Handmade Books, Artist Links, and Another Bird

I had a lovely day yesterday with my friend, Nancy. We went to Hollander's for a 2 Exposed Spine Sewings workshop. You might remember that I took a class at Hollander's last year in August and had a great experience. If you click on the link in the sentence above, you can see the books I made in that class. This class was just as fun. The instructor was once again the lovely Vicki from whom I took the last book making class. The books we made are beautiful - you know Hollander's has the most wonderful selection of papers and the ones they choose for their classes are absolutely gorgeous. It doesn't matter whether you get to choose yours first or last, you are bound to get something you will be happy with.

The two exposed spine sewings we did yesterday were the buttonhole stitch book and the coptic sewn book. Vicki once again was very organized and demoed each step and then we all sewed together at one table. I loved both styles and have three books finished to bring home. We actually made a small "practice" coptic stitch book before working on our larger one.

Here are my goodies from yesterday:

My stitches on the coptic sewn book are a bit too tight and the soft cover is a bit skewed at the edges as a result, but I will get better and absolutely loved making these treasures. I'm hoping Vicki will have a class next year that includes the long stitch method. I'll surely take that one, too.

This is also the day I share links of some of my favorite artists' blogs and today is no exception. I do hope you will take a look at these. I have found some of my favorite blogs from following links in others' blogs.

Jean

Barb

Vivian

Thomas

Martine

And now I humbly offer to you my latest colored pencil bird. It is a scarlet tanager. Actually it is a rather fat scarlet tanager. I think that in my photo of him he is a bit longer and more svelte, but I am not overly unhappy with him. What do you think?

I was supposed to spend last night at my daughter's house because she was supposed to be at work at 7:00 and the bus arrives at her house at 8:00. Miss 3 wanted me to sleep with her in her bed. She has one of those convertible crib beds. When I told her I was too big for her bed, she said I could sleep on the floor next to her bed. But when I got home from Hollander's yesterday I found out that DD didn't have to be to work until 8 and she thought it would be more pleasant for me to spend the night in my own bed and drive to her house this morning to arrive at 7:30 so I could get Miss 7 on the bus and then bring Miss 3 to my house for the day. Good plan!