May I introduce you to the newest member of my book bestiary:

It was hard to determine a price of something that took me so unexpectedly long to make, but it is now for sale. You can look at other entries for the challenge by searching for the keyword “BESTcarnival” on Etsy, or by clicking this link. There will be more added during this week, and on Friday we will introduce them all on our team blog.

Esther K. Smith is the author of  “How to Make Books”, a wonderful book which I like to recommend for those who are just beginning to discover the world of bookmaking.

Last week now, I bought Smith’s second book “Magic Books & Paper Toys: Flip Books, E-Z Pop-Ups & Other Paper Playthings to Amaze & Delight”.  And this Saturday I found the time to play.

Already from the outside this book looks great to me. I like the green and blue of of the woodtype reprint. And the construction reflects cleverly what can be found inside: This book has two front covers, and can be opened either way. The image on the left shows the part that treats magic books. The other front cover has “toys” written in this wood type-ish look in green and blue, and “Paper Toys” is written in the big and fancy way like here on this cover the words “Magic Books”.When you want to look at the other half of the book, you turn it around and upside down, and begin to read normally.

Also from the inside everything looks inviting: Bright colors, eye-candy photos of beautiful books as examples for everything presented, and step-by-step instructions accompanied by sketches.

There is one complaint, though, that I have about the layout: For most of the instructions the individual steps to do, numbered and described in words, can be found on the right hand side of a spread, and then the corresponding sketches are on the same leaf of paper, on the left hand side of the next spread. Which makes you flip that page back and forth several times while trying to follow her instructions.  I suppose that her assumption is that there are those who prefer reading the text, and other who want to look at the pictures. For me this was really annoying. I want to read the text, and have a glance at the pictures for every single step.

The contents covered are broad. You find here the basic mechanisms for flexagons, pop-ups, some paper toys, and a variety of folded booklets, including among others the Origami Star Book, Flag Book (which she calls Accordion Flip-Flaps), and the Snake Book. It is aimed rather at the inexperienced paper gamer than at book binders.

It is a super book for those who want to look at one specific instructions. I found it a little tiresome to read it from cover to cover because some variants of the same idea are not so much presented as a variant but rather all over again. But probably this is just me being impatient.

I tried all the flexagons and Magic Wallet instructions this Saturday at least once (some were fun enough to try several times), and read thoroughly through the paper toys (and just a little quicker through the rest of the book). I am just a little bit disappointed to have found only the very classical mechanisms (Magic Wallet, Jakob’s Ladder, Magic Wallet, and Swiss Cross are the only mechanisms presented). I would have hoped for a really new and fresh idea. But despite this, I had a wonderful Saturday filled with gluing, cutting and folding paper.

And I do not regret buying this book. I had a fun weekend, and my bookshelf would look a bit duller without it.

Plus now I am definitely hooked to flexagons. I browsed the web for them (and found a lot of interesting links, just to give one example, check this one), and already ordered another book about flexagons. This is probably not the last time you heart me talking about them. Initially I made a video to show off the results of this busy Saturday. But then M. found the following video for me. Admittedly it is only loosely connected to the topic addressed in this post. But it is fun to look at. – Have a nice weekend!

The covers are done and the book block is being sewn

monsterbook being pressed (I hope the eyes can stand the pressure!)

Portraits of the finished monster book will be added soon.

For the next time I will have to find a way to reduce the time I needed for adding the feathers, or I’ll have to use ready made (artificial) fur. But it was fun to make, and I might develop a series of monster books out of this experiment.

First experiments with my new camera.

H. Kurzke, "way to go"

(inspired by and dedicated to the Paper Chipmunk)

Thanks for all the good wishes for my next year! I had a very nice birthday weekend this year. The gloomy weather had turned to a winter wonderland over night, and I spend a day with my family.

Some of my presents will pop up here occasionally. For example from my sister I got some really nice papers, among them a banana paper which I decided to use with the monster book covers. But I got a whole lot more stuff, books to read, gold leaf foil to use, and best of all: a new camera – my first real one with exchangeable lenses, and with more manual control over the image.

As announced before, I want to pass on some of that birthday joy. I decided to give a copy of my Coptic headbands book to Denise (The second edition is now ready to be ordered!). To employ also a little bit of luck into the game, I decided to give out another, smaller item. I threw a virtual die and determined to give one of my jotter journals to Kiley (click here to see more, and order your own). The owl is one of my very first lino cuts, the covering paper is a thick Asian paper (the same that is also used for the end paper for the Coptic headband book, but without the leaf print). Pages inside are lined. – I hope both will like their gifts!

And now I am off to play with my new camera, finish the monster book (one of the covers is finished by now), and get those gifts into the mail. See you around!

It’s my birthday today! I love waking up to candle light, blowing them out, and making a wish. And I love getting presents, and calls, and congratulations from everyone. I dug out this photo from a stash of discarded pictures – sorry to family members who look way out of phase. This was taken probably on my 13th birthday at a quarter to six in the morning.

Like last year I want to spread my joy with a give-away. All you have to do to earn yourself a chance to to win, is to leave me a comment to this post: Wish me something for the next year. I will read all your wishes on Sunday evening and will reward the one that I enjoyed reading most.

If you win, I’ll make you a present. What it will be will depend on who wins. Two of the items that you could win are the following:

Yesterday evening I finally pulled the first copy of the second edition of my Coptic headband instructions out of the press. (Which now can be ordered again.) This is an improved edition – much more so than I had anticipated. I started to revamp the layout, but then all the little details that I didn’t like anymore had to be changed, too. So I added 14 more photos, made new and exchanged almost half of the existing ones, and post-processed all of them again. I also reformulated some of the instructions and found a bunch of minor mistakes. At the end you now find also an additional instruction for an alternative start of the traditional headband.

I might make it a “deluxe edition” with addition 3 mini books with their 6 edges decorated with the 6 headbands as a visual reference. – But these mini journals are not yet finished, so no promises! (Monster book has to be finished first.)

Because I was not sure, that I would finish this instructional book on time, I also held back a blank journal as a possible present. So maybe you could also win this prototype for my latest idea of how to combine an open spine construction with a case-bound book. The spine is cut open to reveal the sewing on the tapes for which I chose a blood-red silk tape which are also visible on the covers.

The book closes with magnets in these black fabric parts. It are the tapes which make the covers non-symmetric (and thus let you distinguish the front from the back).

288 pages from a creme white sketching paper; machine made headbands.

Apparently I was too optimistic about finishing those covers in one day. This is how they look like this morning.

I am working on both at the same time, because after a few new feathers, I glue them on the back so that they do not slip out of the mesh. And while the glue is drying I am working on the other cover.

By now I cannot help but think I should have bought artificial fur instead. On the other hand these feathers are so nice to work with. They are goose down, and so soft. And I like the range of colors they have. I generally like my books, but this is the first I want to touch and stroke all the time.

I’ll continue my inverse plucking today.

We are holding/preparing a carnival challenge among the Etsy bookbinding folk at the moment. For one or two weeks I had been searching my mind for a good idea for a carnival themed book – without finding one. By the end of last week I was growing nervous that I didn’t have an idea what to enter for a contest that I myself initiated.

Yesterday, finally, I started to prepare the covers for this monster book. It will be a book in monster costume or a monster in book costume – who knows, it’s your own risk if you let it into your home.

It just takes an ridiculous amount of time to make. I am working the individual feathers into the mesh of the fabric. – Finishing these covers will probably be my only occupation for today…

This post’s title “Gut Ding will Weile haben” means something like: “Good things cannot be done in a rush”, or “Good things need time to develop”. But it also has a ring of: “It may look bad now, but good things need time to emerge.”

May you always have the time for your projects that you need for their completion!

Als ich letzten Dienstag im Regen unterwegs war, war mein Ziel ein Hobby- und Künstlermarkt auf der anderen Seite der Stadt. Eigentlich wollte ich dort Schmirgelpapier und evtl. ein bisschen buntes Papier kaufen. Aber als ich, vormals  nass und kalt, nun dampfend durch die überhitzten Verkaufsräume gewandert bin, hat mich eine hellgrüne Wolle in ihren Bann gezogen. – So schön weich, so schön grün! Kurz entschlossen habe ich dann zu dem grünen noch ein warm weißes Knäuel gekauft und dazu eine Packung Stricknadeln. Den verbleibenden Tag habe ich dann damit verbacht,  nach Strickanleitungen im Internet zu suchen…

When I was walking through the rain last Tuesday, I was actually on my way to some sort of art supply store on the other side of town. Initially I wanted to buy sanding paper, and maybe some new patterned paper. But when I went pass the selection of yarn they had there, I just couldn’t resist the light green wool they had for sale. So soft, so warm, so green! You see it in the picture in the front, now I can see why I was so especially drawn to it: It totally reminds me of green tea ice cream – and I love green tea ice cream!

zweifarbig und noch ganz schön unregelmäßig

Anyway, so I wanted this wool, but what would I do with it? Following the trail of thought, I decided to buy one skein of the green, along with a creme colored skein of the same wool, and also packed knitting needles. And, because I don’t know how to knit, I spent the rest of the day searching the internet for knitting instructions…

Nach dem Maschenanschlag, habe ich gelernt, rechte Maschen zu machen. Schien einfach genug, und ich habe entschieden, erstmal ein Stück kraus rechts zu stricken. Meine Finger wollten nur gar nicht so richtig nach der rechten Masche eine rechte Masche zu machen, war irgendwie komisch – der Faden wollte anschließend vor die Nadel, und… ich habe als doch erstmal in der Anleitung weiter gelesen. Da habe ich dann festgestellt, dass das was meine Hände machen wollten, das “eine rechts, eine links” Muster war. Und so langsam wurde mir klar, dass ich schonmal gestrickt habe. Ich hatte es fast vergessen, aber in der Tat, meine Mutter hat mir mal Stricken beigebracht. Während ich wieder neu meine Finger geübt habe, kamen mir schon fast ganz vergessene Erinnerungen wieder. Ich kann mich erinnern, dass ich furchtbar ungleichmäßig gearbeitet habe. Die festen Maschen wurden immer fester, bis ich die Nadel kaum noch rausziehen konnte, und wenn die Maschen weit wurden, wurden sie von Reihe zu Reihe weiter bis sie mir von der Nadel hüpften. Ich weiß allerdings immernoch nicht, was ich eigentlich gestrickt habe…

Es war jedenfall fast ein bisschen unheimlich, dass meine Finger da besser Bescheid wussten, als ich selbst.

das erste Buch ist fertig

While I was learning first to cast on and then to do a knit stitch I realized that my fingers knew better than my intellect, what to do. And while I was still learning to do the knit stitch, and had not read on in the instructions, when I didn’t pay attention my fingers did a knit and a purl alternately. – That was really kind of spooky! Almost forgotten memories of knitting as a teenager slowly came back to me. I still don’t know why and when I learned to knit, but I remember doing too tight and too wide stitches on the same thing, asking my Mum to knit for me, and being granted one Mum-stitched row for two self-stitched rows.

Relying on my fingers to know what to do, I got the hang of knitting one-colored pretty fast. But of course I wanted to knit in two colors – green and creme! – and I didn’t want to do simply rows or something. Me being me, I wanted to knit …. A BOOK…. and therefore pictures.

Mich auf das Wissen meiner Finger verlassend, gingen die ersten einfarbigen Stücke relativ gut von der Hand. Also bin ich zu farbigen Mustern übergegangen. – Schließlich wollte ich ja meine grüne und die weiße Wolle verarbeiten. Und natürlich hatte ich auch schon eine Anwendung im Kopf: Ich würde ein Buch stricken!

Weil ich dann doch ziemlich üben musste, um zu verstehen, wie man solche Muster strickt, ohne dass die Seite in zwei Teile zerfällt, habe  ich dann am zweiten Tag nochmal billigere Übungswolle gekauft – die ist im Bild ganz oben ebenfalls zu sehen. Damit habe ich dann also geübt, und ausprobiert… Eigentlich arbeite ich gerade schon an einer verbesserten Version, aber heute morgen habe ich dann beschlossen, dass ich die ersten Übungsseiten, die ich noch habe, und nicht schon wieder aufgerebbelt habe, einfach mal zu einem Buch zusammenbinden.

Et voilá, hier ist es!

It took me a while, three days to be precise, to find out how to knit a pattern into a piece without it falling apart or simply looking knotted and awful. I needed desperately more and cheaper wool, and I was lucky that in my drug store around the corner they held a special promotion: They sold sock yarn for one Euro a skein. Which was funny because usually they don’t sell any yarn at all. But you don’t hear me complain!

At the moment I am working on an improved version. But this morning, I decided to knit a cover for my training signatures, and bind them together to see whether it works as I had in mind. You can see when you look on the cover in comparison to the inside pages, how my knitting got better.

But I am not only knitting in these days. Between feeling a little downcast, listining to Agatha Christie audio books, and watching old X-files seasons, I even managed to work a little on the new version of my Coptic headband book. It will probably ready in time like planned on first of February. Half of the pictures inside are new, and I also corrected a few typos. Moreover it is now laid out with a real layout program and not another MS Word version and has a whole better look. Now what is left to do is some more pictures, and reading over it several times. – I’ll keep you informed!

Wie unschwer zu erkennen ist, habe ich es in einem mittelalterlichen Langstich-Stil gebunden. Ahhh, so weich. Vielleicht sollte ich ein Kuschelbuch für mein Patenkind in der Art machen. – Also es sind nicht nur wintergraue Januargedanken in meinem Kopf unterwegs, sondern auch kuschelweiche grüne Januargedanken!

The skies are hanging low here, that’s how winter in Northern Germany usually looks like. January is usually the coldest month, with crisp weather. But this year the December played that role, and January seems to try to mimic the gray November with a lot of rain and fog. Today I went for a walk in the rain. I kind of like weather as such. I would have preferred snow over rain, but also as is I enjoyed coming home wet and cold to the bone. The photo above was taken at half past elven – that is the brightest time of the day!

With the constantly gray skies here, and really depressing news from all over the world, I am growing a mild sadness that feels like some kind of fatigue, and I feel unable to work concentrated for longer stretches of time.

But I can also feel ideas growing inside me, and I will give in to this mood, work less concentrated and industrious on more journals, and let myself play around artistically with some new ideas. Beautiful flowers grow from moist dark earth, let’s see what works will be inspired by this mood.