Chunky, Indiany jewelery.
Animals
Dancing shoes
Work wear
Water bucket
zig-zag purse
Wicker work
Mickey ears
And nuzzling them all into boxes together before trotting them off to market
Toot
Appealing to me this week:
Chunky, Indiany jewelery.
Animals
Dancing shoes
Work wear
Water bucket
zig-zag purse
Wicker work
Mickey ears
And nuzzling them all into boxes together before trotting them off to market
Chunky, Indiany jewelery.
Animals
Dancing shoes
Work wear
Water bucket
zig-zag purse
Wicker work
Mickey ears
And nuzzling them all into boxes together before trotting them off to market
Printing day
On Friday my mother and I set about doing some letterpress printing. We had all the card cut to size . . .
I use Univers, which is a relative of Helvetica, created in 1957. It's probably a very similar age to the Adana, which pleases me greatly. The minutiae of the type design gets slaughtered in my slap-dash approach to printing (on the Adana at least which doesn't maintain that even a pressure) but I still appreciate it at this stage.
Actually it never really gets monotonous for me, something about it keeps you on your toes for every print. Then I did a round with black ink, you can see the variation and blotchiness that would have Gutenberg turning in his grave, but I really like it. As long as they're all legible.
Meanwhile Mum was doing some hardcore printing on my beautiful big Arab press.
I got him for free from a man down the road - he'd sold it on Ebay twice and both times the people had sent couriers who refused to move it in case of damaging themselves. Then I got in touch and Dad and I trotted down and picked it up.
What fun.
It runs so incredibly smoothly for such a brute. Look at that saucy fly wheel.
Using it and all the tools that come with it makes you feel like a bloody hero.
It lives at my folks house until such a time that I have a dirty great workshop of my own - so if there are any artsy hippy communities out there that want me and my press I'm ready . . . anyone? . . . no?
Oh well.
We were printing this block from a friend (Catherine), to be used as invitations to A Movable Feast, an event I will post about in the near future.
We set up the chase, then tilted it and gave it a hearty fingertip knock to make sure it wasn't loose. This is a tactic I developed after a few times setting a whole load of text then picking it up and all the pieces falling onto the floor.
Then Mum got printing, a few variations at first until we settled on the inking and pressure we liked.
Catherine came to help hang them all up, which was ideal as Mum and I were covered in a nice even layer of ink.
It was an especially hot day and Mum was sweating like an orphan in a workhouse so we set up a parasol, which I think looks really fun indoors.
Before we knew it there were three hundred of the little beauties.
I might have expressed this before but there's something about little bits of card all the same size that I love. It probably helps that the folks that cut it for me wrap it up all neat in brown paper like the best kind of present.
I was printing some new cards to have out on my stall, using my Adana.
It all started very neat, that was soon to change.
I already have my chase set up from previous cards.
First I did a round of red cards. There are many different ways to relieve the monotony of repetition: I chose the jazz-hands jig approach.
Actually it never really gets monotonous for me, something about it keeps you on your toes for every print. Then I did a round with black ink, you can see the variation and blotchiness that would have Gutenberg turning in his grave, but I really like it. As long as they're all legible.
Meanwhile Mum was doing some hardcore printing on my beautiful big Arab press.
I got him for free from a man down the road - he'd sold it on Ebay twice and both times the people had sent couriers who refused to move it in case of damaging themselves. Then I got in touch and Dad and I trotted down and picked it up.
What fun.
It runs so incredibly smoothly for such a brute. Look at that saucy fly wheel.
Using it and all the tools that come with it makes you feel like a bloody hero.
It lives at my folks house until such a time that I have a dirty great workshop of my own - so if there are any artsy hippy communities out there that want me and my press I'm ready . . . anyone? . . . no?
Oh well.
We were printing this block from a friend (Catherine), to be used as invitations to A Movable Feast, an event I will post about in the near future.
We set up the chase, then tilted it and gave it a hearty fingertip knock to make sure it wasn't loose. This is a tactic I developed after a few times setting a whole load of text then picking it up and all the pieces falling onto the floor.
Then Mum got printing, a few variations at first until we settled on the inking and pressure we liked.
Catherine came to help hang them all up, which was ideal as Mum and I were covered in a nice even layer of ink.
It was an especially hot day and Mum was sweating like an orphan in a workhouse so we set up a parasol, which I think looks really fun indoors.
Before we knew it there were three hundred of the little beauties.
Misc
A few things from the last few days . . .
On Thursday as well as selling things I came home with some treats.
Two pileas and a terarium from Karen (that fine and multi-talented friend of mine).
And a Bawden print (it's not an Edward Bawden print, it's a Richard Bawden print, which means it's worth less but I still think it's wonderful). I saw it drift past me on a dealers trolley and had to scamper after it. Sometimes in this job you end up becoming one of those sweaty early morning vultures - it's impossible to avoid - you find yourself putting your nose into other people's boxes, desperately seeking a tid-bit of old muck. My father calls them the rapists, those dealers that get all fluffed and frantic first thing, which is probably a more accurate description but pretty crass. Once you've become one you have to shake yourself and try and walk off with some semblance of dignity.
These two patterns have become a part of my life, the endless potential of triangles, very pleasing. I'm pretty sure they're fifties but actually most eras have had a touch of geometric in places, now I've thought about it too much I'm starting to doubt myself.
Here is a special delivery being sent out from Toot HQ.
And now I am sitting on my boat, listening to my neighbours. There's a big daddy boater and a little daughter boater and she's just learning about throwing things into the water. She throws in a toy then wails 'NOOOOOO' and he says calmly - 'when you throw things in the canal they don't come back, don't throw them in if you want to keep them' . . . then she is upset for a bit until it's time to throw in another. Aren't children a funny thing.
On Thursday as well as selling things I came home with some treats.
Two pileas and a terarium from Karen (that fine and multi-talented friend of mine).
And a Bawden print (it's not an Edward Bawden print, it's a Richard Bawden print, which means it's worth less but I still think it's wonderful). I saw it drift past me on a dealers trolley and had to scamper after it. Sometimes in this job you end up becoming one of those sweaty early morning vultures - it's impossible to avoid - you find yourself putting your nose into other people's boxes, desperately seeking a tid-bit of old muck. My father calls them the rapists, those dealers that get all fluffed and frantic first thing, which is probably a more accurate description but pretty crass. Once you've become one you have to shake yourself and try and walk off with some semblance of dignity.
These two patterns have become a part of my life, the endless potential of triangles, very pleasing. I'm pretty sure they're fifties but actually most eras have had a touch of geometric in places, now I've thought about it too much I'm starting to doubt myself.
Here is a special delivery being sent out from Toot HQ.
And now I am sitting on my boat, listening to my neighbours. There's a big daddy boater and a little daughter boater and she's just learning about throwing things into the water. She throws in a toy then wails 'NOOOOOO' and he says calmly - 'when you throw things in the canal they don't come back, don't throw them in if you want to keep them' . . . then she is upset for a bit until it's time to throw in another. Aren't children a funny thing.
Brian's weaving.
I hope you don't mind if we return to Brian. I just thought I'd share with you another good thing . . . where some people might whip out a knitting project in an idle moment Brian whips out a tiny loom and does some weaving. It's pretty smart.
He's making a patchwork bed spread out of all the small squares he weaves.
I'm going to have a go at doing it and I thought I'd give you the opportunity to do the same. Wool's normally cheaper than chips (and bacon sandwiches) at car boot sales. I'm always so tempted by the colours, and I think this may be the perfect excuse to start purchasing. (At this juncture I should probably point out that Brian dyes and spins all of his own wools - parp.)
To make the squares he uses a wooden frame (square) with rows of nails down each side, the nails need to be an amount divisible by three. The process involves stringing wool across in three directions then using a darning needle to pull all the threads in tight together.
You can easily make the frame yourself, or I think I might trail around after my dad whining please . . . please . . . please . . . until he makes one for me.
Start by stringing up and down from left to right, over two nails, missing one.
. . .
Then turn your square ninety degrees clockwise and string up and down left to right again.
. . .
Then turn your square ninety degrees anti-clockwise (back to the position it was before) and string left to right again, making sure you loop the string around a different two nails to the first row.
. . .
Then comes the tricky bit, using a darning needle you have to put in the last row - threading under the low down yarns and over the high ones. Is that a good enough description? You have to weedle the nose of your needle in under the threads that are furthest away from you and stretch up and over those nearest to you. And when you're done the whole thing should hold together as you tease it off the nails.
Well, there you have it. I prefer weaving to knitting infinitely. There's much more potential for beautiful stripes and geometric shapes.
I bought a lovely woven blanket at a boot fair recently. To start with the woman wouldn't sell it to me because it was protecting a pair of (ugly) curtains from getting dirty on top of the car. However, with much polite wrangling she agreed to let me buy it. She took it off the car to hand to me . . . and replaced it with an even nicer one from the back seat.
Bah.
He's making a patchwork bed spread out of all the small squares he weaves.
I'm going to have a go at doing it and I thought I'd give you the opportunity to do the same. Wool's normally cheaper than chips (and bacon sandwiches) at car boot sales. I'm always so tempted by the colours, and I think this may be the perfect excuse to start purchasing. (At this juncture I should probably point out that Brian dyes and spins all of his own wools - parp.)
To make the squares he uses a wooden frame (square) with rows of nails down each side, the nails need to be an amount divisible by three. The process involves stringing wool across in three directions then using a darning needle to pull all the threads in tight together.
You can easily make the frame yourself, or I think I might trail around after my dad whining please . . . please . . . please . . . until he makes one for me.
Start by stringing up and down from left to right, over two nails, missing one.
. . .
Then turn your square ninety degrees clockwise and string up and down left to right again.
. . .
Then turn your square ninety degrees anti-clockwise (back to the position it was before) and string left to right again, making sure you loop the string around a different two nails to the first row.
. . .
Then comes the tricky bit, using a darning needle you have to put in the last row - threading under the low down yarns and over the high ones. Is that a good enough description? You have to weedle the nose of your needle in under the threads that are furthest away from you and stretch up and over those nearest to you. And when you're done the whole thing should hold together as you tease it off the nails.
Well, there you have it. I prefer weaving to knitting infinitely. There's much more potential for beautiful stripes and geometric shapes.
I bought a lovely woven blanket at a boot fair recently. To start with the woman wouldn't sell it to me because it was protecting a pair of (ugly) curtains from getting dirty on top of the car. However, with much polite wrangling she agreed to let me buy it. She took it off the car to hand to me . . . and replaced it with an even nicer one from the back seat.
Bah.
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