Each year the Canberra Craft Bookbinders' Guild put out a challenge to all members.  This year the challenge was to make a wordless book.  This was a challenge to me as my definition of a book (especially with my calligraphy background), has words or has been made to write in.  The most obvious answer to this challenge was to have blank pages but that seemed a little easy and did not hold much interest for me.  Next was to utilize the pages of lovely eco prints I have stored away but I had done that before and so not a challenge to me although it would fit the criteria. 
It was when I thought of my topic for this book that I made one page then another and it just grew and grew until one day after 48 pages I said 'that's enough!'  I thoroughly enjoyed making marks, embossing, folding paper and sewing into and onto pages.  I called the book 'My Place' and it is my interpretation of what is in my life and in the Canberra that I know.

Another fabulous workshop from Olive Bull.  What a wonderful tutor she is.  A  great weekend was had by all the participants in Olive Bull's workshop on ruling and folding pens.  Olive is repeating the workshop today and tomorrow!  What a dynamo!
Day one saw us using ruling pens exclusively.  Learning how to use the pen correctly was an interesting exercise for more than one of us.  Olive very generously allowed us to use her very special pens including the gold plated Brody pen.  Many envious calligraphers would have like to take it home with them.
To my disappointment I never did get that beautiful, gestural SPLASH across the page. More practice required.

Day two of the weekend workshop saw us exploring Folded Pens.  Olive had very generously made four pens for each of us, donating Frank Bull’s bamboo garden stakes for one of them.  Thanks Frank!
Many of the participants’ heads were still buzzing from the Ruling Pen’s workshop of the previous day where most of us had learnt many new skills.  Surely, we thought, Olive would agree that we had all worked very hard and allow us a quiet, easy day.  But NO! This day was just as full on, with Olive cajoling, encouraging and spurring us on.  Thank you, Olive, for being so generous with your time, resources and equipment including the very precious Brody pen.
We started the day making marks with the four pens Olive had made us.  These included a bottle top pen, a clarinet reed pen and two pens that rival the Luthis pens.  There was a general agreement that the best marks were made on the layout paper and couldn’t be reproduced on ‘proper” paper.  Isn’t that always the way? 
Next was using our folding pen of choice and scribing a word (taken from a quote) in large letters in the middle of a page.  This word was then surrounded by the rest of the quote in smaller letters.  This David and Goliath layout was very effective for showcasing expressive folded pen lettering. 
We moved on to developing our very own alphabet.  This is a challenging exercise and I think that I unintentionally ‘made up’ an alphabet that looked suspiciously like some other alphabets I have seen.  We then used these letters to write a quote of our choice to see how the letters fitted together or if some adjustments needed to be made to the letterforms.
Just when I thought we might have a lull we were actively encouraged to experiment with either the ruling pens or the folded pens or both together to produce pieces and patterns with or without colour.
Then it was “clear the decks!” and time to turn all these examples into a Japanese style book.  I used paper that I had marbled previously.  I think that it looks rather nice.
To Olive’s credit all but one person finished their book for the final display.  What an achievement!  And how lovely to have a resource that can be used and referred to as well as potentially being added to in the future.
Thank you, Olive, for another memorable workshop.

Time well spent preparing for my workshop on Embossing.  It is quite hard to photograph embossing to make it stand out as it should.  I hope that all of the participants enjoy embossing as much as I do.

Oh well, isn't there a saying, better late than never.  It has only been nearly eight years since Emma was married.  This piece is a circular list of people attending her wedding.  Finished finally!  I was prompted by my sudden interest in map making which made me remember my first attempt at map making for Emma's wedding which in turn prompted me to remember Emma's guest list.  So pleased to have finished it and it is now winging its way to her.

Although we have only watched one of the episodes of 'War on Waste', the show has really focused our attention on what we do every day and how much plastic we use.
I made these bags (very light weight) to cut down on the number of plastic bags we get at the supermarket and the markets.  They are the same size as the plastic bags we used to use for fruit and vegetables. The sewing is a bit dodgy but the functionality is just fine. 
We have had only positive reactions to them with most shopkeepers saying what a good idea it is.
Very happy.

When I attended a gestural writing workshop run by the Canberra Calligraphy Society I found it difficult to "let go" sufficiently to create broad free strokes with my pens.  I suspect that I have done too much traditional calligraphy to find this easy. 

In my last post I showed an example of Keith Smith's decorative spine stitching.  This made me very interested in what else I could do with this type of bookbinding.  From there I bought several of Keith's books from his website.  Keith replied to me very quickly and sent the books the very next day.  What a lovely experience.
From one of the books I attempted the caterpillar stitch (not really a caterpillar - too many legs) but you get the idea.  I love it.   The directions were very clear and easy to follow.  I will experiment with a caterpillar that is a bit more lively next time.  

On Saturday I attended a fabulous bookbinding event put on by the Canberra Craft Bookbinders' Guild.  Vicki and Nicky guided us lucky participants through the techniques of making a case bound book that opens flat with decorative stitching on the spine.  The decorative stitching is from one of Keith Smith's bookbinding manuals.

Lately I have been experimenting with teeny tiny writing.  It is good fun but can be hard on the eyes!

The Canberra Bookbinders' Guild have a challenge every year.  The last challenge was to make a dos a dos book. I had a lot of fun with Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass.  The photos didn't come out so well.