It's crazy how different the calf and the goat feel when you hold them. The goat as you can see (it is Pelham in the maroon) is kind of shiny and glossy looking? It is all light reflect-y? So it's a really smooth, slick sort of feeling. The calf on the other hand isn't shiny at all, but it's still incredibly smooth and soft. I can't decide which I feel I prefer. The calf looks and feels more solid and historical-ish, to me at least. When I bring these home we'll have to have a feel-test and see what y'all think.

So, my main job today ended up being all the finishing touches on Pelham and Random Poetry Book. Which meant that I had to clean up the inside of the covers, trim the leather turn-ins, glue down some card so the surface was smooth, and then glue down the end papers. This is the inside cover of Pelham. Something weird is that I wouldn't have thought that this is the kind of marbled paper I would ever choose, but um it IS what I chose, and I really like it and I think it totally fits the book. It's been kind of tricky though, choosing endpapers for all these different books. I worry sometimes--it's like, you know when you say a word enough times in a row that it stops meaning anything? When I look at all the marble papers it starts getting like that--like I"m looking at so many options and crazy things that I no longer know what is good and what is weird and what is ugly. So, I've just kind of made decisions, and by now I've looked at them and worked with them so much that I'm like in love with them, but I'm kind of worried when I show them to people that they'll be like, You chose That? What, is it funny? ...So. We will see.

get ready for ranty times

2011-11-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh you guys why did you not wish me enough luck on my leather journey?! IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT. But I will let that mystery and your guilt grow while I show you all the fun stuff I did all day until the MYSTERIOUS BAD PART THAT IS YOUR FAULT happened.

Okay so this is the book that we are covering in alum-tawed. The thing that is incredibly cool about this book is that we are doing it in an older historical style--like, 1500s historical. Turns out in olden times books were AWESOME. See those red squares marked in the corners of the cover board? Okay so we are doing some WEIRD board shaping this time, because they did a lot of weird stuff in olden times because their boards, instead of being, um, boards, they were big ol' hunks of wood. So, to shape our boards in imitation of the way medieval monks used to shape medieval hunks of wood, we are beveling down the board along the edges, between the red squares. Also the inside of the boards are beveled all the way around. And it's not the usual kind of bevel sanding we do in fine binding, because usually we do it all soft and rounded and as perfectly smooth as possible, but here we are trying to make it like a hard line, like a chisel cut. It is a totally different aesthetic than anything I've ever done and it turns out I LOVE IT.

Also, you notice that there are five strips of alum-tawed? Okay, so I only sewed this on 3 strips--the other 2 are what I sewed the headbands on. Usually you sew the headbands on like a piece of cord or something, but for these we did it on a strip of alum-tawed just like we sewed the book on, and the CRAZY part is that then, instead of cutting off the cord at the ends of the headbands like normal-town, instead we LACE THEM INTO THE BOARDS. ...Okay, I realize that maybe your MIND isn't being BLOWN by this, but trust me....this is HUGELY COOL and totally unprecedented in my brain. I mean, I did this all several hours ago, and now sitting here thinking back on it I am still just BLOWN AWAY by how great it is. I, I, I just can't say with words. I just love how everything is tied together, everything is so strong and compact and connected. It just feels RIGHT. So. This is me, bearing my testimony of laced-in headband cores. They are the shiz. I know that with every fiber of my being.

Oh gosh, after all this happiness about bad-a medieval book structures, I can't even muster the rage to blame all y'all for what happened when I was paring the dang alum-tawed cover. You guys, remember how in the comments you were all like Oh boo hoo Katy you monster you are making a book out of Wilber and Babe and probably Babe's mom too? Yeah, well, the pig skin does not need you to fight its battles. It is doing just fine on its own. It is mother of all thick and toughness, so unlike goat which like, leaps onto a book without you lifting a finger, or even calf that's like well ok I guess I'll help a sister out, pig is just a big mean jerk that's all like, oh, you want to pare me? That's funny. How about you try to do it with your spoke shave? Oh? What's that? The harsh brutal fibers of my flesh foil your spoke shave and reduce my edges to a raggedy, gouge-y mess? Huh, interesting. Don't worry, you can still salvage this. Why don't you try to do it all by hand with your paring knife? That seems like a good idea. PSYCHE! I will lull you into a false sense of security as you thin me out over the course of TWO HOURS, at which time I will suddenly develop another case of gouge-itis and have there be rips and holes everywhere you turn, especially at all the places where the leather is critical and it is impossible to fix it. NICE TRY, LOSER. Come back when you're ready to be GOOD AT THIS.
...and then it took my lunch money, dissed my mom, and kicked me in the shins.

So. Tomorrow I will show it to Don and have him confirm that the damage is irreversible, and then I will start again on a new piece of frigging alum-tawed pig skin. The silver lining: I can still use the shizzed up leather to cover a book, as long as it is smaller. So, that's convenient. Also, I was pretty far ahead of the rest of the class all day today, so this stupid set-back will really just put me even with everyone else. And the silverest lining of them all is that now I am back home safely in bed and I can watch my saved up tv shows in peace, while trying to imagine that pigs don't exist. Also: maybe I will walk into class eating bacon tomorrow morning. Use some intimidation tactics of my own. Show this dead pig who's boss.

The day the earth stood still...

2011-11-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

...because it was in shock because I COVERED TWO BOOKS TODAY. Do...do you even know what that means? I don't think I even know what that means! You guys, covering books is a big deal. In the other classes I've taken, the teacher only allowed two people to do it at a time, and they were stationed up at his table with him looking over your shoulder the whole time and helping so that you wouldn't screw it up irrevocably. It's like a big, get your stuff set up, gird up your loins, tell my kids I love them, "I'll see you after" kind of thing. Leather covering is a freaking battlefield. -->an attitude that Mr Conservation USA does not seem to share! Instead it was like, yeah, here's what to do...okay...GO.
So. That was interesting. I covered Pelham first--hooray for Pelham Vol 2 finally being covered! The end for him is near!! I covered him in goat skin leather--something fun about this class is that it is teaching me about different types of leather. Til now I'd only ever worked with goat, which makes sense because as far as I can tell it is the easiest to work with. It's a lot more pliable and ...just nice. So, we did the goat skin cover first, to kind of ease into things. The second book we covered in calf skin. I pared the calf skin on Friday, so I already knew that it was kind of a jerk to work with, but little did I know that, seriously, it is kind of a jerk to work with. It's a lot tougher than goat and less willing to stick where you want it to stick and stretch where you want it to stretch. Also it shows creases and nicks a lot more, so like you can tell the places where I messed up setting the bands in the spine. OH, cuz that's the other new thing--I've never covered a raised-cord book before! It's not all that much different, but in the beginning instead of smoothing the leather over the spine you are easing it around these cords sticking up and then using this thing called a 'band nipper' to, as they say, 'set the cord'--which just means it sort of defines where the cords are and makes a hard line around them. I realize this might not make any sense, but I haven't taken pictures of the finished books yet so try to use your imagination. Or just ignore it all. Whatever. Oh but yeah, so calf is a jerk because I used the band nippers to mark out the cords and then went on to other parts of the covering process, and when I went back to the spine the leather had shifted so when I marked the cords again there are now like 3 different band nipper-marks all over the place. Anyway. Calf just handles differently, which I guess is good to know and have experienced.
The next book we're doing is the alum-tawed binding. Alum-tawed is just leather that has been treated a certain way. Do not ask me for details. Although actually after all of this parts of me wonders if it wouldn't be cooler to just go be a leather tanner. Seriously wouldn't that be hardcore? Anyway. You can have Alum-tawed goat or calf or whatever--so I am using the kind that they have at school, which is PIG skin. So, Katy's Wacky Leather Adventure is ONLY BEGINNING. wish me luck.

Katy's Busy Weekend

2011-11-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

I think this picture says it all: a stack of books, a box of tissues, and a mug that used to be full of hot chocolate. Yesterday it snowed basically all day, which I decided was a great excuse to stay in bed for the majority of the day. Also I have a weird cough-y-cold-y thing that's been going on for about a week and a half, so really I NEEDED to spend all day in bed to really rest and let my body heal itself. That's a thing, right? Well, so, by the end of the day my puritanical work ethic caught up with me and I felt like a huge waste of space, so today instead of staying inside all day I decided to go out this morning and go to the studio. I got together a lot of paper scraps and whatnot and brought it home so that NOW when I spend the rest of the day watching TV shows in bed, I will be sewing little books at the same time and therefore justifying my existence in the world!

So if you want to imagine you are me for the rest of the day, just look at this picture and you will be seeing what I see all day long. I've got a lot of Masterpiece Mystery to catch up on, and a whole little tupperware full of paper and thread. Happy weekend!

quick updates cuz i was too busy watching tv last night to blog

2011-11-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

So what we did first yesterday was line the spines of our single and double raised cords books with SUEDE. That was pretty wild cuz I've only ever lined spines with layers and layers of paper. I thought it looked pretty cool. Also it was fun because I've never done a book on Raised Cords before--usually (which is to say, in my fine binding classes) the whole point is to hide the cords as much as possible, but with these books, since we're trying to approximate historical bindings , we are showing the bands off loud and proud! I think it looks pretty awesome.

Here is a picture of my work bench. It is moderately clean, yeah?

I was trying to take a sneaking picture of Don, but he put his face behind the lamp at the last minute. Drat! Don is fantastic--he's basically like Mr. Conservation USA so I was intimidated to meet him and have him see my work, but it turns out that he's also Mr. Super Awesome Nice Guy Who Says "Good job, dear" and pats your elbow when you show him how you wove your headbands.

Big news: I bought a SPOKE SHAVE. This is what a spoke shave is:

this is what the underside of a spoke shave is:

You hold it by the handles and run it along your leather and that long blade it shaves away at it bit by bit. Apparently it is also a wood working tool, but they do some little modifications on them to make them better for leather paring. I"m pretty excited, since a)it will hopefully revolutionize the leather paring process for me and b) it was cheap! I am currently accepting submissions for what this spoke shave's Name should be--because come now you can't have a tool with THIS MANY sort of faces (seriously with those two screws on top AND the two holes in the handles and the bladey-blade mouth...the possibilities are endless and ADORABLE) without giving it a name, right?

So here are my five books, stacked up and under weights:

I'm feeling good! But now I gotta hurry real quick and get to class.

today in pictures

2011-11-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

the view from my window this morning

the view out the studio window this afternoon

Lunch :)

The book I mostly worked on today. It's a book of poetry I got at Sam Weller's in SLC. By now those cords are laced through the boards instead of just hangin out.

Here's the leather I bought today! I'm going to use it to cover my old friend and yours, Pelham Vol 2!! Hooray! Last thing I did today was sew his endbands, with those three colors of thread in the picture. That strip of marbled paper is his endpapers. Looks pretty classy, yeah? Woohoo!

alive

2011-11-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

Call of the search and rescue teams, I made it through last night alive. BARELY. I ended up coming home by around 8 and finishing stuff up in bed or back at the studio this morning. That's my plan tonight as well--I did all the stuff that I needed fancy equipment for and brought the rest home with me. After I finish sewing this book up tonight, I will be completely caught up with class and on top of EVERYTHING. That. . . that is pretty awesome of me. :) But for reals I had a moment this evening when I was mending this paper and everyone else had gone home and it suddenly came to me: I really like this. Which, like, DUH Katy, your whole stupid life has been about bookbinding for the past um WHILE so I should HOPE that you really like it, shoot! But the ridiculous thing about me is that I am really good at getting in my own head and messing things up! I keep freaking myself out that I'm not really good at this and I don't really like it and it'll never work and it's stupid to try. Like for reals if you ever are in need of self-defeating-negative-self-talk I have plenty to spare. So it was kind of amazing to take a second after two solid [SOLID] conservation days to realize, shoot, I don't care if I'm not good at thiis right now or if it takes me a million years ro even be decent, I LIKE IT AND I WILL DO IT. Hurrah!!

at least i'm not blonde and i am fully clothed

2011-10-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

You guys, I set myself for horror. Literally. It is Halloween night, and I am staying late all by myself to work in the bookbinding studio. Was ever a situation more perfectly designed for a scary movie opening-shock-scariness-scene? I think not.
Points in my favor:
-I'm not a skanky blonde hanging out with my boyfriend
-I'm not babysitting
-Neither I nor anyone I know has desecrated an Indian burial ground, killed lepers for money, or failed to report a hit and run killing

Things suggesting my imminent demise:
-I'm in a remote mountain village
-This building has heck of windows and glass doors and suchlike, and is architecturally interesting
-Bookbinding tools make for some very creative possible weapons and killing devices

Looks like I've got a 50/50 chance of making it out of here alive. If I don't blog again withing 24 hours, send a large group of well-armed heroic types to recover my remains and destroy the mad killer before s/he wrecks anymore havoc. And for heaven's sake tell them to double-tap and make darn sure the crazy is dead--I don't want my murder to spawn any half-baked misbegotten sequels.

wait what i am in telluride AGAIN?

2011-10-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

Yes yes it is true, I am yet again tucked away in a mountainous retreat, learning how to better ply my binding and conservitating trade. [Sidebar: it is so much fun to make up fake works based on 'conservation.' Conservitate, conservatology, etc. Try it, you'll like it.] After a mad dash to prepare books for conservaitoning (aided by the dashing and indefatigable Becca) I arrived in Telluride today with a stack of books that look like this:

It's kind of fun to put them all in a big stacky-stack like that and feel like it's a lot. We start tomorrow morning at 8:30. There's only 4 people in the class this first week, which is pretty great, and only 2 of us living in the house! Oh, joy of joys--this time I am staying in the house I stayed at in May, which is beautiful and Victorian and feels like walking into a Pottery Barn catalog except authentic instead of lame. Dad and I drove into town at noon, set my stuff up in the studio and at home, had a nice sandwich for lunch, then Dad started the long drive BACK to Springville--it is 7 hours both ways and Dad is being a total beast to come and go back again in one day! Anyway, then I got to take a rest and then sewed up another book (the little one on the top of the stack). Now I am going to bed early so that I can be all rested and happy tomorrow and whatnot. Is it just me or has this whole post been really disjointed and non-linear? I'll try to be more coherent tomorrow.

I don't always have pictures of Danny and Lydia, but when I do...

2011-10-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

I blog them.

book reading

2011-10-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

So remember when I was in Telluride and I found, rhapsodized on, and devoured THIS little gem? :

Okay this was not the edition I read but with cover art like this I can only say that I would have been even MORE likely to read it had THIS been what I found in the freebox. COME ON.

Remember how it was about a fair Cornish maiden and MYSTERIES? Yes well I have been using the ol' library card and finding some more beauties by my dear Madeleine Brent, which is to say, an old British gent who I guess felt he had to write under a female pseudonym to be taken seriously by we serious novel-of-romance-and-suspense readers. Please, sample the goods with me:

THIS is STORMSWIFT. It begins in Afghanistan, where young Englishwoman JEMIMAH has been taken captive from the British holding in Kabul and forced into UNSPEAKABLE ACTS AND TORMENTS among barbarous tribesmen! Faced with even LESS SPEAKABLE acts in the near future, she escapes with the silent Kassim, but is he just the traveling peddler he appears, or something MORE? And you guys that is just the first twenty pages. OH SNAP.

I'm still not finished with this one yet. Obviously I need to finish typing this quick so I can go read to the THRILLING CONCLUSION!! The daughter of inevitably-long-since-dead-of-cholera missionaries, young Lucy Waring has lived her whole life in China at the Mission, caring for young orphans! But...then stuff happens! Oh man oh man! How will she deal with lost treasures and accidental marriages and English society and whatnot? READ IT AND FIND OUT. **EDIT: just finished, OMG you guys. OMG. The Boxer Rebellion has never been such a delightful opportunity for discovering love and happiness.

Like for reals you guys I know I say this like it's a joke, but I am being completely serious when I say that Madeleine Brent is the best thing to ever happen to me and when I run through what the library system has I'mna have to get serious on Amazon because I can no longer live in a world where there are Madeleine Brent books that I have not consumed.

a new old book

2011-10-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

Have you guys ever heard of Freecycle? It is this group on Yahoo where you sign up based on where you live and then it's basically just like Craigslist except it's FREE. I put up a request for 1800s books to conservitate on and a lady responded and gave me this! It is great!

it was in a fire

it is a delightful book about 'correct writing,' which is to say, it talks about writing letters and penmanship and whatnot and THEN it just dives into every kind of etiquette ever. It is SO GREAT. 1880s etiquette is awesome.

Example: this page talks about public speaking. Notice the two pictured figures--the one on the left is awkward and bashful; the one on the right is declaiming manfully.

"Pleasant Words and Agreeable Manners"

I assume that this section is all about carrying menacing baseball bats and fake-lunging at people.

Anyway. Good times. I'm gonna bring this one to my paper restoration class to see how you deal with smoke and fire damage. Huzzah.

i'm just a girl, looking at some boots, asking them to love her

2011-10-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

So, I can count on one hand the times when I have been truly and deeply moved by an article of clothing. Usually, clothes are just clothes and ...you know, whatever. But a few times, I have had that defining moment of womanhood where you look at that sweater and YOU MUST HAVE IT AND IT WILL REDEFINE YOUR LIFE. There was a sweater when I was 14. A dress when I was 22. A vintage blouse when I was 20. And now, at 24, there are these boots:

They...they just complete me. They are perfect. They are everything. They are Betsey Johnson Llola boots.

But you know what's funny that I just realized? That sweater that I loved when I was 14? It was at The Buckle, where Becca worked for a month or two, and I would go visit her and look at it and loooooove it (it was a brown hoodie with red and brown and orange stripes), but then I tried it on and I didn't like it anymore. It fit all weird and funky and didn't change me into the person I saw in my head when I looked at it on the display. The dress? I bought it, wore it once, and have been too scared and fat-feeling to ever even try it on again. So it sits in my closet, being sad and wishing someone else had bought it and given it the life it deserved. Probably I would not live up to these boots, or they would not live up to me. And that is why I am not going to even imagine going on a crazy binge and spending a ridiculous $130 on them. And if we keep having earthquakes like we did today and the end of the world happens, I will not regret not having these boots. ...But when I am wandering the lonely roads of post-apocalyptic America slaying zombies and scavenging for water and food and toting a machete, I will TOTALLY regret not having these. Luckily by then they will be considerably cheaper. THEN I WILL BE HAPPY.

glam shots

2011-10-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures I took a while ago of some of the books I was making this summer.

Lucy was around and wanted to play with the books so I had her model a few of them for me. I think the only word for her eyes in this picture is BALEFUL but I think it's just because she takes her modeling career very seriously but Tyra hasn't taught her how to smize yet.

Yo Gabba Gourds

2011-10-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you have seen this picture floating around Pinterest?

Well, soon you will be seeing it FOR REALS in MY HOUSE. Christy, Lucy, and I are attempting Brobee, Foofa, and Plex. If it ends well, maybe you will get to see some photo evidence up in here.

i woke up in a mood

2011-10-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

Anyone needing a morning dance party should maybe listen to this song. Or, I dunno, an afternoon dance party? Weird.

black eyes and feathers in my cap

2011-10-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I remember when Becca used to do lists like this, like the dude in Catch-22. Let's see...

Black Eyes
-I've been too scared so far to take my Secret Zombie Plan out of the planning stages and into the Making-It-Reality stages. That's pretty lame.

-I'm about to go make some pies for Gramma's birthday but I'm scared of making pie crust because what if I over mix it and it doesn't turn out light and flaky?? But I have to do it anyway cuz Mom's at school...yeah I think this list is going to consist of me being a sissy about things that I need to just man up about. Get ready.

-. . . so I guess really it's a good thing that I can't think of more things to put on the Black Eyes list, right? So let's move on.

Feathers in my Cap
-just woke up from a weird dream where I was on a study abroad sort of thing where I was being housed temporarily with this older guy named Gunter, and he was pretty cool. Except then the whole thing morphed into a medieval battlefield and he was fighting on the other side, the jerk. And then there was a time lapse and he was an old man in a bar and one of my apparent friends from the weird-a study abroad was confronting him for his war atrocities. My subconscious was all about the international relations and social justice last night I guess. But, any dream I have that doesn't end with me being cornered by zombies or eaten by giant worm beasts I consider a WIN, so take THAT subconscious motivata'!

-right now I am listening to a whole playlist of songs recommended to me by the inestimable Lori Fuller, so that is obvs pure delight.

-My bookbinding friend from Colorado called last night and we had a funtimes chat and I get to stop feeling guilty for not calling her like months ago.

-I'm about to go into Kindergarten for a good ol' fashioned spider-themed Station Day; Kindergarten is the one place where I get to lay down the law and correct social injustice and STILL have everyone concerned treat me like a rock star. I suggest that all within the sound of my voice invest in a group of adoring five year olds, your self esteem will thank you.

-It is straight up cloudy today; maybe we will get to start having autumnal fun times. I've already been going full blog-mom in my enthusiasm for clusters of decorative gourds.

-My friend Kat consented to be my TV-watching-friend, so now I get to watch all my TV without feeling like a waste of space because hello it is a SOCIAL EVENT. AWESOME.

the best thing so far

2011-09-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Came to Kindergarten today for a while, waiting for Christy to get ready to go to Joann's. The best thing: Mom does the roll by calling each kid's name, and then they respond by saying "hello" in a different language, and then she says hello back in the same language. So they do Hola and Aloha and Mahalolele and Jambo and Konichiwa and Ni hao and so forth, but then when Becca and I took Welsh classes we told her to start teaching them "S'mae," AND SO today in honor of my return home Mom had all the kids say S'mae and it was ADORABLE. Llewellyn Fawr should be proud.

Also, what I'm going to Joann's for today? A SECRET PROJECT. It has to do with these:

GET EXCITED.

Musings--probably pretty boring, you have been warned.

2011-09-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

Something I remember from being in England 2 years ago (!! the passage of time is alarming!!) is being in cathedrals, and I can't remember exactly which one we were in when we talked about this or what the Big Point even was, but I remember talking about how Gothic architecture has this inherent individuality that none of the other styles can really match, because in all that detail work, all that carving and the gargoyles and Jacks-o'-the-green and Green men and just all the STUFF that is EVERYWHERE, NONE of it is ever identical--it is all done by different artisans just doing their thing in their own time, and so the whole cathedral ends up being this sprawling, metamorphosing mass of CREATION wherein really no attempt has been made to induce order or regularity or machine-like precision, it all just IS. I realized this morning that that is something I've been thinking about a lot these past 2 weeks, as I've been artisan'ing it up book-style, how there's not much that can match the inherent individuality of something that is hand crafted and toiled over by just some human being, doing their best to make something beautiful. As I look at the two finished books from these two weeks, I'm sort of torn because on the one hand I love them, like, LOVE them, and every part of their completion just makes me HAPPY, but on the other hand there are some pretty obvious mistakes and blunders I made that even to an untrained eye are pretty noticeable. So I guess all this ruminating on human creation is just a way of justifying to myself that even though I messed up on some stages of the execution, the fact that I just love the everloving shiz out of these inanimate objects still can have meaning for me and (maybs even I can convince myself) elevates them as hand crafted objects in their own right. Okay? I'm willing to buy it.
So of course I woke up this morning to the melancholy click of the front door as Susan left for the airport, and I was thinking all of these things and decided that the only thing for it was to google William Morris pictures. Sometimes, most of the times, that is the only recourse we have left.

Sometimes, if I let myself think about it, I get SO MAD that I never had the chance to even TRY to woo either Edward Burne-Jones or William Morris here. I mean, give a girl a CHANCE to live her dreams, amiright? What thing is left us that we linger here?

The Final Countdown

2011-09-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! The end of the last day. It has happened. All there is left to do is wake up in the morning, hang around until my flight, fly in a sewing machine plane to Denver, hang around for a while, and THEN be HOME! Woo!

Today was pretty cool. I had very little to do that I could do in the amount of time left. So, Books #1 and #2 are COMPLETELY FINISHED, but Book #3 is languishing in a twilight zone of the next thing that has to happen to him is hard and takes a while so I couldn't do it in an afternoon and then put it on hold for travel. So, he will continue on his eternal progression next week, when I am home and my package of tools and supplies gets there. I decided to mail most of my gear home so that I could just carry on my bag and not worry about getting pulled over for carrying lots of sharp and/or pointy objects.

Tonight we had the traditional pizza party that every class does on the last night of class, except this time it was ACTUALLY FUN. I know, right? Chris (who does conservation work for the Church) is apparently an avid ukulele player, and he brought one of his ukulales (apparently he has quite the collection, as well as a YouTube account full of videos of him playing songs on the ukulele...which is pretty spectacular when you think about it) and we all sat around and had a weirdly fun improptu ukulele sing along. Also, it turns out that I just really like parties with classy artistic tipsy people. Maybe it's just my perception that other people are half drunk when they drink at all, and I borrow some of their perceived uninhibited'ness for myself. If that makes sense at all. Anyway, it was fun! Woo!

So, Susan leaves tomorrow early so we said goodbye tonight. Apparently Nashville is quite the hub of book arts, so I said I would try to visit sometime. Which really would be great. It kind of struck me tonight at the party where I was actually having fun that it is weird and cool the sorts of people who I get to know at these bookbinding classes. I mean, obviously there are crazy and crazy annoying ones out there, but a lot of them are interesting, fun-to-know kinds of people. It's fun to imagine that I'm entering a field where maybe there are more cool eccentric interesting people than there are jerkface mean people. Because if you're a mean jerkface, chances are you are looking for a higher paying job than a design binder or conservationist. Not that there aren't notable exceptions...but none of them were in THIS class, so happy day. Anyway, life is pretty great, is all. I'm excited to go home, and excited to work, and excited to get my career going. Which is more than I've been able to say for quite some time, so, Telluride--MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Thursday: The Thursdaying

2011-09-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

This is what it looks like when I am at my bench and I turn my head slightly to the left. In the early morning it's crazy because the sun comes in that window SO BRIGHT and you get blinded by the reflection off the plexiglass press boards and you can see all the particles of dust form sanding and every uneven bit of whatever you're working on, which is kind of a drag really :) But it's nice, and I like seeing the mountains and the big BOOKBINDING decal on the window.

So. Today was kind of silly really. Remember how yesterday I was all crazy town planning the order of operations today to get everything shoehorned in? The funny thing is that in that projection of the future I failed to account for the fact that there are OTHER PEOPLE in the class. SHOOT. So, I got went in early (at like 8:20) and got Book #2 glued up and in the press....and then basically sat around until noon. Then Don told us about paste downs, so I did those....and then hung around. Then he came over and showed Susan and I the new way of doing headbands, and it was 5 o'clock and like go home time. So, what I did today: Book#3 headbands, Book #1 paste downs, Book#2 filler and paste downs. PS a 'paste down' is the pretty paper that you glue to the inside covers of a book, to cover all the parts where the leather and paper on the cover wrap around. So, what is left for Books #1 and #2 are the fly leaves, which is the pretty paper that you glue down to the first and last sheet of a book. So seriously, only the gluing down of 4 pieces of paper stand between me and the total completion of 2 books! Pop pop! Book #3 obviously has a lot further to go but I have made peace with finishing him at home. I think it will be good even to have a project that I'm already in the middle of to finish off at home. It will be like christening my little home studio, doing the first real fancy fine binding in it. So. I think I'm right where I want to be--I have enough to do tomorrow that it won't be just stupid, but not so much that I'm stressed or worried. I've had a really good time here, and I'm incredibly happy that I came back for these two weeks, but I'm also excited to go home and have more fun at home times!

wednesssssday

2011-09-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

Do you remember being in first or second grade and learning how "Wednesday" was spelled and being BAFFLED and for a moment vowing to always pronounce it the way it is spelled because that is BETTER somehow, but then quickly realizing that was dumb? Was that just me?

You guys today was a really good day. Working backwards, I just spent an hour downstairs with Susan making cous cous and eating it and her chicken soup for dinner and talking about life and plans and things and it was SO MUCH FUN. Susan is so great! She might take some conservation classes in the future and I hope she does and we end up in the same ones!

Alright. Today...wow, looking back, I got a lot done today! I made a new batch of paste paper because upon reflection I wasn't satisfied with any of the first batch to use for end papers for Book #1. Nothing had quite the right spirit about it. SO, first thing in the morning I made new batch of paste and chose new colors and stumbled upon a new technique and I'm totally in love with it. Then I got to work on Book #2. It came out of the press and was all dry and ready, so I did the special opening-the-book ritual, pared and stuck on the hinges, and did all the crud you have to do to the cover before you put on the final pretty cover paper, and then I in fact put on the pretty cover paper! I had a mini-crisis when I doubted my choice in cover papers and almost switched to something different, but in the end I listened to my heart and stuck with my first decision. I STILL didn't tie Don down and get him to teach me the new headband method, so Book #3 still languishes in not-very-much-done-ness, but he promises to demo it for Susan and I in the morning so things should start banging away fairly quickly. I already prepped as much as I could for his next few steps, so hopefully I can expedite.

Right now, with two days left of class, I am in this tricky situation of trying to juggle the three books so they end up as finished as possible all at the right time. It's weirdly tricky to figure out the best sequence of events I should aim for tomorrow, trying to take into account how long each step takes and what needs a big drying/pressing time after it and when to have that fall so that I can be working on a different book while that one is hanging out...and all of this so that I have enough done that I feel good but not so much done so quickly that I end up twiddling my thumbs on the last day! Not that I think there's much chance of that, but just hypothetically... :) I'm also trying to manage my book READING, deciding which books I'll finish in time to return to the free box and which are worthy to be Airplane/Airport books and so forth. STRESSFUL, right?? :) I love that these are the things I get to fake worry about right now. You guys, life is pretty awesome.

here's the new paste paper. It looks kind of shizzy in this picture but it is better in real life, plus it will be cut down to go in the book so I think it'll be good.

Hey, here is Book #1!

And here is Book #2! This was taken pretty early in the day, so it is not at all what it looks like NOWtimes. Also it is laying flat open like that because I had just glued in a hinge and you have to let it dry a bit before you close it, or everything is horrifically ruined. Or something. I don't make the rules.

This was my table at the end of the day, wich Book #1 (right) and Book #2 (left) under some weights. Book #2 needed the weight to get the cover paper stuck on there good, and #1 just needs all the time it can get to get used to being covered in leather. It's just hanging out, basically.

and THIS was on the walk home. I picked a good time of day and sunlight to walk home in, I think.

So...I think I will attempt to go in early tomorrow to get banging on #2 so that it can be pressing and drying again when I am doing headbands for #3, and then hopefully after that Don will demo how you do endpapers and then I will knock out #1 like, for REALSIES it will be completely FINISHED, and then I'll only have 2 things left to juggle. My ambitious goal is to have #1 and #2 COMPLETELY DONE by the end of tomorrow. Probably #3 concerns will get in the way and I won't get #2 totally finished, but that is ok. I already have all the leather pared for #3 and different papers cut to size and whatnot, but it will undoubtedly take longer than I think to get him through the works. Silly #3. What a silly book.

Tuesday Tuesday

2011-09-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Brace yourselves for tragedy: I have no pictures today. I did take a few, but they all turned out fuzzy and horrible. There just wasn't anything very photogenic going on. That being said, today was AWESOME. First thing in the morning, I covered Book #2. BAM. You guys, it went SO WELL. Usually it feels like it takes forever and I am never doing it right and it is weirdly exhausting and draining and just full of uugghhhhhhh. BUT. This time it was like sparkles and rainbows and unicorns! (Anyone who is lucky enough to be around Lucy sometime, get her to sing the 'rainbows and unicorns' song from Yo Gabba Gabba--it is a song about having happy dreams, and Foofa's is OF COURSE about rainbows and unicorns, and Lucy doing a high-pitched Foofa voice is THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. Parenthetical: Concluded) I just felt confident and patient and happy and successful and it was truly a really really good experience all around. One of my favorite parts of leather covering is doing the corners. Mitered corners are the best thing in the world, but usually they are kind of a hassle to accomplish what with folding and whatnot, but with leather it is SO GREAT because you jsut sort of massage everything into place where you want it to be, and dagum if it isn't usually willing to do what you want it to. When leather is being cooperative, it is amazing to work with.

So I got that done right off the bat and felt fabulous, and then went back and worked on Book#1 stuff--after you cover a book and let it dry for ages, there is all kinds of shiz you have to do to it that I always sort of forget about! So I spent most of the day opening it up in a special way so the leather doesn't rip at the joints, and then paring leather strips for the inner hinges and gluing them down and letting them dry, and then cleaning up the inside covers and doing all kinds of shenanigans to them to get it all ready for the pretty paste down paper that will go in tomorrow. Oh, and also today I started paring leather for Book #3. I don't know if there will turn out to be a Book#4 or not--I might start on it, but I will almost definitely not finish it all the way. I'll be super proud of I get Books #1-3 all the way completed. Seriously, that would be an amazing feat! I think tomorrow will be finishing #1, doing all the inner cover stuff to #2, and then maybe doing more of the easy stuff to #3 like headbands and spine lining and stuff. I've been holding off on doing #3's headbands because Susan and I were going to have Don show us a fancy other way of making them into a cool different pattern, but I don't know if that will pan out or not, and I don't want to wait around for it forever if it means I don't get the book done....hmmm. Difficulties. Guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

Monday Monday

2011-09-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty basic day. There was more of the dreaded leather paring going on, so that was rough, but I also tried out some new things, which is to say ONE new thing, which is to say, check out this picture of the graphite edge treatment I tried out!:

First you put the book in a SUPER tight press, then you sand it til it doesn't feel like paper anymore (seriously it feels WEIRD and more like glass or plastic than paper!), then you brush it with really watered down glue, get lots of graphite powder on your fingers, rub it all up in there like dang, and then burnish it to a nice robotic sheen.

This is the scene of my second leather-paring-stravaganza, where I heard myself mutter aloud "Alright foul demon, prepare to taste my steel" without realizing that that was weird, funny, and totally appropriate. Because you know what? It DID taste my steel. And then it ripped. And then I glued it back together, because it turns out that is possible sometimes. And THEN I decided I was done and that shiz is covering a BOOK tomorrow morning.

Today I also got to talk to Whitney Bush which is always a distinct pleasure, Becca almost succeeded in getting Ruby to say Hi to me, and I got to tell Lucy "Yo Gabba Gabba AGH!" as is our wont. All in all a good day for communication. I got to come home and have chicken soup for dinner, because my roommate Susan is a delight and made a whole big pot of it yesterday. So, a good day for eating food that isn't Top Ramen! Huzzah! Also it was a good day for cultural education because I came home and sat down with my bowl of microwaved soup and looked for something to watch on TV whilst I ate and ended up watching The Red Shoes on TCM. You guys, you know how ballet is great and all but it might make you throw yourself in front of a train? Yes, well that movie knows that too. It was pretty amazing though. I realized it's been ages since I've watched an Old Movie and I forgot how nice the change of pace is. WOW I am cultured and sophisticated, amiright? Sheesh. I feel like I've been writing 'sheesh' a lot lately, or at least, more than that one time when I just did right there. So like, at least two times in recent history, not counting the second time in this post. Gotta keep track of these things.

Best Day Ever

2011-09-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

You guys today was STUPENDOUS. Slept in, but not so much that I felt bad about it, read some talks on lds.org for churchy times, made French toast out of my sourdough wheat bread and it was delicious, went on a 1.5 hour walk along the same trail as yesterday except today the clouds were light and fluffy and it was was warm enough that I had to TAKE OFF MY JACKET which is UNPRECEDENTED. Then I went to the library and browsed my little heart out read fun books until closing time. Then I came home, had some Top Ramen dinner times, watched the end of various movies on TV, had my evening hot chocolate delight, and am now settling in bed for my night time internet and book reading times. SUCH A GOOD DAY. I feel like such a rebel for not going to the studio but shoot, girlfriend needed a break.

Also check out this awesomeness I found in the free box the other day ! It is like one of those date stampers but it is nine digits long and has all numbers and LETTERS on it so I think I'm going to use it to stamp my brand name into books that I make?

Here is a picture of the awesomely rooted tree I found on my walk:

isn't that awesome? I wanted to go crawl up in there and have it be my little house. then i realized that would be weird.

Weather and Booze: a song of saturday

2011-09-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

What is up with that post title? I have no idea. Except that the things that have dominated today have indeed been weather things and booze-related things. But still. Weird. No songs will be involved in the proceeding post, so fear not mine elegant readers.
So. Last night it rained crazy loud and long. Like, it was midnight and I finished my gorgeous gothic novel (which I am NOT going to spoil for you guys, you have to go read it yourselves to find out who is CRAZY and who is EVIL and who is CRAZY EVIL. Well, actually I think there's just one crazy dude and one in fact crazy evil dude...but you know whatever. Things that are involved in the thrilling conclusion: commandeered gondolas, capsizing gondolas, Irishmen (don't worry, they don't let the Irishman near any gondolas), hired thugs with lead pipes, people named Bernardino, flaming spears, deceit, letter writing, and DEATH. You guys it was SO GOOD. All day I have been sad that it is already over. SO, to cheer myself up in the morning I decided to go on a walk along that stream again but going in the other direction, which eventually leads out of the canyon and through a national forest. It was really nice and I sauntered along for probably like half an hour, enjoying the scenery and thinking deep impressive thoughts. Eventually I came to a sign saying that I was entering the Uncognweirdunpronouncableword National Forest, and I paused wondering if I should turn back or not, and then I noticed that the clouds were crazy dark and heavy looking up ahead so I thought, I will turn around and cleverly avoid walking into a rain storm. Do you think it worked? I tell you, it did not. Within a couple minutes the rain had caught up with me, so I started walking faster in the drizzle. It kept raining harder and harder until it was like, DANG this is a lot of rain, and I stepped off to the side of the trail and sought shelter under a pine tree. I sort of huddled there until it seemed like the rain was easing off a bit, and then I scurried along to the next big branchy tree. This happened like THREE TIMES as I made my way back home! I had originally intended on just walking back on the path all the way across town so I could go work in the studio and maybe hang out in the library and find book to sit and read. By the time I came near home though it had started SNOWING, but like the slushy pre-snow snow? so I changed my plan. Instead I went home, turned on the gas fire, made some hot chocolate, and watched trashy tv for an hour while my shoes dried out. Frankly, it was a pretty stupendous way to spend an afternoon. After a while though I started feeling like a waste of space so I determined to brave the weather again and head to the studio. I dashed across the road to the covered bus stop, waited forever for the bus, did the drive across town in under five minutes, and by the time I got out of the bus all rain and snow had stopped and it was SUNNY. You guys, this is what we call INCONVENIENT TIMING. Ridiculous.

Anyway, I got a bit of work done in the studio but I wasn't really feeling it at that point, so I finished my headbands and went to the library, where I read the first 2 chapters of Stephen King's It (because I'm an IDIOT who is NOT as brave as I think I am) and I am now afraid of water, drainage systems, clowns, paper boats, rain, bridges, rivers, cellars, ....and ok that might be all. Seriously, I do not know why I do this to myself. I'm an idiot.

Okay and then the booze happened! So, yesterday one of the youngish girls in my class announced that they were going to have a potluck party at the house where 5 of the ladies are staying. Remembering from May how these parties sort of go, I brought my own pack of fancypants IBC rootbeer so I wouldn't feel too left out. It ended up being pretty fun actually--I found out that I like a lot of these people a lot better when they're slightly tipsy! On the walk home tonight though I was just thinking about how weird it is, because really I have like zero experience with situations where other people are drinking; it just rarely-or-never has come up in my life. It's weird thinking about it like when I'm sitting there in the room with everyone talking, and having to factor that in to my view of the social situation--like, oh wait yeah, what that person is drinking is altering their mental state, which accounts for this that and the other behavior. Not like anyway was crazy drunk or anything, just kind of more relaxed and laughy. Anyway. I guess social lubricants are great for those as have them.

And now, pictures of this morning's walk! WOO!!

a view up into the tree that was my little shelter from the storm. I felt like a hobbit, probably because I'd been reading Fellowship of the Ring before I went off walking.

Some pictures of nature

2011-09-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to walk to school on the river path, which is um a path that follows the river along the south side of town. It's pretty much the exact same distance, but instead of walking on Main Street (which is great and all but I know all the store fronts by heart PLUS this weekend is the Blues&Brews Festival so Telluride is crawling with people walking around in hiking boots and day packs even though all they are doing as far as I know is walking from their hotel rooms to the park to go taste exotic beers and listen to WillieNelson, so I don't know where the trekking gear comes in necessary?) so ANYWAY I don't remember what was going on before that parenthesis business, but the thing is, I walked along the pretty path instead of the boring crowded street and it was SO PRETTY so I took some pictures as PROOF.

And it is good that I took the tranquil nature walk to and from class today because class itself was a BEAST. Which is to say, it was leather covering day, and I don't understand how one half hour's worth of work can be so DRAINING but it IS. Seriously I was falling over by the time I finally nestled that leather-bound sucker into a little blotter-and-boards-and-weights sandwich and luckily it was already 5ish so it was okay to leave. I had big plans to sand Book#3 and do headbands form Book#2 but for reals I just sat there at my bench for a solid 10 minutes just staring at them until finally I admitted defeat and just went home. I'm sort of bummed cuz I expected to get more done today, but it's not like there was much I could really do. I'm excited to get to sleep in tomorrow! The cleaning lady is in the studio in the morning, so there is a double excuse to take it easy for the morning and just have a good time with all this. Then hopefully in the afternoon I'll get Book#3 sanded and Book #2 headbanded, and perchance even figure out what the deal is going to be with Book#4....
Oh I meant to mention, the freaking best thing in my life right now: This AMAZING Book I got from the Free Box!! I packed really light flying out here so I only had space to bring like 3 books to read, which for some reason I thought would be enough even though it CLEARLY is not, so I have been haunting the Free Box everyday scoping out the book selection, hoping interesting things will turn up. In this case, the Free Box has truly done me a solid. Not only have I found copies of such tried and true classics as The Fellowship of the Ring and The Book Thief (I know! Such good luck!!) I ALSO stumbled upon a previously unheard of gem with the ridiculously unprepossessing title of "Tregaron's Daughter." I grabbed it because the title font and picture looked like it was published in the 70s (it was) and the blurb on the front said it was "A novel of romantic suspense." Well, if I ever meet the Alternate Reality Version of Katy who can turn down a book like that, I will punch her in the face. Honestly, I was only hoping for like a third-rate Mary Stewart/Victoria Holt/Georgette Heyer knock off. And was I ever surprised--it turns out to be a FIRST rate MS/VH/GH knock off!! BRILLIANT. Seriously, I have rarely been so pleasantly surprised and entertained. A tidbit to prove that it is awesome: The obviously-the-hero-but-gothically-tricked-out-because-true-love-is-DANGEROUS character? His name is Lucian. Which the heroine is quick to mentally point out is sort of close to LUCIFER. What is so Satanic about him? HIS EYEBROWS. I am not shizzing you. Homeboy has satanically slanting eyebrows, and it is important that we note that every time he comes into the room. Also, he is a social outcast because people SAY he was a coward in the Boer War but I think it is all a misunderstanding and that he is secretly super brave! Furthermore, I think the REAL bad guy is the pseudo-adopted brother who is so ANGELIC of feature but has inexplicable exotic statues in his bedroom and was sent down from Oxford MYSTERIOUSLY and keeps trying to CLUMSILY say how Lucian is crazy evil. No Robert, YOU are crazy evil! But I will gladly wait another hundred pages before we are all willing to admit that out loud.

some haps and some pics

2011-09-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Hello hello. Today was the dreaded LEATHER PARING day. You guys, leather paring is so frigging annoying. Either your leather is ripping all over the place and your life is over, or it is taking sooooo looooong and it is never good enough. Which is to say, I am just not very good at it still and so I feel like I'm not really in control of it, so I am either going at a normal pace and making gaping mistakes, or I am going really slow and careful and it just takes all day. Either way....it ties for Most Annoying Aspect of Fine Binding. The other thing it ties with is SANDING. You do not even want to know how much shiz you have to sand and how many times in order to make one flipping book. This afternoon I took a break from leather paring for Book#1 to go sand the top of Book#2, because I knew that was the one thing that would make me happy to get back to paring.

Something funny I recently realized is...wow, this sounds really stupid when I put it in words, but for some reason it was a Realization of a New Idea, rather than like, a self-evident piece of obviousness. Anyway, it struck me that maybe other people have different parts of the bookbinding process that they like, and other parts that they hate, and their preferences don't automatically match up with mine! I know, stupid and obvious, right? I think it's just since this is still a relatively new thing I am learning, and not many other people actually exist who do it and have opinions, it feels like...maybe there is only one opinion to have? I have no idea why I am blogging this, I realize it makes no sense and has no point and is really boring. See, reading this paragraph is like what it feels like to sand the top edge of a book or pare a leather book cover. BORING AND ANNOYING. ...Okay but seriously maybe sanding and paring is someone else's favorite part of bookbinding! And maybe they totally despise cutting paper and sewing and weaving headbands! CRAZY TOWN. Okay, Boringstupidville is over, how about I just throw you some pictures?

This is the battleground. I am proud to note that by the end of the day I had that motivator pared to near-perfection. Which is to say, nothing horrific happened, and I'm gonna cover that shiz tomorrow! Pop pop!

Oh hey this is a kind of paring stone that I used this time because it is something you just sort of throw together at home and I wanted to test drive it. My conclusion is: Hey Dad, you and me are going to Home Depot when I get home and doing a Father Daughter Bonding Carpentry Project! Woo!! It is just a marble flooring time set into some wood so it doesn't move around and whatnot. I think we can take it.

Here is the pile of paste paper I made late last night. It is mostly pretty weird and as I was making it I was thinking, "Wow...this is all pretty weird." Making paste paper is totally fun though, you just make a batch of paste and then mix it with different acrylic paints and then basically just finger paint with it on nice paper. I went wild making fork lines on most of them. . . not that you can even tell, because this is not a great picture. Anyway. Funtimes.


This is a close-up of one of my favorite sheets. I always end up doing things in the red/pink/gold range and I really like it. Which is weird, because those are not what I'd call my favorite colors. Maybe I need to stop lying to myself.

Okay well so...I guess that is it? Tomorrow I will hopefully finish Book#1...although even as I say that I doubt it, because it always takes longer to do all the finishing up crap than you think it will. But hopefully I will at least get it COVERED tomorrow, and then do the last fly leaf/paste down stuff over the weekend or on Monday. I've gotten pretty far with Book#2 and #3. Next thing to do on #2 is headbands, so maybe I'll take a break tomorrow and do that if all the leather shenanigans get too obnoxious. #3 doesn't even have boards attached yet, so there's a ways to go for him. I haven't even planned out what leather I'm going to give him yet. Hmm. My goal is to make 4 books before I go home, so I probably should at least cut some paper for Book#4!
A final thought--and this is actually something interesting, get excited: So, one of the adhesives we use in binding and conservation is this stuff called Methyl Cellulose. Mom and Dad might even notice that I just got a bag of it in powder form from an online vendor, and probably I just left it on the kitchen counter and forgot to take it up to my studio! Anyway, it is this chemical glue and you use it to size paper or soak the shiz out of old book spines or to glue stuff to other stuff, but guess what OTHER use it has?? According to people in my class, McDonald's uses it to THICKEN THEIR MILKSHAKES! Which sounds like a joke, right? That is totally what I thought but then they kept talking like they were serious and I was like, Wait for reals? And they said, yes, for reals. That is why it is so readily available for bookbinders to use--it is profitable for whoever makes this stuff to keep on making it, because they can sell it to freaking McDonalds. So. Anyway. An apocryphal-sounding factoid that I choose to believe cuz I think it's funny. And I'm going to stop writing things now, because obviously the leather shavings have entered my bloodstream and turned me crazy and I should stop inflicting it on the my-blog-reading public. Apologies.

a sideways apology for the lack of robotically regular posts

2011-09-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

So, I realize that I have been taking fewer pictures and posting less this time in Telluride than I did before. Mostly I realized that when Mom pointed it out to me indignantly. :) I think it's just since I've done this fine binding stuff before, it's less like OH MAN GUYS CHECK THIS OUT, it's more like, Oh yeah I remember that, cool. Also, the pictures I have tried to take of books I'm working on have all come out real fuzzy and crappy. However I swear in blood that once I have any finished products I will photograph the shiz out of them for your viewing pleasure. In fact, I went rogue last night and made some paste paper, and maybe I will take pics of it this morning and show you guys. WE'LL SEE.

Some pictures of the cemetary on the other side of town.

2011-09-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

So, one of my favorite places in Telluride that I discovered in May is the cemetery. Which is kind of weird I guess? But it's funny, in a place that is so surrounded by like THE GLORY OF NATURE EVERYWHERE YOU TURN, Telluride is a hard place to just find a nice piece of grass to sit down on. So, one day whilst walking down Main street past the main drag, I came upon the delightful little cemetery, and discovered that it is the best place around to sit on some grass and read your book or write in your journal or just look around at how frigging pretty the dang mountains are. So. Here is some proof.

This is a funny sign on the front gate. In case you thought that there was nothing hazardous anywhere in all of creation...think again.

This is the pretty front gate and little stone stairway leading up to it. I think they must have put up the flags for 9/11? I don't remember them being there before.

There's this random rock I sit on about half way up the hill. This is what the view down the hill looks like from my little perch.

And this is the view up the hill. Something funny--I have never been further up the hill than this rock. I am a ridiculous excuse for an explorer.

WEIRD/FUNNY STORY: So, I sat on my cemetery rock for a while, read my book, looked at the pretty mountains, etc. Then some lady with a dog went walking past and the dog ran up to me and pooped at my feet. Which isn't even the weird funny part, although, um, maybe it should be. Anyway, I figured that about ruined the tranquility of THAT glorious moment, so I left. As I'm going down those stairs outside the gate, this CAT comes out of the foliage and is all purring and getting up in my business, like walking through my legs and whatnot. So I just keep walking, cross the street, and start walking back to the main drag, and this cat keeps following me! He kept purring and purring and if I stopped he would come up and rub up on my legs and wait for me to go on! It was so weird! So, for like 3 or 4 blocks I mysteriously became The Cat Whisperer. It got to the point where I was like, shoot, this is what people mean when they say some animal just followed them home so they put out a bowl of milk and now it is their pet! Which was flattering in a way, because I guess I am so desperate for approval that the passing fancy of a CAT is enough to make me feel all warm and fuzzy....but anyway. My theory is that the cat is imbued with the spirit of a long dead mining town settler who noticed me spending time with their grave and chose me to take care of their unfinished earthly business or wreck their vengeance upon the land or something. Updates to follow, when and if the undead cat returns with a more clearly stated purpose.

Back in Telluride!

2011-09-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of my bedroom this time around. It is tragically a bit less whimsical and perfect than last time, but it is still nice and always fun to experience new things. This time I am sharing a condo with Susan, a woman I met in May at a class but never had much opportunity to talk to or get to know. Turns out she is a DELIGHT, and it is a constant struggle not to imitate her lovely soft Tennessee accent.

So there are two beds in my little loft room and at first i thought that meant we were sharing the tiny loft! But instead there gets to be one bed for sleeping, and another bed for all my shiz to go on. It is truly perfect.Notice also the terrifying wall art. Not sure who thought terrifying tribal masks were a good idea.

So. That is the living situation. I spent all day yesterday in planes and airports getting here, and I am still pretty exhausted, 8 hours of sleep notwithstanding! This morning I woke up early and went to the grocery store to get some provisions and then had to head off to class--my condo place is clear on the other side of town, so I have to give it about 30 minutes to walk to class and not have to run or worry about beign late.
The weather is pretty fabulous--dramatically overcast and sometimes rainy but then sometimes the clouds clear and it's a gorgeous blue sky. Basically it is the ideal autumnal experience. Woo!
Well, now I am on a couch at lunch time while other folks are sitting around the table talking. Can't decide if I should feel bad for being asocial or if I can give myself a pass for the day. Hmmmmmmmmmm yep, woot woot, it is a time to party with me, my book, and my bowl of Top Ramen. Pop pop!

a note from the great beyond

2011-08-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

'Sup y'all. Remember when I blogged? Me neither. It was too long ago.

Hey but so you'll still help me out, right? All you people who no longer check my blog cuz I haven't blogged in so long? GOOD. Because I have a stack of like fifty of these:

and a handy dandy silkscreen, and it seems to me that the twain must surely meet. But I don't know in what manner the meeting should be. Give me ideas mkay? Thanks.

Pictures from the PENULTIMATE DAY of bookbinding class!!

2011-05-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the severe lack of bloggitude this week you guys; it has been a strange mix of being really busy but also not having anything to really show or talk about. I think today is the first time I've taken pictures all week, because finally things have progressed to a stage of looking cool enough to make me think to take a picture! Without further ado, here is my first ever original leather binding:

I still haven't finished all the shenanigans that go on on the inside with the endpapers and whatnot, but from the outside it is totally done! Woo!!

Below are SOME of the other books I've made this week. The thing about this class is that since there are so many students, it takes a lot of time for everyone to be in the right place so that Don can teach us the next thing, so there's been a lot of time here and there in between actual steps on the official books for me to fill up with fun side projects, mostly pulled together with scraps of things and whatnot. What's funny is that now I think about it, I'm probably more proud of my profusion of little scrappy books than I am of the official leather class books.

Anyway. The instrument of torture appearing below is called a Scharf-Fix. Are we surprised that it is German? Not at all. It is supposedly a quick fast easy nice way of paring leather in a jiffy. In reality, it is the devil incarnate.

You feed your leather through the narrow slot in the front of it and the blade affixed on top shaves off your leather. Theoretically. Usually it either does nothing or it rips your leather in half. What a champ, right? The only cool thing is that I rigged it up on my table with that bucket hanging down from it to catch all the shizzy leather shavings which usually litter the floor and every surface within a twelve mile radius, so I got to feel clever. Woo!

Here is Emilie, struggling mightily with the beast.

My table was so much messier than this for most of the day, but during our dinner break I managed to pack up a lot of stuff and clear and organize, and now it's liveable again.

So, what is the deal with me leaving here the day after tomorrow? Mostly I'm really happy--Mom is flying in tomorrow and then we are going to drive back to Utah over the weekend, taking the most scenic of routes available and having many exploratory adventures. I'm REALLY excited!! I'm excited to be in the real world again and around friends and family and not be all isolated and cut off from humanity. Also I think it will be nice to have a break from 24 hour a day bookbinding, so I can get some perspective on life and remember that leather paring and hinge repair and double raised cords are not in fact the only things that exist in the world. On the other hand, I have gotten really really used to 24/7 bookbinding, all books, all the time, and I'm worried I'll have something like culture shock when I return to normal life and spend most of my time driving around city streets and holding babies and things instead of sewing and gluing paper.

But ok so I've tried to think of things I will actually miss from Telluride:
-Emilie
-access to gloooooorious equipment like board shears and finishing presses
-my sweet bedroom in this house

And the good thing is that two out of three of those are not going to be gone forever, and as Meatloaf so eloquently states, two outta three ain't bad. It's really only this house that I'm leaving forever, because assuming I come back here for later classes I'm going to try to find somewhere cheaper to stay, probably with Emilie. Equipment-wise, I am going to be a)searching eBay and suchlike to try to find deals on smaller equipments like finishing presses and so forth, and for big heavy duty cast iron nonsense like floor presses and board shears, there are places all around that let you pay for access to things like that--places like the San Francisco Center for the Book, to name the only one I know for sure about, but use as proof that there must be more all around! SO, to conclude, bookbinding tools and equipment we have always with us, and it's not like you never see your bookbinding friends ever again after bookbinding class is over. So, I need no longer have even the least mixed of mixed feelings: I can bask in undiluted happiness at soon getting to have Mom adventures and have a rest from workshopping. Woo!

COVERING: You Guys It Is DRAINING.

2011-05-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is the set up for finally attaching the leather to the dang book. It is crazy town; you have to have all this stuff ready so that the insanity is reduced once you actually get stuck in. I didn't get any pictures of the actual process because um I was very busy at the time. You glue a gluetrastrophy of glue onto the leather and then put it on your book and then spend the next like 30-40 minutes MASSAGING it into the way you want it You have to make sure everything is smooth andn wonderful and it stretches naturally so you have to make sure it doesn't stretch too much and you have to fold it over the edge of the spine which is when I thought I was going to KILL A MAN because it is so weirdly hard and stressful, and you have to do all the shaping at the head and tail which I never really had a good idea in my head of what it was supposed to look like so I was sort of doing whatever Don said but not knowing what it was really supposed to look like.....anyway it was crazy. BUT now I am done and I have leather bound my first book ever!!!

No worries it is not done yet--on Monday I'm gonna learn how to do the paper on the front and all the rest of the finishing touches to make it finished and perfect. PHEW.

NO PICTURES: Why Even Bother?

2011-05-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, I did not take a SINGLE picture today. What gives?!? you demand; in response, I can only sigh and make meaningless, fumbling hand gestures of excuse and apology. But for reals I think it is because there was nothing very photogenic going on today. We did some spine lining, which is gluing paper and stuff to the spine, and board lining, which is gluing paper to the board, and some sanding, to make the boards a nice smooth shape, and then some leather paring, which is intense and crazy but not much to look at. But do you want to know the BIG DEAL thing that happened? I will tell you. First, I lay the scene:

It is past 7 pm, in a bookbinding studio. Numbers have dwindled, only a handful of students remain. Among them, our lovely heroine Katy stands at her work bench, skillfully paring a bevel into her leather spine piece. Next to her, her daring friend Emilie, doing some leather paring of her own. Along comes Don Glaister, master bookbinder, all around artistic genius, and snappy dresser. He points out that Emilie is holding her knife funny, she replies that that's the way we learned to do it in our last class. He admits that it seems to be working fine, and moves on. I show him my pared pieces, heart all aflutter, certain he will tell me that I have been doing it all wrong. Instead, quote: "I'm in the hot shot corner, with the two of you who sit next to each other [other people sit kitty corner at their shared tables but Emilie and I sit side by side facing the same way], and are friends, and are both doing an excellent job."

Dear reader, did I jump up and down and scream in delight? No, because I wanted to look cool and collected in front of Don. But did I FREAK OUT WITH JOY inwardly and not stop giggling for the next half hour of REALLY confident-feeling leather paring? PERHAPS DEFINITELY YES. We spent that next half hour humming "Highway to the Danger Zone" and deciding who was Maverick and who was Goose. Granted, we spent a lot of time alluding to Top Gun anyway because of a side project I'm playing with involving a Top Gun VHS I got from the Free Box, but still. It could not have been more perfect. Now when I go to my list of life goals and aspirations, I can put a little check next to "Become a bookbinding hotshot." YES.

Endbands=not as bad as I thought, in fact kind of fun to do!

2011-05-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

So, here is a completed endband! Shoot, just realized I took no progress pictures, so there's no way to describe really how they are made, just um....just admire them in wonderment, ok?

So this is what it looks like from the spine. Basically what happens is that you put your cord or whatever across the top of the pages (that white strip hanging off the sides) and then you take pretty silk thread and wrap it around the thread a bunch, and periodically stab it down through the text block and out through the spine, which is why there are those threads going down the spine. The whole purpose of endbands is to make a support for the leather that will eventually be going around the head of the book, since the pages are lower than the cover boards, the end bands make up the difference in height and give the leather something to lean on. Maybe that made sense, I don't know.

This is the beautiful marbled paper I've been eying for weeks and finally decided to jsut buy today. I am going to use it for the cover paper of the book I'm working on now--if the endband pictures were better quality you would be able to see that i chose thread colors that compliment this marbled paper quite nicely!

It snowed on and off all day which was kind of a bummer, but there was a beautiful cloudy sunset when I walked home so I guess it was all worth it :)

Laced-In Boards

2011-05-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

So, the thing about the books we're making in this class is that they're different from any book I have ever made before. The big differnce is that these books have 'laced in' covers, as opposed to 'case' covers like i have always done in the past. Lace-in means that when you sew up the book you sew cords or tapes into the spine (as shown before like all during the sewing structures class) and THEN you use the tail ends of those cords to attach the cover boards directly to the text block. What you do is you punch holes in the boards, and then, wait for it, LACE IN the cords! So, here is what it looks like from the front:

That white flap is just some Japanese paper you glue to the spine to consolidate and strengthen it. You cut some shallow grooves in the board where the cords are going to go over it so that they're more or less flush with the board and thus bumps in the cover are minimized when you go and cover all this with leather and paper. More information: the front cover is marked with an "R" to stand for 'recto' and there is a "V" on the back for 'verso'--usually I just write "front" and "back" on my boards to keep it all straight but Don said he always does recto and verso, because you may as well be a condescending jerk where possible. Obviously, Don is AWESOME.

This is what it looks like on the inside of the cover--you untwist the cords as much as humanly possible and comb them to get rid of as much loose fiber as humanly possible, then you splay them out and glue them down and pound on them with a hammer to get them as smooth and level as humanly possible. Turns out bookbinding is all about getting things to make as few and tiny bumps as human freakingly possible.

Here's my table now, with Emilie moved in to the other side of it. It's working out remarkably well-- I don't feel cramped at all, even though there's twice the number of people around as there have been in other classes. We've got the counter right behind us, which helps of course, but all in all it's just kind of fun to have all the different people around and lots of activity going on. The studio has become really high energy and so far it's been a blast.

Tomorrow the first thing we are going to do is weave headbands, which strikes TERROR to my very soul, because though I learned I think two different ways of sewing headbands in my little BYU class, I have barely done one since because it is a pain and annoying and tangly and usually ends up ugly and knotty and awful. So um, woo hoo! Now I get to show an ugly knotty mess to a really well respected, totally amazing and awe-inspiring master book binder! Hooray!!! :)

catching up on the catch up train

2011-05-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

This is what I have been doing with a lot of the scrap paper I've got laying around or the edges that get cut off text blocks when you're making them all perfectly even. I take home the little bits and sew them into tiny books whilst watching fun shows in bed or something. I did these last week, when it was also a way of blowing off conservation steam. The thing about conservation is that like everything you do feels like the end of the world--like, oh shoot, if I cut this wrong or glue this wrong or look at this wrong I will have RUINED SOMETHING OLD UGGGHHHHH so it's kind of nice to unwind by just absolutely messing around and not having to care about how wonky and silly things turn out.

Remember how I said the board shear is like a paper cutter on steroids? Yes well I don't even KNOW about the drugs hardcore enough to make a paper cutter into a GUILLOTINE--probably like some eighteenth century laudanum or something, since it is called a freaking GUILLOTINE. But oh man it is amazing. It is a machine of beauty and delight, and one that makes me feel for my fingers just LOOKING at it, because this machine could mess me up like DANG without even thinking about it. This picture is when Brenda was showing me how you work it--you slide your paper down there and then turn that wheel her hand is on to lower a crazy heavy weight down on it, and then when it's all set up you pull down on that second lever behind the one she's holding (you have to release the SAFETY first, which is totally hard core and also really reassuring because if it weren't for that i really would be too scared to touch this thing) and then down comes this sharper-than-sharp guillotine blade that cuts clean through ANYTHING you put down there. Like, it cuts through a whole book in a single bound. IT IS AMAZING.

OKAY so here is what you've all been waiting for: The History of the Scandinavian Mission!! Now, I felt like maybe it was a bit of a cop out binding it this way, but both Renate and Brenda said that this is what they would do, and you don't get much more legit than that. So, what I did was an Adhesive Binding! It is where you basically just glue all the sheets together, no sewing involved. It's basically how they make just about all modern books these days--look at the spine of the book closest to you right now and I can 85% guarantee that it was adhesive bound. So, it's really quite simple to do--you put the book in a finishing press like this (after straightening all the pages obsessively so that they are lined up perfectly[also after going through the individual pages of the book to make sure they are all in order and facing the right way, which is good that I checked cuz there were two or three out of order!]) and then you basically just cover the spine in glue. I used the 'double fan' method, which means that when putting on the glue I first pushed all the pages in one direction, and then in the other, so that some glue got into the tiniest margin of the paper along the spine so that it's all really glued together, instead of being like a notepad where pages tear off easily because they're just glued on at their very edge. Make sense? Sort of? Cool.

This is Scandinavia after I glued it out. It had to sit and dry for a long time. The next step is going to be rounding the spine so it looks like a nice proper book and then casing it back into a cover. Since my new class started and there's lots of new things going on I think I'm going to wait to finish this guy off for a bit.

Here's British Synonymy with the fancy gold lines at the head and tail--which I HAND TOOLED, which is not really a big deal I guess and also I did a really crappy job of, which luckily you can't see in this picture. It's remarkably hard to make a straight line and apply even pressure to a little hand tooling tool. I think we're going to do some more tooling in my class now, so I'll try to explain it more and get pictures of the process as the opportunity arises.

I spent time Friday prepping some books for future resewing--This is the Deseret Sunday School Songbook from the St Johns Ward that Gramma Joyce lent me. It was falling apart pretty majorly so I pulled all the pages and then went through ironing out all the folds and wrinkles, of which there were many! I think the resewing is going to have to wait til I get back home--with the conservation part of my classes concluded, I am having to clear the decks for new things! I'm glad though to have things already in the pipeline to do at home so I don't have too much culture shock when I leave the land of constant book binding.

On Sunday I drove up to Montrose to go to Sacrament Meeting so I would stop feeling like such a heathen, :) The weather was gorgeous and I had a really lovely drive. People at church were nice too! I was really glad I went.

Here's a really bad picture of what I did today--what you're supposed to notice is the shape of the spine, that it is all roundy with bent out places on the ends. That's what it's supposed to look like when you 'rond' and 'back' a book, which thing I have never before done because I've just stuck to coptics and flatbacks when I've made books on my own. But as I am sure you will now notice in your everyday life, most hard backed books have rounded spines and where the cover and spine meet and there is that joint, the pages splay out all weird. You accomplish that by a lot of manipulation with your fingers and your bonefolder and with a HAMMER. No joke, you put this in a finishing press and just pound the heck out of the sides of the spine to get then to bend that way. You call that bent part the shoulder of the book. I actually took this picture before I was all the way done; I showed it to Don (new teacher, super awesome) and he said my shoulders needed more definition so I took it back to the press and pounded away some more until the angle was more intense. Having never made books like this before I still think it looks kind of weird and artificial, but it is quite The Thing in Fine Binding so I'm going to have to get used to it for a while at least.

Oh hey more pictures of books woo!

2011-05-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is the set up for when you pare leather, which is when you use a weird shaped knife (as pictured above) to shave down the back of your leather to make it fit onto a book better. You're supposed to bevel off the edges especially for where they get turned under and whatnot so that it's less lumpy. What I have learned: I hate leather. And I also love it. I...I am very emotionally confused with regard to leather. On the one hand it looks amazing and it's so smooth and nice and fancy and it's actually kind of fun to pare it down when you're in the zone and not messing up.

...but when you do mess up it is AWFUL. And ok actually that big slice in the center i sort of did on purpose after I'd already screwed up in less noticeable ways, so I was just messign around to see what other kind of damages could happen. but anyway, yes, it is hard to control the paring and not take out massive accidental chunks and have to start all over again which is really really lame. so...leather and I , we have some issues to work out.

Ok so but after I figured out the leather and pared it down jsut right and attached it to my cover boards, Brenda decided to use it as an example for how you do Titling, which we weren't realy meant to cover but we did anyway, and it is really cool! This machine is called a quick print, and that bar in the front can hold up to like 4 or 5 lines of type, and so you position your cover (or whatever) it the right place and then pull down on the lever and it presses the type into the leather (or whatever) Oh and also we were doing it with gold leaf ( I don't know if you can do it with regular printing ink or anything---like many things in this class, I understand enough to go step by step through the one process, but I have no real idea of the greater issues or theories at work here. which....kind of sucks.) But ANYWAY what is awesome is that we used gold leaf so you jsut have this little piece of gold foil-stuff and you put it down between your book and the type and press it down and the type is heated and...yeah, you know, i have no freakign clue how ti works, at all, but the result is:

A title! Woo! This book I've been working on belongs to the lovely Jennifer Ricks, who I hope will be pleased with the results! Brenda said that tomorrow we'll add some more decorative gold leafy ness--some lines or something i think. Anyway, we'll all see!

This is the stack of books that I've rebacked this week. I'm not really sure how I feel about rebacking yet. I mean, it is kind of like magic, and that is really great. Maybe it's just that I'm still really really bad at it. That is probably the cause of my emotional reservations.Tomorrow we're having our little grading meetings which is going to be lame. Whatever. The next two weeks are going to be Fundamentals of Bookbinding, which I think will be exciting and great. I'm excited to do just straight bookbinding, without the conservation aspect. It'll be a nice change of pace. There's going to be TWELVE people in the class so we'll all have to share tables--Emilie and I are going to consolidate ourselves into one table but haven't yet decided if I'm moving to her place or she's moving to mine :)

Hooray blogger is working again!

2011-05-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

I felt weirdly disconnected from the outside world yesterday because Blogger wouldn't let me do a new post. What is the purpose of my life if not to take pictures of it and release them into the ether with the forlorn imagination that other people are looking at them? ...However, this is the only picture from yesterday worth posting, and SHOCKER: It is a picture with me in it! Emilie took my camera and took a shot of our side of the studio from the stairs. There's me, obviously, and in front of me is Mei and in the back, that blob with grey hair is Louise. Woo!

Reback Attack

2011-05-11T20:53:00.000-07:00

Before I say anything else, here is a link to the AAB blog, where there is a picture of Brenda my teacher, and if you scroll down the last picture of the post is my friend Emilie in the foreground and then me very tiny and fuzzy in the background.

In other news, this is what it looked like this afternoon after it snowed and snowed and snowed and in fact I believe is still snowing even as I write this:

It has snowed for over 24 hours! Hey, remember how it is May 11? That...that is pretty funny. It snowed, I wanna say at LEAST 10 inches, but it keeps melting even as it continues to snow, so it is hard to say. Anyway. Crazy.
Okay so here are some bad quality pictures of things I've been working on:

This is the before picture of the spine of this random book I got at an antique store for ten bucks. It is a translation of a Erich Maria Remarque novel into Danish. Maybe Grampa Dee will find it in his stocking this year, who knows :) Anyway, this picture is to show you that there is a big chunk of spine missing at the top, above the reddish part. You see? Big chunk missing?

Oh HO! Here is the big missign chunk ingeniously replaced with Japanese paper, which I SOMEHOW managed to get a huge paste stain all across so it looks awful, but I don't know how to fix it, so we all have to make a sacred pact to pretend tha tthat big dark line doesn't exist. Okay? Okay. Now that we have taken that pact, isn't it IMPRESSIVE?? Seriously I still feel like it is magic when you can just fill in a big hole like that and make the book WHOLE again. It's really really really cool.

Here's the title page of another work in progress, a copy of The Articles of Faith on loan from Gramma Kay and Grampa Dee. This one might not get finished for a while because I have to resew it before I can rebind it. I pulled and dry cleaned it yesterday, and sometime or other I will find time to resew it and then reback it! Also because there is so little of the spine left Brenda said to just replace it all entirely, and I'm not sure how that goes down exactly, so when I find out I will tell you all about it.

Here's a picture of The Talisman that sort of illustrates how you go about rebacking things. It involves a whole lot of cutting things up, which seems counter intuitive but generally it seems to work out in the end. What happened with this book was that I carefully cut the cover fabric away from the board, as shown, and then slid in a piece of Japanese paper (we use Japanese paper for everything because it...is just really great, I guess. No but for reals it is made of long fiber'd fibers and is really strong and durable and flexible and all kinds of good things. Which is why we use it ALWAYS.) So anyway you get a big piece of Japanese paper, glue it down in that slit and glue the cover fabric back over it, then do the same thing with the other cover, and basically you have the spine of a book all set up. Then you reattach the text block and glue the original spine piece back down over your new Japanese paper spine and you're basically done.


Here

Here's a fun project Grampa Dee will recognize! I've asked all my different teachers and more experienced classmates what to do about this book, and finally I have found a really great answer, but it is going to remain a SECRET until I actually do it so that there can be a grand photo unveiling. Suffice it to say, this book consists of several hundred single sheets, so for a while I thought I was going to have to go through and guard EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. Which I was totally going to do. But it would have taken about ten years. But a new solution has been found. GET EXCITED.

This is what my bench looked like yesterday. CHAOS. I took a break and cleaned and organized it all up though, so now it is possible to work and get things done. As Emilie said, now my table is next to godliness.

Remember how I mentioned the Free Box a while ago, and how it is like a thrift store but it is on the street and everything is free? That is where I got this amazing Timbuk2 messenger bag! ...I just googled around trying to find what these things generally cost but I couldn't find the same model, but basically, these are totally legit bags! Anyway I totally love it and it is more fun to carry around than my recyclable grocery bag. :)

Now I am a Real Bookbinder: I have multiple bone folders. TECHNICALLY I have 2 bone folders and 1 Teflon folder. The big one on the right is my old classic, but today I bought the teeny tiny one on the left to be my sharp turn-in making bone folder, and the Teflon one in the middle just because....I couldn't resist. I've wanted one since I knew they existed. What could I do? The amazing thing about the Teflon folders is that with normal bone folders when you rub down a paper with it it burnishes on something it burnishes it, which is great if you mean to burnish something but kind of awful if you don't, so you always have to be careful and put scrap paper between your folder and whatever you want to crease or put pressure on or whatever. BUT because Teflon is magic, it doesn't burnish! So I can rub down anything I want with nary a care in the world. It still feels kind of sinful to rub directly on something, I can't believe that it's allowed!

Um well so this evening after class I got a little loopy and decided to mess around with acrylic paints and try my hand at amateur paper marbling. As you can see, I met with limited success, but it was still pretty fun. What's even more fun is trying to think what I'm going to do with all these ridiculously colored scrap papers. Something awesome, obviously. Anyway, tomorrow Jennifer and I are going to play around with making paste paper, which will undoubtedly be more successful.

Catch up times! Woo!

2011-05-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

Hey so it turns out I haven't blogged in several days! Gasp! Sorry to leave you hanging on the edge of your seats there. Let's see, when last we spoke I had just gotten back from my fun mountain drive. Gosh, that was fun. The whole break was a lot of fun, really. I spent a lot of time reading and generally lolling about, and also a lot of time at the studio, and a lot of time having fun with Emilie. We went to the local movie theater, which is one screen in a building on main street and just dingy enough to be a lot of fun. We hung around the book store, and went on walks up in Mountain Village with her dog Henry. I got over my aversion to dog hair (of necessity). We raided the Free Box CONSTANTLY, which is why I have a shelf in my room now full of weird ridiculous clothing, lots of which doesn't even fit me it was just too great to not take since it was for FREE. Also Emilie hit upon the brilliant idea of taking random clothes just for their fabric and then backing it with Japanese paper to make it book cloth, so actually just tonight I tried that out with some RED PLEATHER PANTS I found. IT TOTALLY WORKED. So, anyway, thus passed away the lovely break, and now new class is upon us. First day was today; the class is Cloth and Leather Binding Conservation. Basically it is about when you have an old book wherethe corners are all raggedy or there is a split down the front hinge where the cover meets the spine or in any other way the cover is messed up, broken, or falling off. Pretty much after one day I now know how to fix ALL of those problems. ...Which is pretty great. The funny thing about this class is the way the teacher set it up--it's a new teacher by the way, her name is Brenda and she works at a commercial conservation lab in North Carolina. Anyway, the thing is we spent all day today (LITERALLY all day, well, CLASS day, but still) sitting around her table in the front while she went through the whole process of cover repair from beginning to end. The WHOLE PROCESS. So, it's good in that I now have seen every step of the way and know the end from the beginning. But it's also sort of bad in that I haven't actually DONE hardly any of it so far, and it was a LOT of information to take in so we're all sort of overwhelmed and dazed. I had to take a walk after class (and call and vent to Mom and Becca) after class to start processing all the information and calm down about it--I can't really describe the emotional state that happens when you're in a small town alone for weeks and weeks doing intensive study into things you don't really know all that much about. It's really great and fun and amazing and wonderful, but it's also just kind of a lot to take in sometimes, and I wish I could freeze time, teleport to Provo or California, and sit on a nice couch and just veg with people I know for a while. BUT, plenty of time for that after May 27, right? Right. Okay so now on to the pictures and then sleepytimes.

this is the sweet setup I had going over the weekend when I was still full of free time and doing whatever I wanted. I went online and learned this new binding technique called "Secret Belgian Binding" so I spent one of my afternoons in bed practicing it on a bunch of books.

This is the first Secret Belgian I did---I'm not sure if there's much point in explaining how it all works, suffice it to say, it is cool because it is a non-adhesive binding (meaning you just sew the text block and cover boards together, without slathering glue all over things and whatnot) but unlike the other non adhesive bindings I know which leave you with the spine exposed, with this one you actually sew the pages into the spine, more or less....anyway, it doesn't really matter, the point is it was new and fun to try out and play with.

This is a new entry in the Equipment I Love category--the ever loving Board Shear. Basically it is like a paper cutter on steroids. It cuts paper and board and probably anything in the whole world and it is so straight and clean and wonderful....I LOVE IT. It's one of those things you learn to do without when you've just working from home, cutting binders board with an Xacto knife and a ruler, but it is SO glorious to use when available.

a perk--this board shear is from wonderful wonderful Copenhagen! I sort of liked that when I noticed.

remember when I talked about guarding a while back? Well, I have a MOTHER of a guarding project going on the side, which I haven't even started yet because it is so freaking much guarding, but I thought I'd show you the box of guarding strips I have started to prepare in advance of the big push. I'll explain about the project once I've actually started, STAY TUNED.

Here's the first book I am practicing rebacking on--that is what they call what I'm doing in the class right now, because you are basically taking off the original cover, filling in all the missing and broken bits, and then replacing the original parts again. I know that makes not much sense; I'll take pictures once I'm actually stuck in and explain the process in all the gory detail I can muster. Anyway, the book is The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott, and I found it at Pioneer Book, so I don't have to worry about ancestral hauntings if I screw this one up. What a RELIEF!

Day Whatever: I totally lost count

2011-05-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here's Pelham, almost all the way sewn up! I did him on double cords since it is my FAVORITE and it was a really good time.

This picture does not adequately describe the way in which the sun absolutely blinds me if I forget and try to walk home from the studio in like the 5-7 pm window. it is AWFUL. I guess really it's just funny to be in a place where I guess main street runs EXACTLY east-west and there is nothing there to block the blinding sun. Um anyway, i get the feeling as i write this that it is probably the kind of thing that is only interesting to me, also it means that i just need to remember to bring stupid sunglasses with me to class. Problem:potentially solved.

So, sewing class ended on Tuesday, and next class doesn't start til next Monday, so yesterday and the rest of the week are just empty and clear for me to have fun and do what i want. Mostly that has consisted of finding places to read my book and going to the studio and washing the other volume of Pelham, but this afternoon I decided that maybe i needed to get out of town for a bit, so I took Chester out for a little exercise. Since I drove in originally from the west, and I've driven over the pass to the north, and there are sheer unbroken mountains to the east, I decided to go south! I crossed Lizard Head Pass, which is about 10,000 ft elevation, and then went on for about 60 miles to see the next two towns on the map, Rico and Dolores. It was a really fun drive! I took a lot of pictures out the car window, here are some that worked out ok.

That is Lizard Head Peak. Totally wacky, right? It looks fake!

this is after a while after you leave the San Juan National Forest and are cruising through a beautiful valley with the Dolores River always alongside.

This is the retirement estate I picked out for Dad and Mom. Not pictured: falling-down old timber out-buildings EVERYWHERE.

Day 8: My New Bookbinding Crush

2011-05-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

So it used to be that I only had crushes on my tools, like my water pen and my little birdy snips, but today I discovered another aspect of my one true love: Sewing on Double Cords. I LOVE IT. It is a really big shame that I probably can't describe the glory of it AT ALL but I will sort of try anyway I guess. So the thing is, when you sew up a book, what you do first is punch a bunch of holes in the folds of all the signatures, and then the sewing part is when you run your needle and thread up and down the folds, going in and out of the signature through the holes. Sort of make sense? Ish? Well, whatever. So, when you are sewing on like tape supports, the deal is that when you come out of the signature through the hole, you pass the needle over the tape, and then go back in through the next hole, easy peasy. When you sew on a single cord it's a bit different, because instead of just going over the cord into the next hole like you do with tape, instead, you come out a hole, wrap the thread completely around the cord, and then go back in through the SAME hole as you came out of. So far so good-ish? I'll pretend that this makes perfect sense and you are nodding your head vigorously. Okay, so then along comes DOUBLE cord, which means that before where there was just one tape or one cord, there are now TWO cords, just hanging out being confusing. So, what you do is you come out the whole, basically wrap around the two cords like a PRETZEL, and then go back in from whence you came. For some reason, it is SO FUN. What's even BETTER is that we were doing it "packed," which is when you wrap around the cords extra so the cord is completely covered with thread with no spaces. So it ends up that you come out of the hole, wrap around the cords pretzel style, and THEN wrap around them in a Figure 8! You guys I do not know why I am geeking out about this so much but for some reason I just LIKED it! So, above is a picture of my packed double cord sewing, which probably you can't see very well but that's ok. I'm sure I've captured the full amount of glory with my words; pictures would be redundant.

Okay so this is a picture of the two other kinds of sewing supports we've started learning about but haven't done a whole model with so far. Both the braidy looking thing and the tape lookign thing are both this kind of leather that I can't remember the name of, oh wait no-- "Alum-Tawed" is what it is called. Weirdest name ever, I have no idea what it is supposed to mean, but basically it is a thin strip of leatheryness. You treat it like it's double cord (woo!). The tapey looking one is just a piece of the leather with a slit cut in it that you sew through, so it's supposed to end up more flat than if you were using cord. The braidy one is similarly a slit piece of leather, but you twist the ends into the slit a few times so it gets all twisty and braidy looking. It ends up looking pretty much exactly like cords. Alum Tawed is cool because it is like the most medieval of sewing supports--Renate says you see it used a lot on wooden board covered books from really olden times. It kind of makes you feel like a monk to mess around with it, which is always a nice feeling to have in moderation.

This is what Bartlett looked like when I was sewing it up! As you can see I sewed it on tapes, so it was super simple and easy. Well, simple and easy except that I was freaking out the whole time because I was working on AN ACTUAL BOOK instead of a scrap model like normal times! It was pretty freaky but also really great once I finished! Here's what it looks like right now:

I'm excited for when I get to take the finishing class so I can get it back in its pretty cover!

Day Seven: Week One Completed! Picture times!

2011-05-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

First of all, it turns out my little ol' academy has a blog, and the most recent post has pictures of some of my classmates. You can get to it by clicking on this. There is a picture of Renate, Steve, Emilie, and Courtney, in...maybe that order? I'm not going to go check, you have to just guess. Cuz I'm a jerk.

So, today was the beginning of Sewing Structures class. It's going to run from today through Tuesday, and then from Wednesday to Monday I will be kicking around on my lonesome! This class is running so short because there are not as many people in it (2 of the men left, leaving the 4 women and 1 man) so Renate thinks we can get through everything more quickly and she can get home and back to work sooner. So, we are sewing intensively for 2 more days and then I will have ages and ages to lollygag around my empty house and work my tail off doing side projects at the studio. I'm going to try to wash at least one more book, which will be GREAT when no one else is there clogging up the sink and counter space, and then I guess I'll just be making new boosk for fun or doing more conservation stuff on the old books I brought--I'm going to need to ask Renate what I should do to each one before she goes, do not let me forget!!

Okay so here are some pictures of town and work:

read this plaque. then think of how long i stand in front of it singing raindrops keep falling on my head. EPIC.

favorite store front. full of leather and fur.


free box, where people dump stuff they don't want and then other people paw through it and take stuff they DO want. I've gotten a few books there so far.

lots of stickers, and the Galloping Goose sign (that's for you, Dad)

free school branded recycle bags! Woo!

Ok so this is what it looks like when you sew a book on tapes. Which sounds like 'book on tape' which is FUNNY. Haha! But um the thing is, in normal life, like when I am sewing a book for fun, I just sew it up all by myself because this is modern times. But in HISTORICAL bookbinding, and also other folks these days I guess just not me usually, you use some kind of 'sewing support,' either linen type tapes like these or cords (we're getting to that never fear) to give the spine extra support and help connect it to the cover. So basically you just sew it up like normal but you include these supports into the stitches so it all gets attached. I realize that is not a good explanation, but I also realize that I am not going to be able to actually explain how you sew up a book even just regular style without just doing it in front of you in real life, so we are all going to have to just be strong and move on.

Ok so THIS contraption was completely new and awesome to me. You use it when you sew onto cords, and it is really just cool because it LOOKS so cool, right? Right? Basically it just holds the cords in place for you all cool-looking-like and then you lay down the signatures and sew through them like normal. Just, when I normally am sewing on tapes or whatever I'm like throwing the loose tape ends over my shoulder and everything is getting tangled and awful, whereas with this awesome apparatus sewing on supports is a DREAM.

This is just a closeup so you can see how the spine looks with those cords sewn onto it. This is called a single raised cord binding, not to be confused with double raised cord or single or double RECESSED cord, all of which I think we will do tomorrow.

This is the next book I am working on. I spent my non-sewing time today pulling and cleaning and repairing this so that I can sew it tomorrow! It's relatively clean so it didn't need to be washed, and there was only a bit of guarding and tear fixing I had to do. Also it is really fun to work on because it is Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, so there's fun quick reading to do while I'm brushing off a page or gluing a fold. Also, it is BEAUTIFUL, and I'm excited for when I figure out the best way to clean and then reattach covers, which might not be til the FALL sessions which is lame but still....lots to look forward to.

these are some pages from Bartlett, so you can see how comparatively sparkling and whole they are. Pelham, I love you, but you really gave me a run for my money. PS Pelham was originally sewn with single recessed cords, but I think I'm going to be sewing him back together on single raised cords, hopefully tomorrow!


This is what my workbench looked like today, except I don't think this picture truly captures the chaos and horror resulting from doing sewing, dry cleaning, and repairs all basically at the same time. It was Ridiculous. Oh ps, those text blocks that I was sewing on tapes and cords int eh above pictures were just models-blank pages we made up just to practice on. Which is good, because now I won't do the silly mistakes on Bartlett and Pelham that I did on the models and had to go back and fix!

Day Five: Good times!

2011-04-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yikes you guys, it turns out I didn't take many pictures today! I guess I will tell you about the ones I did take, and then talk about my day with boring old WORDS. UGh.

Okay so this little doodad is called a water pen, and it is AWESOME. Pretty much it is...a water pen? The blue midsection holds water instead of ink, and the tip is a brush instead of a pointy pen tip or whatever, so basically it just helps you to really quickly and easily and cleanly make lines with water. You use it in repairs because when you cut the pieces of repair paper you want it to be a really fuzzy kind of cut, not straight and sharp, so you can have lots of fibers to overlap onto the paper. So, it's like when you are trying to rip a paper in half without scissors or something, so you just fold it back and forth and crease it and then sometimes lick it? Was that just me? Anyway, this cuts straight to the licking stage, and then you just rip it and it's perfect. This is me feeling like I am awful at explaining things, but whatever. I just bought it from the school supply closet and thought it deserved to be featured like my other favorite tools from yesterday.

This is what Pelham was looking like this morning. And still does really, there's just more of him. Big news: I am like 3 signatures away from being DONE with repairs! WOOOOOO!!! I still haven't learned the best and proper way to trim the repair paper, so that's why there's all the uneven white papers coming off at the edges and out of the fold. I'll have to ask Renate how that's supposed to happen when our next class starts!

Okay, so things not pictured:
a)I had the little evaluation with Renate this afternoon, and it went pretty good! She said that she liked my enthusiasm for the work and that I didn't get all frustrated with having such a difficult first project. Also she said that I did a really good job with guarding along the folds. Woohoo! She said what I should work on is my repairs, which I totally agree with, because I sometimes didn't think through the kind of repair paper I was using enough, and some of them are pretty messy. It's totally true, so I am okay with it. :) Also she wants me to be more careful with general handling of the paper and such-- she thinks maybe I am too cavalier in the way I whip the paper in and out of the wash water and whatever. I see what she's saying, but I also know I'm going to have a harder time working on that. She has a specific way she likes you to hold the paper when it's wet and you're moving it from the tub to the counter or whatever and I just think it's awkward and unnecessary and dumb. But she's the Head Conservator at the Folger, so maybe I need to concede defeat here. :) Overall she gave me a 3.5, which I am fine with, and for 'homework' between classes (so, for the next 6-12 months pretty much ) is to pull and wash 2 more books and then to pull but NOT wash one book, but to do all the repairs. That's because when you don't wash a book but do repair it you have to be more careful with the repairs because the paste you use makes water marks and things, which doesn't happen when it's all already been all wet and whatever. Yeah, I don't completely understand that either, but I trust that it is tricky so she wants me to try to do that and not mess it up :)

b)We had a little end-of-the-class shindig at our house, Judy the director of AAB got us pizza and we all hung out for a bit. Before that I went with Emilie to her house to get her dog, so that he would not be left alone all night. Fun fact: I used to think Emilie lived in Durango, like 2 hours away, but in fact that is just where she like, LIVE lives; for the 5 weeks of classes she is subletting a condo in Mountain Village, which is like 20 minutes away. So anyway, we had a fun little car ride and chat and her dog has the rare distinction of being a dog I've decided I like, so that was fun and nice feeling. Then we came back to my house where everyone else already was gathering and had our pizza shindig, which was also a pretty good time. It was kind of startling to come in and have there be beer cans and wine bottles on the kitchen table, but I just went out to my car and brought in my 12 pack of cream soda and put it along side the other drinks and had a tasty time! The party lasted til like 8:30 (we are indeed a rowdy bunch!) and then the NEXT uncharacteristic thing happened (the first being a long but non-awkward car ride interaction with a still semi-stranger)---

c) I went out on the town with the other younger woman in the class, Courtney! People had been talking about wanting to check out the Telluride Off-Season Night Life, and I kind of thought about it but was maybe going to be too scared of new things, but then in the end I decided to go, so we went! Judy, who lives here year round, told us that the hip place all the younger kids went to was the Steaming Bean, a coffee shop about 3 blocks away that I pass on the way to class everyday. The only other place really open on the main street was the Last Dollar Saloon, which sometimes sounds rowdy when I pass it on my way home from class when I come home late. I assumed that's where we would end up, and I was getting all nervous about asking for a Coke at a SALOON, but when we passed it there were literally maybe 6 people inside, so it was not tempting to my companion. Instead we went to the apparently hopping youth hang out coffee shop, ...which also had about 4 other people in it. It....it was pretty funny. So but anyway we went in and Courtney asked about the local beers and the dude at the counter went on and on and I sort of smiled awkwardly and looked at the ceiling, and then when he asked what I wanted I asked if he would laugh if I asked for a hot cocoa, and he laughed and said that he was laughing, but it was still ok. So she took her beer and I took my really really good hot cocoa to a table and we sat and talked for probably like a half hour? Which was cool because usually it's hard to get much out of her, but she said the wine she'd had at dinner was so that she'd be better at talking to all of us so I guess it is to alcohol that I owe my thanks for having a fun night and getting to know my classmates and colleagues better. Huh.

Day Four: Some pictures of town and more of the same

2011-04-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

this is my house!

this is what the mountains looked like yesterday, when it just stopped snowing. Now the trees look more green than white, because there have been two whole days without snow..

This is what it looked like when I left the studio this evening after being there for ALMOST 12 straight hours. I'm wishing I'd stayed the extra 20 minutes to make it official, dang!

I guess this is kind of a dumb picture, since it's mostly dark, but anyway....this is what the main street looks like when I walk home at twilight-ish time, like tonight.

These are my favorite tools. From left to right: trusty old bone folder, that I've had since my BYU bookbinding class; then fancy paper spatula, then elegant MICRO spatula which if I had to pick would be my very MOST favorite tool lately because I am CONSTANTLY using it in the repairing process; then classy tiny bird scissors which are very sharp and snippy, then medical grade scalpel with #23 blade, which is slowly but surely edging out my old Xacto knife in my affections. It's just so MEDICAL. And SHARP.

These are some signatures after I finished what we call 'guarding,' which is what i talked about yesterday, with filling in old sewing holes and gluing strips of repair paper down the fold of the signature to strengthen it. PS, a signature is somewhere from 2-4 pages that are folded together, and a stack of those is what you sew together to make a book. My book here has 3 folded sheets per signature, so it makes 12 pages front and back. I keep meaning to count how many signatures there are all together...but it might be too depressing. Anyway, you can kind of see in this picture that there is a lighter strip along the fold on each signature--that is the repair paper that I glued on.

This is what my work station was looking like tonight after spending all day gluing tiny scraps and strips of paper down. It gets pretty messy pretty quick. The new thing we learned today is how to repair tears in paper. It is pretty tedious and awful, mostly because I'm just not good at it yet. With guarding it seemed more ok to not be too great at it and for the repairs to be visible, because it's all in the very fold of the paper so no one's going to really notice anyway, but with tears all up and down the pages it's rough because you have to be really careful to be as invisible as possible so it doesn't look stupid. So, I'm working on that. We'll see. Tomorrow is the last day of Paper Treatment class, so we are all having individual meetings with Renate to talk it over and then she gives you a SCORE from 1-5! I WAS NOT TOLD THERE WOULD BE GRADING. Which is for the best probably or I would have been freaking out all up in here. It feels so weird to be so unsure of myself--with most things I feel like I either know that I'm good or know that I'm not good, so I know what kind of feedback to expect and I'm ready for it and whatever. It's kind of crazy to be doing somethings so totally new and not know if she's going to say yes you are wonderful please accept me as your personal mentor, or oh hey um maybe you should not bother coming back for the advanced class in the fall. I have NO IDEA. So, I guess as with all things I just comes down to working hard and doing my best and all that and then seeing what happens. Woo!

Day 3: How long do you think until I lose track of the day number? I bet I make it til next Tuesday.

2011-04-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

This is how we rigged by pages for drying--so they are hang drying instead of laying flat on felt or blotter under weight. So far it works well when there is a fan circulating air all up in its business, but maybe not so great otherwise.

This is the big counter space. it is handy for when you are doing stuff with water or spraying nonsense that you don't want to get all over your workspace.

This is what the sink business looks like. The chair in the foreground is mine. Yay!

This is the little station where we mix up things with cool sounding names, like methyl cellulose and magnesium bicarbonate and ....gelatin. Woo! Those are things that we use either as adhesives, sizing (stuff you soak into the paper to stabilize it) or as deacidifier, (another thing you soak paper in to bring up the pH level ...a lot of my time is spent pretending I understand about acids and alkalies and pH levels and other such nonsense)

This is a comparison to show how good and clean my paper got with all that washing yesterday! The top paper is obviously what was washed, while the bottom is actually a page from the other volume of the novel I'm fixing up. I spent extra time in the lab tonight prepping that second volume for washing--I took off the cover, scraped the junk off the spine, and pulled the pages apart. I'm hoping that tomorrow night I can get the lab all to myself and do hard core washing and thereby be closer to completing the set.

So the big development today was learning how to mend tears in the paper. We are starting with holes and rips along the fold line; tomorrow we are learning about tears and losses in the rest of the paper. It's really pretty simple-- you tear off a piece of this special soft Asian paper (the tearing is important because you don't want a sharp, straight edge, you want there to be stray fibers and things that can blend into the original paper) and pretty much just glue it down over the hole or tear. Then you run over it with a tacking iron to set the paste and that's kind of it! The only reason it takes forever is that you need to fill in all of the original sewing holes, because we are going to sew it a different way (I don't really get the deal with that, but next week when we do sewing I assume it'll all come together) so you're tearing and gluing and ironing at least 9 holes per page (my book was sewn RIDICULOUSLY so there are way more holes than I even understand having), PLUS filling in all the random rips and things as shown above. So, it is simple but time consuming, which actually makes it one of my favorite things in the world. You just get in the zone and kind of space out as you do it and it's just cool. What is even COOLER is what is in the picture after this next one.

this is a picture of me using the tacking iron. riveting stuff, i know.

Ok so THIS is what I think is really great. This isn't a great picture, because it's kind of a 'during' picture rather than showing the finished product--anyway, it is just really miraculous and wonderful to repair a big hole in paper like there was at the bottom of this page. Most of the time we were just doing little sewing holes or whatever which was great and all, but pretty much invisible and I don't understand the point yet so it was kind of not as great. But things like THIS I think are SO COOL because it's immediately apparent that because of what I've done, these papers are going to stay together and be strong and someone will actually be able to READ and ENJOY this book, and not worry about it crumbling away. SO SATISFYING! Tomorrow I'll take more pictures of parts like this after the repair paper is trimmed down and it's all folded in a signature and looks legit. I thought it was going to be a bummer repairing all the paper, since my book more than anyone elses was pretty torn up and needs a LOT of repairs, but now I'm kind of pumped because I just think it's fun!

Day 2: We Straight Washin' This Shiz

2011-04-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

this is what the studio looks like from my table looking forward. behind me is the giant sink and lots of counter space, which we used the h out of today.

this is what the other side of the studio looks like. there are stairs to the left, if you can see them--they lead to upstairs (duh) where there is a kitchenette ant student lounge with lots of couches.

today started with dry cleaning, which is when you take a special kind of chemical sponge and wipe and blot and throw it at the paper to get off all the dust and dirt and other sundry surface shiz. It is important that you get this stuff off before you wet wash because otherwise the dust nonsense can enmesh itself into the paper and then it will just always look shizzy. It took... about an hour and a half? to wipe down every page, trying especially to get off the obviously groudy parts while not accidentally rubbing up the print or abrading the paper.

So then it was time to prep it all for wet washing, by laying the pages out flat between sheets of this polyester nonsense which felt basically like interfacing you use for sewing. Then you spray down every page with a blend of water and ethanol so that it won't freak out when it gets submersed in water. Oh, before this happens you spot check the paper, by dropping a little drop of water and then ethanol on it to see if it makes the ink bleed or whatever. Mine was totally fine though, woo!

Then you fill a tray with water and just straight dump that paper in it! I still can't really get my mind around how this works and doesn't result in a pulpy mess--it has to do with how the paper and ink is treated and chemicals and um other things that I don't question yet, because I am new to this nonsense. Anyway, you let it sit for a while, then dump out the water and fill it again and put the paper back in and let it sit, repeat repeat repeat until the water stays clear.

So my AWESOME teacher Renate who is The Shiz (and also just got made HEAD of conservation at the Folger Shakespeare Library where she used to be assistant head) is working on this new crazy town way of washing paper, that involves less putting individual sheets into a tray and more of putting ALL the sheets into mesh folders and hanging them from rods over like a file-box of water....I am sure that that doesn't make as much sense to read as it does to experience in real life, and you might not understand how freaking awesomely bad-a this is. Basically, instead of spending HOURS doing like 6 pages at a time in the tray, taking like 20 minutes per batch, I got to do like 100 pages AT ONCE in a way that is WAY more compact and involves less trying to dump dirty water out of a big freaking tub into a tiny sink and spilling everywhere....anyway, I had done 2 batches of washing the regular way when she then came and said I should try her cool apparatus for the remainder and I was SO HAPPY and it is great.

This is Renate, who changed the water in her cool thing for me the first time so I would see how to do it. CHECK OUT HOW DIRTY THE WATER IS. I had to fill it with water about 4 more times before it came out clear, and I did not mind one bit.

This is how you lay the paper to dry traditionally, so this is part of those first 2 batches I did the regular way. You lay the pages all out on thick crazy absorbent blotting paper and then cover it with another layer of blotter and cover THAT with a thick thing of plexiglass so it dries flat. The pages I did in Renate's cool thing she wanted me to dry differently--we rigged the poles the paper file things are hanging on between shelves of the drying racks so they're hanging to dry, instead of laying flat. She hasn't done it like that before, so they might dry all warped and crappy, in which case she said that is why I am going to be here 5 weeks, I will have plenty of time to redo things. This is me scowling. But also it's true, and very very cool, so I guess I don't mind if it gets totally shizzed up :)

So, all in all it was an incredibly long, frustrating, productive, and awesome day, and now I am going to sleep like dang.

some pictures of the inside of my house; or, what i did when i was the last one to leave for class in the morning and had the downstairs to myself

2011-04-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

the kitchen. obviously.

the only thing in this house better than my bedroom is this wall of built-in bookshelves in the living room

this picture is totally fuzzy but i LOVE the stained glass so much that I don't care.

This is what it looks like from the front door.

this is what the first half of the walk to the studio is like.

This is what the second half of the walk to school looks like.

Day One: Pelham, Or, The Adventures of a Gentleman

2011-04-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, I found this book in a box in Gramma Joyce's house. It is called Pelham; Or, The Adventures of a Gentleman, and it was printed in 1828.

Here is my proof that that is in fact its title.

This is what it looked like after I removed the cover and started stripping away the 200 year old glue and shiz from the spine. It took me about 12000 years to finish and it made me want to die, and I didn't do a very good job.

This is what the pages looked like after I cut out all the sewing and separated it all back out into signatures.

This is when I tried to take a close up so you could see how h-ing torn up the paper got while I was trying to pull the pages apart amidst the remnants of 200 year old glue. My only solace is that my teacher came and looked at my book and said that it wasn't my fault--they just used a shizzing shizload of glue 200 years ago and really soft paper. The good and bad side to this is that I am going to get a LOT of experience at repairing paper tears! Woo!! Tomorrow we are learning how to wash the paper, and then repair it, and then sew it all back together. GOOD TIMES.

Day 0.5: Complete

2011-04-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

Well well well. So, today was the day that I drove Dad to the airport in Grand Junction after he so kindly joined me on the drive from Provo to Telluride. The ride up to GJ was weirdly wonderful and I'm seriously considering making Highway 50 a lifetime obsession. Or at least, maybe I will go up there again on one of my weekends and hang out in one of the national forests or something. OR you know whatever.
Today is ALSO the day that I: moved into the house I'm going to be living in for the next 5 weeks, met the people I'll be living with for the next 1-2 weeks (respectively), toured the Bookbinding studio, met the 2 ladies who run this joint who I've talked to on the phone and emailed a billion times over the past 3 months, and met the lady who is going to teach me basics in paper conservation this week and 'sewing structures' next week. Something I didn't realize til I got here is that this first teacher ain't no sbum off the street--she is the assistant head of conservation for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. That is....a VERY big deal. I will have to use all my charms and wits and conservation prowesses to convince her that she should make there be a conservation internship at the Folger and that I am just the one to take it out for it's maiden voyage.

The other people in the class all seem nice and generally normal--about as normal as I'd like them to be, really. Some of them are older and some are middlin' and 2 other girls are somewhere around my age. One of them is pretty much doing the EXACT SAME THING IN LIFE as I am right now, which is to say, she is staying here for 5 weeks and going to do a diploma in conservation, so probably we will be running into each other all the dang time for the next however many years, and the great thing about it is that she is pretty much the nicest one of the lot so basically I totally lucked out. If the universe is going to force you to associate and become friends with someone, it is pretty awesome that it picked someone you are already happy to be friends with.

So, I am sitting here tonight with a packet entitled "Basics in Paper Conservation" in my lap, the first at least 17 pages of which is a basic chemistry review. I say 17 pages because that is as far as I got skimming it before I decided to give up and blog because chemistry makes me want to throw up and die. I guess I'll have to get over that um rather quickly though....but hopefully once it is being applied to stuff that is cool like paper and books instead of just being a bunch of dumb confusing words I will decide to remember how it all works.

I really need to start taking pictures of this house....it is GLORIOUS. I mean, it is just a house I guess, there are no baby goats gamboling around and Liam Neeson isn't doing constant dramatic readings in the front room so it's not like it's PERFECT, but for some random resort house it is amazing. Built in bookcases everywhere, built in benches and things, stained glass front windows, creaky hardwood floors, old timey antique trunks in basically every room, ....I mean come now, what could be better?

But enough of positive thinking; let's look at the bad here:
1)I am missing all the beginning of this season of Doctor Who which I COULD be watching at Celia's house courtesy of her sweet cable package that includes BBC America.
2)I am missing the BIRTH of my two newest nieces, probably occurring ALMOST AS I TYPE !I keep getting good sounding texted updates though so I am probably as informed as I would be if I were kicking around in Utah.

NB:those negatives were not in order of how sad I am, I PROMISE. If the soon-to-be-realized twins were dangling off a cliff next to Doctor Who and I could only save one (the twins being considered a package deal) I would DEFINITELY go for future-Joyce-and-Lydia, no question.

But um.if the Doctor were still David Tennant. . . things might get real hesitate-y up in here.

This is what my room in Telluride looks like:

2011-04-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

I'll show you the rest of the house when my housemates aren't around to think I am weird, and the rest of the town when I go out and explore it, and the studio also sometime after both I have seen it, and everyone else is gone. Um so anyways about that it is time for me to go stomp through snow to the studio and set up my shiz anyway before our little meet-and-greet shenanigan tonight....woo!

You guys, quick, come look at this! I think it is called KATY'S LIFE HAPPENING?!

2011-04-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is what it looked like to drive from Grand Junction to Telluride:

Turns out I have a HUGE crush on Colorado scenery as well as highways 62, 550, and 55. Mmmhmm.

see kate sew: epic letterpress giveaway!

2011-03-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

You guys I am not someone who enters online giveaways but this is DIFFERENT. Long have I read Kate (McNeal) Blocher's blog from the shadows, seething at every evidence of her superior taste and creativity. The time has come to cast off my childish jealousies in the name of trying my darnedest to win this home-letterpress machine! You guys! Do you even know what this MEANS? Letter press! In your HOUSE! What this means is HAPPINESS is what it means. So y'all should go check it out but don't you dare enter the giveaway because if you win instead of me I will come to your house as a thief in the night and STEAL IT from you. You have been warned.

see kate sew: epic letterpress giveaway!: "Lifestyle Crafts sent me this L Letterpress machine to review. Until recently, I didn't even know it was possible to letterpress at home. (W..."

Our Favorite Men-- A Guest Series by Becca--Part 2

2011-03-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

If you say "David Tennant" to me, I will probably cry.

Because of moments like this:

And many, many more moments that I of course can't find stills of because the universe is cruel.

But it's not all sad. Here's to the happy moments:

For the uninitiated, these are from Doctor Who. And yes, we are nerdy. And no, we are not ashamed.

And yes...it is the best show...ever.

The Next Big Thing

2011-03-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

Well sirs and madams, it looks like the Grand Bookbinding World Domination Trail is going to begin in tiny, beautiful Telluride, Colorado. Have I ever even been to Colorado? No. Am I excited to go live for a month in a tiny hamlet nestled in the Rocky Mountains that is less than a mile from one side of town to the other? Surprisingly YES. Here are all the pictures of Telluride I've been able to find:

Okay I lied, I found plenty more on Google image search but they become kind of redundant, yes? Bottom line: does this place look like HEAVEN or WHAT?! Question mark exclamation point INDEED! So, I'm going to be there from April 25 through May 27 taking classes from the American Academy of Bookbinding, which I gather is much less traditional and horrible than the name leads you to believe. The incredibly kind administrator called me the other day just to check in with how I'm doing, and to say that so far there are only 3 (!!) people signed up for the first few weeks of class so if they don't get at least one more person they might have to cancel (!!x2). So hey if any Dear Reader is interested in being really cool and learning about Basics in Paper Conservation, Sewing Structures, and/or Restoration of Cloth and Leather Bindings, you should definitely sign up and then we can be roomies in paradise.

What's been REALLY fun is going over the class supplies lists and getting all the cool tools and materials that they want me to have. I think the way that the stereotypical woman views shoes and handbags is the way I view awls, glue brushes, and bookcloth. I got SO EXCITED when I saw this picture--SO MANY AWLS!!! So, after dropping upwards of a hundred bones, I have ALMOST all the things I need. The last thing that kind of scares me is the Paring knife I'm supposed to buy, which, before you offer helpful suggestions, is DIFFERENT from the kind of paring knife you use to chop up vegetables and threaten home invaders (though from the pictures it looks like this kind would be much better suited to home defense). As far as I can gather it is for trimming leather (!!), and apparently there are many different

varieties, as one supply list demands a Swiss or
French paring knife, while another wants a German. I guess getting the Swiss one would represent a nice compromise between the French and German, so probably that's the one I'll go for. The other problem with them is that it's the one thing that is expensive by itself--like, $30-$60 expensive, whereas all the other stuff is generally under $10 per thing. So, point being, hey Mom and Dad, if you feel like getting me a Mid-March Festival present, I have a good idea of what it could be?

In further supply-based questions, I also need to bring with me several books and such to practice my conservation madness on, so if any one has any of the following, and doesn't mind me messing around with it, I will conservitate it for you for FREE!! :

-any print or drawing (basically any piece of paper) from before 1850
-any repair-needing book published before 1900, preferably less than 1" thick and 12" tall
-any leather book in need of repair
-any cloth-bound book in need of repair

Our Favorite Men-- A Guest Series by Becca

2011-03-05T20:57:00.000-08:00

Bill Nighy is one of our favorite men.

Bill Nighy is awesome in:

The Underworld series

Love Actually

An episode of Doctor Who

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Shaun of the Dead

And many, many more things. You should love him too.

Poltergeist

2011-03-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

Something I expect everyone in the world to know about me is that I have an inexplicable PASSION for the movie Poltergeist. It, it just.....it just is the best. At pretty much any time, place, or mood, I will want to watch Poltergeist. When I was in paradise hiking with my best friends across England, the one thing marring my bliss:I was craving the Poltergeist. What do I turn to whenever shiz gets real and it really really sucks: I think by now you know.

This lady. Oh man.

blog blog blog blog

2011-03-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

blogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblogblog look I blogged woooooooooo!

more/better pictures of my life in Utah so far

2011-01-22T11:07:00.001-08:00

one half of my room looks like this:

the other half looks like this:

when I finished spinning and plying some wool it looked like this:

morlader

new room new awesome

2011-01-16T00:03:00.001-08:00

This is the best I could do from my computer photo booth thing but just trust me when I say it is the BEST ROOM EVER. Also Kyle helped me (by which I mean I watched) construct my SPINNING WHEEL today and I tried to spin a bit and I was so pleased that I remembered how! I am excited to spend many many moons creaking away at it and being in my happy room with my awesome IKEA lamp (which produces LOTS of light against all odds and the suspicions of everyone I was shopping with) and my new bed and the great curtains Nieman made and SO FORTH. Life=good.

Lucy Songs

2011-01-12T15:34:00.000-08:00

Lucy has spent the past at least 45 min dancing around the living room in her Belle dress and crown singing beautiful songs to herself. Just imagine the most basic sing-song none-tune you can and read the following lyrics. The practiced reader will recognize some plagiarism from Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam, Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and other childhood classics.

Every princess is nice at school and at like there is just one at home it is the year and in the ....it is hereat school i know it's right that if you ever i know it is right and if no and and no not i know i know it was right ever it is right okay it is right oh it is!

"That was a long one Mom"

And it is right no not is it is it is it is a Jesus wants me he goes away and then he comes and wants me and goes and know my things i love and he has anything to play with he knows the teeny jesus was born he was making a list and he loved it so much and i know that like that up there and i know it is it is knowing is i know he everyday and if you do it is for i am good.

"Mom, that one was about Jesus!"

And if you was knowing about I know I know about my toys each day and it is mine and if you ever knows about draw pictures about .... and if you know each day each day i know i know know and if you know every day each and if you know instead and if i know each da-a-ay, the man and right made and then the presents each DAY.

"You like that one Mom? I like that one so much."

And if you know and if you go and do and do each day and if you ever know if you do again

And if you do if you do it is right knows and Jesus knows where you are he is here each day um it's not Christmas Eve. And I know each day each and I know about again!!

Self Indulgent Blogging 2: Cruise Control

2011-01-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

So this is the self indulgent blog where I tell myself I need to STOP being self indulgent in the real world, because it turns out that no matter how cheap the things you buy are, if you KEEP BUYING THINGS FOREVER it will still add up to your life savings down the tubes so just COOL YOUR JETS ok? GOSH. Okay now that the Internet knows I resolve to stop spending money I will be shamed into following said resolution instead of sneaking out and scouring more clearance racks for weird ill fitting things that only cost $4 so HOW CAN I RESIST? BUt yes, the resistance begins here and now. DONE.

UPDATE: Yes well my resolve is not worth a crap it seems, although seriously who can blame me for buckling under the temptation of 50% OFF DAY at the Salvation Army store? COME ON.

Keepin it Classy

2011-01-03T23:42:00.000-08:00

So immediately after posting that last post I realized that it was kind of lame and mostly about feelings and um words and things so I thought Hey I will throw my poor blog a bone and post a picture of something cool. But I couldn't really think of anything, so I googled "Something for the ladies"--with not a little trepidation, mind, but I go to the edge of internet terror and beyond for my beloved readers--and then it was funny because the first picture to come up on image search was NOT pornographic, but rather a picture of these rather sweet kicks:

So, ladies: YOU'RE WELCOME.

The Reinvention of Katy: An Exercise in Self Indulgent Blogging: Part One of probably like billions so GET EXCITED

2011-01-03T22:52:00.001-08:00

So, this thing happened whilst I was in Utah hanging out with Becca and wiping up Ruby's spit-up and eating Ashley's eggnog cupcakes and laying on Celia's couch (oh crap is it laying or lying? OH WAIT I have woken up from the 24 hour stress dream that is college so SCREW YOU, GRAMMAR) and anyway the thing that happened is that I realized that I need to basically shut up and get a freaking life. ABOUT TIME, right? Right. GOSH.

Here is how it happened, in numerated form, as if I were following steps in an instruction manual. Not sure why I did that. Um:

1)Shelve the whole grad school plan for the time being (because anything that continues to give you THAT much anxiety just to think about can back the h off, eh?); take time to glory in your savings account no longer being earmarked to go directly into the bottomless pit of grad school tuition and student loan debt; realize the seemingly endless possibilities that lie before you.

2)Since you already basically signed off on your California life when you went off like a Jane Austen heroine to attend to your ailing sister, realize that you can pretty much do and go what-/wherever you want because there is nothing tying you to any one place; revel in the freedom.

3)After a brief period of embarrassment about your lack of imagination, decide to move back to the Mecca of single Mormons: Utah Valley. See, but you're not lame like all the people you made fun of for sticking around Provo after they graduated, because um, you know, you um are not lame like them I promise. PLUS you are going to move in with Kaity Nieman who has long been your personal icon of Deliberate Living, so probably she will be a good influence in learning how to have a life. ALSO you have conducted extensive research to find really cool things to do in Utah, like take BEEKEEPING CLASSES and also you have found a place where you can go for spinning help when you get your spinning wheel put together but then realize that that one community course you took was a while ago.

4)Buy an entire new wardrobe from Target clearance racks and Goodwill without consulting anyone else's opinion. I have NO idea why this has been such a big deal but somehow this is how my personality revolution is manifesting itself: in wearing whatever h'ing weird-a clothes I want and not stopping to try to predict if other people will think they look good or flattering or whatever. It's funny because I've never been a super clothes-buying or caring-about person, and I never realized how much I cared about trying to tailor other people's perceptions of me through clothing until I focused on actively NOT doing it.

5)Listen to the Annie Lennox pandora station AT ALL TIMES, especially whilst in the kitchen, which for some reason is most especially conducive to impromptu dance parties. What is it about kitchens? They are so danceable. Is that like a Thing, or is it just me? Becca and I have been discussing the need to have a dance party when we are both back in Utah. Maybe I'll bring a spatula and see if that helps me approximate the optimum dancing environment. [Best song for kitchen dancing so far: Return to Innocence by Enigma. Turn it up loud, start sauteing some chicken for Sunday lunch, and enjoy.{PLUS the music video has a UNICORN in it. The mark of genius, obviously.}]

Um well I guess that's where I am now: listening to Annie Lennox, wearing a weird-a Goodwill shirt, very happy about the prospect of moving back to Utah, excited to stop worrying and start living my dang life. I guess crap reality things will still exist like the need for employment, but I am going to put off thinking about that til I have to. I almost started thinking about it today, but it just sent me on a Williams-Sonoma hate spiral. Those people seriously jacked me up. And yet I CONTINUE to surf their website constantly. See? JACKED UP.

call for submissions

2010-12-26T09:55:00.000-08:00

So there is this phenomenon I experience anew every year and yet never learn from, which is that even though I know that New Years Eve sucks as a holiday I still get excited about it. SO my plan for this year is to invent something(s) awesome to do to make it not as big of a let down as it inevitably will be. My only tradition so far that works for providing some good times is to write down a list of things that suck and are lame and I am done with and then burn them on the front porch and then smear the ashes on my face. ...which sounds weirder written out than it feels when I do it. ANYway I am looking to expand my New Years traditions--DISCUSS.

the most wonderful loot of the year

2010-12-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

why is it always so hard to think of a title

2010-12-25T00:37:00.000-08:00

Watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, featuring the ever delightful Steven Macintosh as Fred, has thrown me into even greater depths of longing to go back in time to when I was visiting Becca in Utah and steal her edited copy of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Watching 15 episodes of Black Books (a British comedy in which most of the main characters are drunk and smoking most of the time) on Hulu in a 36 hour period made me startled to find bottles of Martinelli's in the fridge for Christmas Eve dinner, rather than cheap trashy wine. It's like how when we used to watch whole seasons of Alias and then expect to be fighting off enemy intelligence agents at every turn, but in this case I am just confused about not being sloshed 24/7 and wondering why people are ever expecting me to move from my chair. Something funny is that when I first watched this show several months ago I was put off by the drunkenness and ensuing squalor and general sloppiness, but giving it a second chance this week I have found myself the world's biggest fan of the main character never washing his hair or finishing a complete sentence and having to direct people around the dead badger in the middle of his shop. I hope Christy appreciates the extra effort I took to clean the house all the time while she was here because clearly in my heart of hearts I am wishing I could be a drunken Irish wastrel. Wow, I did not know how true that was until I typed it out. Now I feel unfulfilled.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas came early this year

2010-12-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

...Because all I officially asked for was the new Annie Lennox Christmas album, and then convinced everyone that it would be excessively lame to actually get a Christmas album on Christmas because then you have to wait a year to really listen to it so instead they should give it to me early, and so then finally tonight we were at Starbucks of all things getting some treats and I saw it on a display at the register and sent Becca over to tell Mom that that was what I wanted (so that she could still get the element of surprise) and then we listened to it all the way home and indeed, up to the present moment wherein I am listening to her crazy-a verison of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (punctuation purposely omitted because I never know if there is supposed to be a comma somewhere in there or not) and so um anyway I made a bet with myself that I could write a REALLY LONG run on sentence and it turns out that I have WON. Merry Christmas indeed.

Bare feet, not arms

2010-12-14T10:08:00.001-08:00

That is what was written on the bumper sticker Kyle and Becca and I saw on the way to the airport. Ideology aside, we became enamored of the linguistic funtimes, and so spawned a game that entertained Becca and I through a WHOLE Relief Society lesson!

Crack wise, not cocaine.

White rice, not Supremacy.

Inform yourself, not on your neighbors.

Cut red tape, not your wrists.

umm.....we had a bunch bunch more but I can't find the paper we were writing them on. Anyway, it is a very fun game, especially after you play Movie Quote Hangman through all of Sacrament MEeting so you need a fun change.

Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-10-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

WELL now. Turns out, my life is ridiculous. BUT the good thing about having a ridiculous life is that you can pretty much do whatever the crap you want (or whatever other people want you to do that you don't mind doing) and it is fine because I wasn't really doing anything important anyway. ANYway the point is, I am about to embark on an epic 6 week vacation from regular life! In a few days I am going to go down to Irvine to hang out with Lucy while Christy is on her first stint of pregnant bedrest. I get to stay there for two weeks and have all KINDS of fun times. We are going to watch Prinessanafrog, make a giant tent, and have lots of great ideas. THEN I am going to go to Utah and hang out with Becca and Kyle and especially RUBY who I have not yet even SEEN in REAL LIFE which is RIDICULOUS and I get to stay there for basically a MONTH. Seriously, I am flying in on November 16 and then flying home (with Becca and Ruby) on December 10. AWESOME. Friends of the living-in-Provo persuasion, feel free to host grand fetes and soirees in my honor, I would not mind. Anyway then after being home for Christmas, I am going to go back to Irvine with Christy and Lucy and Danny and live with them until her twins are born (while she is on bedrest) and most likely thereafter, since I guess ones need for help only increases after one gives birth to twins, amiright? Anyway, all fabulous fun times things aside, perhaps the best part of this plan is that it means I got to QUIT MY JOB. Remember that one time when I said that no job could be all that bad when you were surrounded by beautiful things like Ruffoni copper pots and whatnot? Yes well perhaps I have in this case been proven WRONG. Shocking, I know. But seriously you guys, it is amazing what a jerk boss fostering a jerk attitude in the workplace can do towards making you want to quit you job and live in a cabin in the woods where you never have to consider the existence of upscale corporate retail EVER AGAIN. Anyway, lucky for me Christy is having a whacked out pregancy and requires my assistance for long enough that I just had to hand in my notice. And I didn't even have to slowly poison Christy over a period of years with imperceptibly increasing doses to make it happen.
Promise.

Pomepalooza

2010-10-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

Mom's pomegranate tree/bush/thing was drooping with heavy-laden-ness so today we went out and harvested all of its bounties, and then because we'd been looking at Martha Stewart online recipes and the new WS catalog all day we decided to photograph them all pretty like. . . which is not to say I have any ability to do pretty photographings of things, but you know, it is hard to go too far wrong with pomegranates and sunlight, amiright?

Anyway, now we will get to spend approximately eighteen billion hours juicing these little motivators and then deciding if we feel like making pomegranate jelly or not.....

I am internet famous

2010-10-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

So this one time like one or two weeks ago (knowing the date is SO LAME) Bakerella came to my store to do a book signing. It pretty fun because instead of having to worry about selling things or knowing things I got to just distribute samples and water to the OODLES of people standing in line to get their books signed. Truly, the highlight of my retail career to date. Anyway Becca just recently alerted me to the existance of the following picture on Bakerella's blog:

Who is that delicately unfocused dish in the top left corner, you ask? Oh, you know, ME. Just hanging out, wearing my latex gloves, cuttin' up some pumpkin dessert bar nonsense. According to the criteria that I just made up that says you are Internet Famous if you are pictured in a blog belonging to someone who makes sweet book deals and gets eighteen thousand people to line up in 90 degree weather just to shake their hand, I AM INTERNET FAMOUS.

me+vegetables=GASP

2010-10-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

Mom found this recipe in a magazine and for unknown reasons decided to pursue it--I say that her reasons are unknown because personally I cannot fathom why you would actively pursue the creation of a dish called "Roasted Root Vegetable Salad with Fancy Schmancy Almonds"but something about that sounded appealing I guess. BUT it turned out that in this case was on ME and my prejudices and cynical nature because in fact it turned out to be pretty good! Anyway I decided to collect extensive photographic proof of this historic event because let's face it probably I will never eat this many vegetables again in my life!

This is the huge pile of veg before we started peeling and chopping the crap out of it. Notice the wide array of autumnal delights, including things as alarming as celery root and parsnips. Also pictured: a butter nut squash, an acorn squash, some shallots, a sweet potato, a turnip, a whole mess of red and golden beets, and also a pumpkin that did not actually go into the recipe but was purely for show.

Here is a picture of the veg after being peeled and chopped the crap out of:

And here it is after being olive oil'd and salted and roasted for half an hour and then carefully plated to hide all the forky stab marks (because if I have learned anything from Top Chef:Just Desserts yet it is that plating is EVERYTHING--fun fact, what I have actually learned from that show so far is hey try not to have hysterical outbursts and then act like a total jacktard because people watching at home WILL judge you for it, GOSH)

ANYWAY here is that final picture I was talking about:

So, after careful veg sampling I have determined that I actually am a pretty decently big fan of butternut squash and sweet potato, a somewhat lesser fan of beets (both golden and red) and acorn squash, and an all around reviler of celery root.

Addendum: Mom is sad that I didn't get a picture of our dish in it's final FINAL state when it had been drizzled with browned sage butter and pine nuts, because she thinks it looked more impressive that way. But I sort of think pine nuts are little jerks, so I am just as glad to stick it to em. Cuz seriously when have they ever done me any favors? Jerks.

she she won't get a scratch

2010-09-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

In what is perhaps the best moment spent at work to date, this mom and a little boy who was like 6 years old were looking at our Star Wars stuff, and obviously the kid was old enough to have maybe seen the movies and know they are cool but not really old enough to really know anything ABOUT them, so he brought the sandwich cutters over to me and asked me what the shapes were, marking the first time that someone has asked me a question at work where my answer got to be, "That's the Millennium Falcon, you know, Han Solo's ship," and "I think that's a Tie Fighter?" (respectively).

Which is great, since my usual answers to work questions are things like "Oh um I'm not sure let me go check" or "Yep that salt cellar is $49.95" or "Our gift wrapping is complimentary but the wait will be about 45 minutes," and none of the people I say those things to are NEARLY as excited about those answers as that little Asian bro was.

Side note: Tie Fighter shaped sandwich? RIDICULOUS. Also, those cookies are adorable but I really REALLY wonder who in the actual world outside of WS Corporate has done that kind of decorating work. I mean shoot that Boba Fett looks like he is about to jet pack through my computer screen and cart my po to Tatooine! SHOOT.

the haps

2010-09-23T22:42:00.001-07:00

Well, Becca finally had her baby--which is funny that it feels like "FINALLY Ruby GOSH I'm glad you finally decided to JOIN US out here in the WORLD" but actually girlfriend was born exactly on her due date so I guess I'm the one with the problem. And the BIG problem now is that my new dang niece is being all newborn and adorable like 3 states away and for some reason I have not yet decided to quit my job and hitch hike across Nevada to get all up in her business.

I am trying to think of other haps to report but um....there aren't many? I got a big stack of books from the library today, so that is cool. All the fall TV shows started so I am slowly working my way through my parent's DVR list. It's funny, because I feel pretty school-nostalgic a lot of the time, but when I think of what I would actually be doing right now if I were still in school, I am very quickly cured. It is pretty great to not have to stay up late doing homework or wake up early for class. It's funny that instead of like writing papers and having scholarly anxiety I now spend my time trying to convince people to buy TWO Butter Pecan quick bread mixes instead of one because if not I will have anxiety that my boss will notice and remind me of a bunch of acronyms that mean that I suck at my job. Wow ANYway so I guess the haps are that I need to go drink some orange soda and go to bed.

Okay but seriously if you are ever in the situation to do so you really SHOULD get 2 of the Butter Pecan mix because that shiz is DELICIOUS and there is $3 off if you get two! COME ON TAHT IS A GOOD DEAL.

this one time at work

2010-09-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

I had to spend like 20 minutes convincing this lady that you can use any type of tool on a cast iron pan. She would NOT believe me when I told her there was basically nothing for her to scratch: just the iron. Underneath which would be....MORE IRON. In the end she went for the silicon non-stick spatula anyway, because it made a less scratchy sound when she did some test-pan-scrapings at the counter.

Just thought you would all like to know.

give in to the geek

2010-09-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

Several times in the past week or so I have had these moments of such insane geekitude that I've had to pause, narrate my situation to myself, and then laugh at how pathetic my life sounds. Like when I:

-was watching Rose and the Doctor FINALLY kiss at the end of Doctor Who season 4 (on Netflix) and I had to take the puzzle board off my lap and instead clutch my NASA throw pillow as I wept silent tears of joy.

And also this one time when I:

-managed to somehow simultaneously watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I think it was towards the end of season 6, when things got all feelings-y and meh) whilst also reading a graphic novel-- this time, incidentally, snuggling up in bed with my Star Wars sheets.

Facts I cling to:

-I don't live in a basement

-I don't know how to even approach video games or RPGs or any of that shiz, so at least that realm of geekery is closed to me (although in my head when I hear "RPG" I do think of 'role playing game' before I think 'rocket propelled grenade,' so I only get like half credit on this one)

-I have spoken to real live human peers, of BOTH genders, at least once within the past fortnight (but the first period-of-time word that came to mind was seriously 'fortnight,' so again, ...shoot.)

Lots of random things because I finally downloaded pictures from my camera

2010-09-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

So um I finally uploaded pictures form my camera to my computer for perhaps the first time in the past 3 months, so I have a lot of random shiz pictures which I will now display for you all regardless of um merit or purpose or worth.

Ahem.

This is at the Scottish games with Christy when we were wandering around the vendor booths and wanted to discreetly take a picture of the kilted-out policeman in the background. We decided in the end that he was really a policeman, not just some crazy costume man.(notice the cute shirt Christy is wearing; I think I would call it her Official Shirt of Summer 2010--what say you, Chris?)

This is me and Lucy and Mom and Dad at the Scottish Games. I realize that my eyes are opened too wide or something so I look weird, but I like Dad's smile so I am putting it up anyway.

This is when Mom decided it was finally time to paint the last wall of her kindergarten classroom:

The cabinets she's standing on are, what, like 8 ft. tall? Anyway, tall enough that when I had to get up there I literally thought I was going to die. I am using "literally" advisedly and in its true sense.

This one time Dad and I were on a walk in the hills by our house and we found a snake skin but it at first looked like a snake so this is Dad reenacting the freaked-out face he did when he thought he was about to step on a snake:This is his more sedate posture after recovering his manly equilibrium:

Sometime this summer Lucy decided that it was fun to take pictures on my camera, especially in the car. Therefore, I have several dozen pictures like these:

I'm not sure if I will ever have the heart to erase them.

HAIRCUT.

2010-09-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

HAPPINESS.