The class went well. Seven students of the eight who paid showed up and were able to go home with 4-signature hard-bound books. The books were small, but they should last for a while.
Finished books.
I provided pre-cut mat board to use as the covers. The boards were covered in scrapbook paper and the spines were book cloth. Sketch paper was used for the signatures and everyone was checked off on the industrial paper cutter in order to trim the signatures to a uniform size to fit in the binding.
The group went home with a kit containing a large-eye needle, a cutting mat, a knife, and a couple of paper piercers. Most of the kit was bought a Dollar Tree so not a lot of money was spent. I spent around $6 per student. I charged them $35 for the class.
Wednesday evening, my youngest granddaughter and her father joined me on a road trip to Pennsylvania for the wedding of my oldest granddaughter. We left in the evening on a 14 hour journey to the wilderness of Pennsylvania. Just kidding about the wilderness, but it is a small town.
We left in the evening because I wanted the youngest to only miss two days of school as the wedding was Friday. When she was little, I used to write about her as “Babycakes.” As she got older, I called her “Tilly the Toddler.” I haven’t written about her in years. Once she started school, I would get her on the occasional Saturday and in posts, she would be referred to by her initials.
Now AJ is a Senior in high school and a licensed driver with her own set of wheels, paid for out of her savings. She planned her life years ago and she is on track. She’s worked since she was 14, first working as a clerk for a clothing reseller. Now she works in the deli department of a food co-op.
AJ doing her first cross-country drive
We spent a few hours sleeping in an old motel off the highway in Ohio. The room was okay. We had to wake the clerk up at 2:30 am to rent the room. AJ and I shared a bed which meant I didn’t sleep well. She’s still a restless sleeper, but at least I didn’t have to hang on to an arm or leg to keep her from falling out of bed like I did when she was a toddler. I probably didn’t sleep well because I was half-remembering the toddler and not the poised young woman.
After we left the motel, the day went downhill. First, we had to drive 25 miles back to the motel because my son forget his shoulder bag. He called the motel and they told him to just get the key back from the deposit box so he could retrieve the bag since no one was there. On my personal ratings scale of 1 to 10, I was able to bump them up to a 7 from a 5.
The 5 was because, while the room was apparently clean, there was some mold in the bathroom and I didn’t feel like I wanted to shower or even wash in the bathroom. They earned the two extra points for letting us wake them a second time.
We slept for about 4 hours and left and as I said above, had to backtrack to get my son’s bag. At this point, I was already fidgety. When I used to drive alone, I usually made the trip straight through and could say exactly when I would be at my daughter’s house.
With the two extra drivers, it actually took longer because every time we switched drivers, my son had to set up his music to play through the car speakers with bluetooth before we could drive off. And he had to do Google Maps, even though I knew the way, having driven solo for many years and had given him verbal directions to the hotel which was right off the exit ramp into the town.
This is an on-going problem between us —he has to double-check any directions or suggestions I give him. I’m not certain if he has some type of learning disability where he has to check spoken instructions against written ones to be able to complete tasks, or what the problem is.
But if there are too many items on a list, he has trouble. He used to complain my lists had too many steps if I broke a task down so he wouldn’t forget to do some of the steps. I’m totally confused about this and have been for most of his 44 years.
Back to the subject, we arrived at the hotel much later than expected and had to rush to get to the rehearsal dinner, such as it was. When we arrived, most of the group were almost done eating, even though we arrived only 5 minutes after the time given to me by my daughter. She had given the same time to the bride’s dad so he was late as well.
Mother of the Bride
We were all glad he could make it, as he has an incurable cancer that will take him much too soon. He did look good for someone we didn’t expect to have live this long. I expect to hear soon that he has passed, but his wish was to be able to walk his daughter down the aisle. And so he did. He was on one side of her and her step-father was on her other side most of the way down the aisle. Her step-father stepped away so her Dad could walk her the rest of the way.
The dads walk the bride in. The man on her right is her father; the one on her left is her step-father.
The ceremony and the reception went well. There are now pictures/videos out there of me dancing like a crazy person. Sorry – not. The DJ was playing lively dance music from the “olden days” — the eighties. My dancing music. Yes, I love any music with a fast dance beat. The funny part is I need to use a cane for ordinary walking or I’ll fall down, but can dance non-stop with no balance problems.
The bride and groom doing a ceremony at the end with colored sand to signify the joining of their lives.
The next morning, we gathered for brunch at my daughter’s house and watched the newlyweds open gifts. They received mostly monetary gifts as they would like to save up for a house. I had had a camping tent from their registry sent to my daughter’s house, but I also contributed to the house fund with money in a card, as well as a plaque with their initials and last name and the phrase “Est. 2024.” They liked that.
We drove straight back home by switching off drivers every 4 hours. When we got to my house, I set my my son up on the couch with bedding and sent AJ up to her bed and we all slept. I woke up first, after about 4 hours sleep, and have been up ever since. After we were all up, we unloaded my car and loaded up AJ’s car so she could drive her dad home and then get herself back home on the other side of town.
When I first moved into my current house there was an elderly woman who lived next door. She asked if she could put her trash in my bin because she was waiting for the city to issue her a smaller one as she lived alone. That started a big mess. Every trash day, even after she got her new bin, her trash wound up in mine.
She didn’t like the bins at the street all day so she would bring mine up. She would have a fit because my bin would stink – I was disposing of dog waste as instructed by the city – so I should hose it out after every pickup. Mostly I ignored her.
Then she tried to have a lawn care company spray my yard for weeds. They refused because it wasn’t her property. So this crazy woman would sit in my yard that bordered hers across the driveway when I was at work and pull “weeds” some of which were wildflowers I had planted to discourage her from wandering over.
She reported me to the city because I didn’t mow my lawn often enough for her. It was mostly white clover which doesn’t grow that tall. It was lush and green and not over the height the city cares about. The side across the driveway was literally scalped by her. She would pluck out the plants and either toss them on the driveway or pile them on top of the trash bin.
I had some workers come by to fill in an old well. We found that what I thought was a patio was the roof of a room built out from the basement that used to house the well. Prior owners/tenants had used the room to dump all kinds of trash and paint cans in there. The doorway at some point had been bricked up. I’m not certain how the home inspector missed that.
Before we discovered this, I used to wonder about the horrible stench in my basement when the sun heated up what was the concrete roof. My basement also flooded six inches deep before we found the source of the leak. The contractor had to make the opening larger where an outside pump had been in order to access that room. The guys very nicely filled at least 10 large trash bags with the junk they pulled out of there.
Mrs. Nosy Neighbor called the city because I had too many trash bags at the side of my garage. They must have told her that it wasn’t a problem if I was regularly putting them in the trash bin. She told me she got a quote for me from Waste Management for a dumpster so I could get rid of the bags. By this time, most of the bags were gone because the city had given me one of the larger sized bins.
I came home from work one day and there were 4 vinyl fence panels in her yard. She was having them installed because I spoiled her view, which by the way, was the side of my garage and part of the driveway. By the time the fence was installed, all of the extra bags were gone.
She had complained that the sight of my trash cans had also spoiled her view. At that time, the cans were at the side of my garage. I moved them past the edge of the fence. Two weeks later, there were new fence panels installed which gave me more privacy from her snooping. A little devil whispered in my ear that I should keep moving the cans down the side of my driveway to see how many fence panels I could get her to install. Alas, she had a horrible fall and her son packed her off to assisted living.
The house was sold and I now have much nicer neighbors who don’t need a perfect lawn and who cut their grass whenever. We all mind our own business except the few times in the summer when we used to watch for strangers just sitting in idling cars. Because of our location and the fact that most of us at the time worked, drug dealers would do business on our block.
When I retired, I made a point of being out in the yard and weeding or just sitting on the porch. If the cars parked and no one got out, I would hold up my phone. They would usually take off. Funny story – my neighbor across the street was home one day and saw a black suv with tinted windows sitting in front of my house and came over and banged on the window. It was an undercover officer waiting to see if any dealers were going to cruise over.
There hasn’t been too much of that sort of traffic in the past couple of years. I guess the word got out that there’s a lot more people who are home now. Several of my neighbors work from home and some of us are retired. I have the dubious honor of now being the oldest person on the block. I was one of the younger ones when I moved in.
There’s definitely something wrong. Unfortunately, my appointment to the fall clinic isn’t for another three months. This time, I was walking up the driveway after taking the trash to the street for the morning pickup. I had a thought about checking for mail, when bam – down I went. At least I was able to get back on my feet without too much trouble.
I’ve been practicing getting up. It might not seem like a big thing, but I’ve been practicing different ways to get myself off chairs, and the couch, and how to get up off the floor/ground without flailing like a turtle that’s been turned on to its shell. It’s tricky with two bad knees and a bad shoulder. But I’ve been managing. At least this time, I didn’t bang my head on the pavement.
I suppose I should keep a fall log that gives the time, what I was doing and if I was distracted, or tripped over something. I think there’s a glitch in my brain, but I don’t know if it’s related to my eyes or ears. I do have bouts of vertigo, but they’re like lightning flashes rather than the hours long brain circles I used to have. They may be the cause of the falls.
I don’t bother to inform the kids when I fall. So long as I don’t need medical assistance, I’m fine. They don’t need to know. They’ll want me in an apartment, or my son will want to move in, or worse yet, my daughter will want me to put a trailer on her other lot in the wilds of Pennsylvania.
There’s no amenities in that town. No bus service. I guess there’s a transport service you can call if you can’t drive. The mall is 26 miles away, there’s expensive imported food – Wisconsin cheese and bratwurst – in the “Gourmet” section. If I remember correctly, there’s a Dunkin Donuts about 6 miles away and the fast food places are two towns away.
So I’ll stay living in my house, where I’m two blocks from a bus stop and my annual pass is less than $50. My house payments, even with the property taxes and utilities, is still cheaper than rent. I still have my car, but I’m perfectly fine traveling by bus if I can’t drive. I have a cane for when I leave the house. Actually, I have a house cane and a car cane. The house cane isn’t used in the house and rarely in the yard, but I use it when I take the dog for a walk or walk over to a friend’s or neighbor’s house.
As long as I’m not falling daily, or down the steps with the laundry, or when crossing a street, I’m good.
My dog watching days may come to an end soon. Sir Farts-a-Lot seems to be losing steam. He barely wants to go out in the yard. His last walk was to the end if the driveway. His owner picked him up for a vet appointment but she doesn’t have the results yet.
He didn’t eat most of his breakfast. I even tried sticking some cat food in the dish, but that didn’t work. I did get him to take his pills by making a ball of peanut butter and cat food. I wasn’t certain that he wouldn’t somehow manage to spit out the pills. But apparently, they made it to his stomach.
Sir Farts-a-lot, dangerously near his nemesis, the deadly Gingersnap.
I should be repotting my geraniums while the dog naps. The squirrels nearly killed both plants this summer by digging in the pots. I’m going to put the surviving remnants into smaller pots and they and the other potted plants I’m saving from the weather are going in the basement on top of the washer with a grow light on a timer.
I’ll bring in my outdoor ceramic cats for the winter and give them touch-ups with paint and new ribbons for their necks. They sit on the porches to guard my plants from everything except the squirrels and chipmunks. I guess the green and yellow Packer cat wasn’t scary enough for the little buggers. So maybe the pink one and the white one will join him out front next spring.
What a fall! I keep expecting an early snow, but the weather is still ridiculously warm. I know a freeze warning is coming up in the next week or so. By that time the plants should be in the basement, my filters will be down by the furnace and I’ll be good for the winter.
I sincerely hope we don’t become the new Nazi nation. I don’t know why a convicted felon is allowed to run for president. I don’t understand how his followers don’t see what a con man and grifter the guy is. The polls fluctuate so much, I try not to pay much attention to them. My philosophy has always been if I can’t find someone to vote for, find someone to vote against. There are definitely a lot to vote against.
I have a basic book binding class coming up on the 19th of this month. The class is fully booked and I have been making up kits for my students. They will learn how to bind a simple multi-signature hard cover book. I’ve added more supplies to my kit so I can teach 8 students at a time. I don’t know if there will be any youngsters in the class, but it would be great if there were. Perhaps in the future, I will offer a “Bookbinding For Kids” class.
Two views of a book made a few years ago by my youngest granddaughter on her own after a Saturday book making session with Nana.
I’m using sketch paper as the pages. Normally, I use whatever copy paper I have for classes, but it’s flimsy, and while the book is usable, it’s not all that nice. The sketch paper is more durable than copy paper and will hold up better for writing and drawing.
Once they master the basics, I hope they will be inspired to create their own books to use as journals or sketchbooks. For this project, I have cut mat board to 4-1/2 by 5-1/2 in size. I cut the 9 by 12 inch sketch paper in half and they will get the equivalent of six full size papers which they will learn to trim. The maker space currently has an electric industrial paper cutter we can use.
I’m making prototypes to show the various stages of binding from how to determine the grain for folding, covering the boards, and assembling a completed book.
I could have two half-sheets folded as a single signature for six signatures, or up to six half sheets for larger signatures. The problem with larger signatures is a phenomenon called “creep”. When more than two sheets are in a signature, the edges become noticeably uneven, giving a signature a pyramidal edge as each inner paper adds a sliver to the outer edge, with the centermost folded sheets projecting out a distance equal from the edge of the outmost folded sheet like this sideways v >. That gives an uneven edge to the text block.
That’s not a bad thing as many older bound books have signatures arrayed like this. Most book binders trim the edges of the entire text block so they are even before binding the block into the cover. It’s a matter of preference. It’s harder to trim the signatures evenly by hand without an industrial paper cutter that can handle a thick text block.
Depending on the look a binder is trying for, creep could be esthetic. I personally don’t care. Some of the bound item have uneven edges, some are trimmed. I’ve spent a bit on inexpensive binding supplies this round so that I have enough of the basics for each student to take home. They’ll get to keep a bone folder, a couple of piercing tools, a needle, and a good length of waxed thread.
I don’t have waxed linen thread, so we’ll be using waxed cotton tatting thread. I use a beeswax thread conditioner that can be found in the notions area of any fabric shop and run the length of thread across from end to end. I used to use a candle stub before raiding my sewing box for the beeswax.
Trying to work out an arrangement of some items to be set up for a sale with only 1 table allowed. Not everything shown here was taken to the sale.
For my junk journals, I’ve used embroidery thread, dental floss, rattan ribbon, perle cotton, and satin ribbon to stitch signatures and attach bindings. The stitching for the junk journal signatures is mostly done on the outside of the spine and can be done very decoratively. I also like perle cotton for doing Japanese Stab Binding. This technique will be a different class offering.
A cloth-bound sketchbook I made for my youngest Granddaughter’s 13th birthday.
Something outside today triggered some memories from when I was a child. I must have passed near a restaurant that started up their grill, and due to the smell in the air, my subconscious picked it up and went into the past. Smoke? Childhood? What sorts of memories? Burnt ones.
The first smoke memory was being awakened in the middle of the night and being told to get dressed. I might have been in second grade. We were living in New York City in a one of a series of multi-family row houses on the edge of Spanish Harlem. It had to have happened after I turned six as we didn’t live there very long after the fire. I don’t remember snow so it was either early fall or spring of the following year. I had started first grade shortly before my 5th birthday and we moved in the summer after 2nd grade and the fire.
Anyway, I was awakened and told we might have to go outside if the fire reached our building as more than one of the buildings were on fire. We were living in the 3rd or 4th building of the row. Luckily, the fire department stopped the fire on the roof of the building next door. The fright of being awakened and told about a fire left me with a lifelong habit of waking up around 2am and sniffing for fire. At age 77, I still do this. If I don’t smell smoke, I can go back to sleep.
If I do smell smoke, I have to find the source. When I was married, the smell of smoke, and a record playing the same track over and over meant my husband had fallen into a drunken sleep, usually with a lit cigarette between his fingers. I was fortunate most times to catch the cigarette before it burned a hole in the arm chair.
So back to burnt memories. My mother, at some point, became the world’s most distracted cook. She would put pots of food on the stove and walk away. We didn’t have smoke alarms in “the olden days,” so the smell of food burning was the signal that dinner would be served shortly. The char would get scraped off the meat or the skin peeled off the chicken and if we were lucky, whatever rice or vegetables that burnt wouldn’t be too crunchy or black. There was always gravy to cover the taste. The pots would be put to soak for a few hours and then scrubbed until the char was gone.
I was in college when I discovered that the yolks of hard boiled eggs weren’t supposed to be green and that you didn’t need a knife to cut scrambled eggs or pancakes. I also learned that meat didn’t need to be sawed apart and take a long time to chew. Another amazing thing was that mashed potatoes weren’t chunky grey and gravy wasn’t lumpy and chewy.
The college food tasted amazing. The other students would complain about the food, but I thought it was marvelous. They thought I was insane. Even the jello was great. It didn’t have a chewy thick skin on the bottom. None of the food was burned, even the mystery meat looked appetizing. I think the mystery meat was supposed to be a cutlet of some sort. It wasn’t burned so I ate it.
In all my years of cooking, I’ve only had one serious mishap. The stove in my first house had a burner that had a thermostat that could be set by degrees. I decided to make a corned beef brisket. Easy-peasey. Ah, no. I used my largest pot, filled it with water, put the brisket in the pot, set the thermostat to 170 degrees and went on a quick errand. I was gone less than an hour. I had done this more than once and when I would return, I would adjust the thermostat to finish cooking.
However, this time, the thermostat malfunctioned. I returned home and smoke was leaking out my windows. I ran inside and there was no water in the pot and my brisket was a three inch block of charcoal. I know you’re thinking I must have been gone longer than I thought. Nope. The flame which had bern just barely visible under the pot when I left was a roaring blaze surrounding the sides of the pot to about 2 inches high. If it hadn’t been the front burner, I might have lost the house.
I opened every window wide and put a fan facing in the back door and the other facing out the front to get rid of the smoke. The pot with the unsalvageable corned beef briquet was tossed outside to cool off and then disposed of. The other casualties of this mishap were my computer which had been running at the time, and my washing machine which died just before spinning out the last load of smokey laundry.
I really didn’t want to file an insurance claim, but did so for the computer to be repaired. The data was recovered and all was well. Lemon oil on the hard surfaces took care of the smell and most of the greasy soot. I’ve only ever made corned beef brisket in the slow cooker since.
This is the first year I haven’t sat around my fire pit. I usually have a wine cooler or two while I’m out there and when the two or three small pieces of wood burn down, I’m done for the night. But these days, I’m on various medications so having a drink is out of the question. It might not do any harm, but why take a chance. And drinking alone has actually lost its appeal.
I should have been posting more. I’ve been working on a project for my eldest granddaughter’s upcoming wedding. I’ve made macrame jar covers for the tables at the reception which is being held in a barn. I don’t care about the venue – I’m not one of those “poke my nose in your business” people. I’ll admit to being opinionated but not about things like this.
They need a bit of finishing and I will ship them off later today. I made a total of 7 as requested. I haven’t done macrame since its heyday in the 70’s. I do still have a few plant hangers, but the macrame decor managed to escape over the years. Now my house is adorned with my inept art.
I have way too many bad watercolor paintings. Grandma Moses, I’m not. Actually, some resemble a fusion between Picasso and a 2-year toddler. They’re probably not even that good. They probably look like I might have had my arms in casts while wearing a blindfold – very art nerveux, not nouveau.
I hate naked walls, so there is art everywhere – toddler art, my art, a panting my son did in 4th grade picturing his dream of living in a house and not an apartment. That dream came true, by the way. And my first house was even yellow like the one he painted.
Unfortunately, I made a bad decision, took a massive pay cut, sold my house and moved out of state. Eleven months later, I was back living in rentals for the next six years – nice rentals, but still, not mine. The last one was a 2-story, 100 year-old duplex owned by someone I had worked with.
There were two not great things – okay, three not great things. The worse was my landlord, who instead of calling to talk to me, would let himself into the apartment. It got to be a creep factor. The second was the oil heat. When I moved in, heating oil was $.99 a gallon. By the time I moved out it was up to around $3 or $4 a gallon.
It was mandatory in the lease to maintain a half-full tank, which meant I had to buy oil every three to four weeks. A half tank was 50 gallons so the cost of oil wound up becoming $200. Occasionally, I would ask the company to put in only $200 worth of oil and I kept the thermostat at 63 degrees.
Actually, I still have the heat at 63 degrees between 9pm and 5:30 am. I’m under 100 pounds of quilts and blankets to sleep so the only time the cold bothers me is if I drink too much water late at night and need to get up.
The third not great thing was riding with this guy and his partner during the 45 minute x 2 daily commute. The morning ride in wasn’t that bad, but they would never tell me we weren’t going straight home, so I’d get to wait for them to take care of their errands.
We did do grocery shopping at the same time. Apparently, they were wary of fresh vegetables and fruit. They were both doing this high-protein, high supplement diet. When I say high supplement, I mean they had the same size toolbox that I use for my hand tools to keep their vitamins and medicine bottles in.
The nice things about living there were the garage for my car, they were willing to feed my cats, and I didn’t have to pay them for the commute since the two of the three of us worked on campus and we had to pass the partner’s work to get there. Addition pluses over the years I lived there, were not having to clear my sidewalk and my part of the driveway, new windows, a remodeled kitchen
However all good things must end. The end for me was two instances. The first instance happened when I was home after surgery. I was in my underwear in the way to the bathroom, when a man poked his head through the doorway at the end of the stairs and called up “Bug man.” I had not been told he was going to be there.
The second instance was when I got out of the shower and went downstairs and found a package on top of my portable dishwasher. That meant not only had the landlord let himself in, but he walked from the front door through to the kitchen. I decided it was time to move. Three months later, I was in this little doll house that is all mine (and the mortgage company’s) and doing just fine.
I belong to a maker space called The Bodgery. We get our name from an English word “bodge” which is actually a deprecating word indicating shoddy work. We like to think of it as meaning to “McGyver” something – from the TV show of the same name.
We’ve been in existence for 10 years, having started as a social club at the public library. But it’s not as much fun talking about making things as it is actually making them. So we – I say we, even though I didn’t join until 2017 – met in basements and garages for a few months to make things.
Word got around and as more people joined the group, it was decided to find a space with a cheap enough rent and a few hundred square feet of space that we could move our tools into. Thus was born The Bodgery. We are now in our third space of slightly less than 21,000 sq. ft. and space is again getting tight.
We currently have over 600 members and we have 20 to 40 people sign up every month. Because we don’t have contracts, a lot of members join because they have a specific project to make and don’t have access otherwise to a space and tools. So membership fluctuates from month to month
We are a non-profit organization run by the membership through an annually elected Board of Directors, which provides space, tools, and instruction to our members, and until we gained over 300 members, provided instruction in tool use to the public as well. We no longer have nights where the public can come in to use tools as we have grown to enough members to have to use scheduling calendars for the tools.
However, we do give classes in various areas for members and the public which we announce on our website and on Meetup.com. We have hosted a summer camp for kids and work in partnership with several schools to enrich kids by giving them experiences in woodworking, stained glass, jewelry, sewing, screen printing, bookbinding, and other crafts.
We are funded by paid memberships, use fees for some equipment, the occasional grant, and donations. In addition, we offer semi-private workspaces at an additional fee. The studios are very much in demand and we always have a waitlist. We have a two-tier membership system in which most members pay the full rate. The second tier is half-price for full-time students, people who receive assistance, family members, and those over 65.
We are now looking at buildings and hoping to be able to raise funds for a down payment on our own building. We still have two years on our current lease, but buying our current building comes with problems we’d prefer not have to be responsible for fixing. We’ll see what happens.
Sillytoes Crafts 