It's Friday, I'm in Love...

...with Bookbinding!

Yeah, I wish I had a different way to end that sentence too. Oh well. Paper and thread and board and glue is pretty awesome too. This week I'm making what is called a Clamshell Box, which doesn't look or smell or feel or taste like a clamshell. Don't be misled by the name. It's a really cool kind of box though, that looks like a book, but instead of pages and such, you open the cover and it is a box. You are supposed to construct it around a specific object, like a book you want to prottect or something, and in the end it's supposed to fit perfectly and be really awesome. Hopefully that last part happens. I spent like 3 hours at the bookbinding lab last night with Ashley--she came to do chem homework, and to be my bodyguard. The building is kind of scary! Like, if life were a horror movie, that is where it would take place. Anyway, I wpent like all night there cutting text blocks and makign the first part of the clamshell box. It was pretty sweet. Tonight I have that class, and hopefully I'll be able to get things to the point where I can take it all home and sew up some pages and construct the boxes--all I need the lab for is the board sheer, which is basically a giant super powered paper cutter.

Something really great that happened last night was that when Ashley and I got to the lab, there were 3 or 4 old ladies (relatively speaking of course, they were in their 40s or 50s) and they were all doing basketweaving!! We talked a little bit; a couple of them had done bookbinding and knew my teacher and we talked about that, and then I said that I'm signed up for basketweaving next semester and they offered encouragement. Seriously guys, I'm really excited for my basketweaving class! Which is ridiculous, because basketweaving is the traditional joke class, but seriously, it's not loser idiots who take it, it's cool old ladies! I'm really hoping that it turns out feeling like Relief Society basketweaving night or something. I think it will be a really fun and interesting and useful class. PLUS, if I take that class then I will still be able to use that lab room, which has a security code and such, so if I make more books (which I will) I can still get in there and use the board sheer and press and all that. So, basically it will all work out perfectly. And then, when I find a wormhole through time and space and end up in a pre industrial alternate reality, I will have all the skills necessary to blend in and make my way!! I mean, if the kid in Castle in the Attic can use his gymnastics lessons to be a tumbler/jester guy, I figure my bookbinding and basket weaving skills will serve me well. Plus crocheting...man, I really gotta find that wormhole soon, because my skills are being WASTED in this day and age. Also I should go to the time where being a bit, ahem, rotund, is a sign of wealth and beauty. Dang, I am so much more attractive in past eras!