{"id":8698,"date":"2019-05-16T04:06:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T11:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=8698"},"modified":"2020-04-16T12:11:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:11:10","slug":"little-blue-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2019\/05\/little-blue-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Little blue books"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a work in progress. A long road. Step 1 happened months ago when I cut a batch of these mostly blue section covers, but never used them. I found the batch recently and then saw Rosemary’s woven spine book at Chapter Two<\/a>. Put 2 and Two together, if I can say that, and the little blue book idea was born.<\/p>\n

Next step: dye a quantity of text pages with blue butterfly pea tea. I used up all the Mohawk Superfine 70lb Text Weight paper that I bought from Vintage Page Designs<\/a>. I cut first, then dyed to get some edge coloration. The paper became slightly fragile when submerged in tea, but I only tore a few pieces. I crumbled butterfly pea flowers directly into the wet pages, then laid down plastic and stepped on them to generate some contact. This all took some time, especially since I had to brush tea leaf fragments off each sheet individually as they dried. But as a bonus I got a nice-looking drip sheet (last photo).<\/p>\n

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Now to start assembling the sections (signatures). Limiting factors were the number of good text pages I had and the need for a wide enough spine to show off the weaving. After some calculating and recalculating the optimal numbers, I settled on two books, eleven sections each, three text pages per section.<\/p>\n

Next step was to sew the pages into each section, 22 total. A five-hole pamphlet stitch allows for weaving two patches on the spine. Starting stitching from the outside allows some long tails for beads and other embellishments. I used up almost all of my waxed linen thread in cool colors.<\/p>\n

Then I needed to make covers – four total. Found some paste paper from a long-ago workshop with Abbie Read<\/a> that would work well. For stiffness, I used card stock inside from some old political mailers. Then stitched, then glued. I think I glued too soon because now I’ll have to figure out another way to hide my weaving thread ends! Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the covers in process.<\/p>\n

Now I’m working on the weaving. Had to unweave several times before I finally got a decent patch. It’s mesmerizing. I first tried an indigo sashiko thread, but found it too subdued to show up well. I switched to variegated embroidery floss dyed by Deb Lacativa. Finished one patch … to be continued.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a work in progress. A long road. Step 1 happened months ago when I cut a batch of these mostly blue section covers, but never used them. I found the batch recently...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,148],"tags":[381],"class_list":["post-8698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-eco-prints","tag-blue_books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/img_6882-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8698"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8869,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8698\/revisions\/8869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}