Jo's Open House!

If you didn't make it out your driveway to get to Jo's Open House, you missed an opportunity! Shopping!! like we have not had this close before!

Yes, the snow played a big part in the day but she's on her way!!

It all started way back before the summer conference when we were stitching autographs books together. They wouldn't have been quite so easy if Jo hadn't volunteered to fold all that paper...  Fay sat in the corner, obviously looking out over the room seeing the future in her mind and suggested to Jo that it would make a great working studio.  And as they say, the rest is history!

A little bit of advertising at the library artists' day......

Hours of making bookbinding kits........cutting paper, book cloth, instructions, paper, glue, needles, thread, etc. all into each bag......

See all the glue bottles in the cupboard? with the expert help of Dorothy, many bottles of glue later........

Stir in some amazing equipment.........paper cutters, photocopier, coil binder.......

Wonderfully sturdy new tables.......

Another view of the very useful equipment.

Thousands of sheets of paper, with the kits hanging on the board behind......

Threads, headbands, needles, bone folders, amazing glue brushes......Jo has it all!

To die for paper drawers.............filled with an amazing selection of gorgeous papers!!!

The lull before the storm? quiet, organized studio, waiting for all of us.

A friend's gift.......cake!!

delicious carrot cake......Jo cutting the bottom layer for us!

Congratulations Jo!! here's to an amazing venture!!

To quote Anita after her visit today.......

I am inspired by a friend who seized an opportunity, despite health and financial uncertainty, to establish her book arts studio/business. What a gift to all those around her!



If you get a chance, visit Jo's Cottage Book Arts Studio and buy yourself something nice for Christmas!! and remember the Secret Santa at our Christmas Luncheon coming up! pretty sure Santa would be pleased if you shopped at Jo's!

November Meeting

Building on what we learned in July, the November meeting was another look at a manuscript.  This time we studied the letters in the Lindisfarne Gospels.   The letters from the Stockholm Codex Aureus were also suggested as letters that would be quite perfect for this program.

We started with a wonderful slide show by Karen Kant from the Seattle area, compiled after the Lindisfarne Legacy tour in 2005.  It gave us a feel of what the area is like today and also what it might have been like when the gospel scribes were in the scriptorium on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

The object of the project is to create two or three lines of the drawn letters with enough space in between the lines for text written in the much smaller Early Roman Uncials we studied in July.  We were given several quotes in Latin with the English translation to choose from in case we needed some words to work with.

This is a first draft..........

and a close up.....

I decided after playing with this quote that the latin words should have each been given their own line. 

 On to plan B!!

Always a good sign in a class is the participants with their heads down! Such concentration!!

it was contagious!

And finally, the November meeting would not be complete without wishing Nan a Happy Birthday! we usually have a meeting on the actual date but this year we were a couple of days late...a grand showing of handmade cards nonetheless!

It will be very interesting to see the pieces that come from these two meeting programs.  Hopefully in January we will see what others have come up with!!

See you in December!