Bookbinding with Michael Burke

Although this weekend course wasn't part of Eden Valley Scribes, I thought I'd post about it anyhow as it was fantastic!

I've always loved hand-made books so a weekend course at Tullie House in Carlisle on bookbinding using long & link stitching sounded excellent. The plan was to make four books over the two days, each getting more advanced and more intricate with the stitching.

Our tutor, Michael, was excellent, he demonstrated everything as we were going along and was so patient at explaining whenever we were stuck! He also provided all the paper and thread material (which just cost a little extra but was brilliant value for money). I'd be the first to admit that sewing isn't one of my strengths however that didn't really matter and it's probably made me slightly less afraid of needles now!

I got all four of the books made (with a little bit finished off at home). Here is a couple of photos of them. (left to right - tacket stitch, longstitch, long and link stitch and link stitch.






Michael Burke is a professional bookbinder and has his own bindery in the Lakes but he is also involved in bookbinding in America and holds regular workshops there.

April meeting with Sarah Colgate

It was our April meeting today, a week earlier due to Easter. What a brilliant and lovely tutor Sarah was. The day was spent on pen and ink washes which is a bit different to our usual workshops but was very rewarding.

Sarah, who had brought with her a huge choice of fresh and dried flowers for us to use, started with a demonstration of pencil/pen techniques for us to follow, we then moved onto adding a wash to the pen drawings. After another demonstration (and lunch) we moved onto adding colour washes.

Using either non-waterproof or permanent ink gave very different results. When non-permanent ink bleeds into the wash the effects can be quite dramatic.



The group with Sarah (second left)

Example of our work from today
















The next four images are pieces from Sarah Colgate.

April Meeting a week earlier

Just a quick note to remind people that our next meeting in April is a week earlier than normal so it will be Saturday 4 April, as the next Saturday is Easter.

Hope to see you all there.

North Yorkshire Scribes

We also had a couple of visitors from North Yorkshire Scribes on Saturday - Sarah and Ruth, who came to see our exhibition and then popped back to the meeting for a cup of tea and chat with the rest of the group.

It was lovely to see them both and I hope they enjoyed our work.

Their exhibition this year will be in Ripon Cathedral during October so I'll post some more information in it nearer the time.

March Meeting - new members and a handwriting competition

We had 5 new members - yes 5! at our meeting on Saturday. All relative beginners so Terry took them under his wing and started them off with a Round Hand tutorial for the day.

I have to say many thanks to Terry for this as he was excellent with them and they all had a positive day. I'm looking forward to seeing them in April.

As we had no tutor this month the rest of the group all undertook the task of judging a handwriting competition! - this is part of the Northern Pen Show that is held on 25th April in Lytham, near Blackpool.

We had 6 schools enter, with 3 age groups (8-9yrs, 9-10yrs and 10-11 yrs). A piece of literature had been pre-chosen for each age group so that they were all judged fairly.

We took a school each and judged the winners of the three age groups, then came the harder task of choosing an overall winner - we went back and forward between a couple of entries for quite a while before agreeing on a winner - all the winners will be announced on the day so I'm not going to spoil the suprise!

But I will say WELL DONE to everyone who entered!

below are some images from the day

Terry's example of Capital Lettering









Judging the competition!

Hand-made cards - baby girl

Well, finally someone I know has had a baby girl - everyone else has had boys recently so it's lovely to be able to do something in pink!

Hand-made cards - baby boy

here are some pictures of the card I made for a baby boy - using handmade paper, watercolours and acrylic ink.

Just a little note...

We always hope that by having an exhibition we will encourage new people to come and meet our group and hopefully join. It's already looking like we'll have around 5 new visitors to our March meeting which is fanastic and I'm looking forward to meeting them all.

Like everyone else I always have a long list of things to do in my spare time and weekends so sometimes it can be hard to commit to a monthly meeting, but I cherish the days when I know I can leave the housework and shopping behind and I have a day to do what I love with a group that feels the same way. It's pure escapism!

alison x

February Meeing - update

Well today was our Feb meeting but unfortunately our tutor Sarah was unable to come through illness.

However, our day wasn't wasted as we had our AGM meeting and a new possible member come for a morning session, in the afternoon Shirley and Bernice gave a demonstration of their brush lettering which we all had a go at and followed on with trying our hand at using chisel edged wood!

February Meeting

Our next meeting is coming up this weekend (Feb 14th!)

We are lucky to have a tutor coming to this session - Sarah Colgate, who is going to hold a Pen and Wash workshop with us.

I'm looking forward to this session a lot as it's so useful to be able to create simple washes and backgrounds for calligraphy and it can transform how a piece looks.

I'll post some photos after the day to hopefully show what we produce.