This time I used a lighter weight, more expensive Kiraku Kozo paper, again from Shephards. Being lighter weight meant it was more tricky getting the paper laid on top of the cloth. It's a shame you can't buy a second set of hands and keep them in a cupboard until you need them! But being lighter weight meant that it was easier to get good adhesion to the cloth. Again I followed instructions given in the Big Jump Press blog. Just like the piece made with Kozuke paper this piece was quite stiff when dried.

However I don't think the stiffness is a problem. I used the first piece of bookcloth to make the outer cover of a 'soft' spine book following instructions on a DVD by Paige Martin called 'Stitch this book'. As it was my first attempted I glued each piece of book board separately and placed these onto the book cloth. I had no issues with blisters or creases - it went together easily. My corners weren't great but practice will make perfect.

I left the cover overnight to dry then added a liner made from the second piece of bookcloth. Again it was pretty easy and I now have a finished book cover! It's been really enjoyable so will spend the rest of today making more bookcloth with the other two types of Kozo paper I have.  A nice way to spend my weekend off!

Last night I made my first piece of bookcloth. I used a piece of my hand dyed cotton poplin with a sheet of Kozuke (44grams) from Shephards. I followed the excellent instructions given by Sarah Bryant on her blog Big Jump Press. Sarah tells you how to make your own starch paste - I cheated and brought some ready made from Ratchfords. I diluted the paste about 50/50 with cold water.

I found the process really easy but had to use a stippling brush across the whole surface to get good adhesion between the paper and the cloth - maybe a combination of not getting the fabric wet enough and the starch paste being a little too thick?? Or because of the weight of paper?

It dried nicely overnight but feels stiffer than I thought it would. So this morning I am going to make another piece. I'm going to spray more water on the fabric and leave it for 10-15 minutes before adding the paper. I'm going to dilute the paste just a little bit more. I'm also going to use a different, slightly lighter weight paper. And yes the scientist that I am in my day job is screaming about the dangers of changing too many variables at once! But, what the heck, it is my weekend off.

I was due to spend this weekend visiting Ruth Brown in her studio on Sunk Island. We get together a couple of times a year and generally do some printing or other surface design work; either experimenting together or doing some of our own stuff. This time however I didn't really have any wet work that I wanted to do so suggested that we do something completely different - making bookcloth and bookbinding. I've been thinking about taking up a hobby for a while. Yes, crazy I know given how much I pack into my days already. But sometimes I just want something I can do that I am less 'invested in'. Something that doesn't have deadlines. And bookbinding really appeals to me - it requires precision and attention to detail, it can use some of my stash of hand dyed fabrics and it can include stitch. And, no surprises to anyone that knows her, Ruth happened to have some DVDs on bookbinding that she could send me. But unfortunately Ruth is poorly (get bettter soon!). So, with a deadline looming, I could be sensible and spend the time working on my latest Ruins piece. Or I could stick with plan A and learn some new skills. I'm opting for plan A. So here are all my new treasures ready to go. Gorgeous hand dyed fabric. A selection of Kozo paper. Paste and glue. Book board. Tools. And a lovely sketchbook that Ruth gave me to record my experiments in bookbinding in. Fingers crossed!

It has been a while since I have written about Steven Pressfield and his book 'The War of Art' but this week I had reason to reread sections of the book. I got the news that the pieces I submitted to the SAQA calls 'Tranquility' and 'Turmoil' had been rejected. Nobody likes rejection but for many people it can be distracting or even paralysing. We all fear rejection. That fear is hard wired into us. But Pressfield says that a 'Professional' artist cannot take rejection personally. Instead she should self-validate and assess her work coldly and objectively. ''Where it fell short, she'll improve it. Where it triumphed, she will make it better still. She'll work harder. She'll be back tomorrow.''

So in the time it took to drink a cup of good coffee (and eat some chocolate) I assessed the pieces (including Storm 1 Jagged) that had been rejected. Did I achieve visually what I wanted with each piece? Yes. Were they crafted to the best of my technical ability? Yes. Did I present them to the best of my ability? Well maybe not - they were hard to photograph so I need to work on this. Will I let rejection stop me from working on the Storm / Still series? Will I let rejection stop me submitting works from this series to other calls? Will I let it take anymore of my precious time in the studio? Nope. No way!

And with that I put on some loud music, sat down at my sewing machine and stitched for two solid hours!

Whilst I am enjoying a very relaxed 4 day weekend in my studio Linda Bilsborrow and Sandra Wyman from my exhibiting group Etcetera will be at Ryedale Folk Museum tomorrow (Saturday) between 2pm and 4pm for a 'meet the artist' event.

The seven members of Etcetera have created seven very different interpretations of the word 'Transitions'. Linda's Lifeline series deals with the transitions between different life stages - the phases of our lives that we all go through but cannot really see until we look backwards. Sandra has created a series of pieces that are autobiographical and represent a time of profound personal transition and self-discovery.

The Museum is in Hutton-le-Hole, North Yorkshire. The exhibition runs until Saturday 7th May.

The best thing for me about the Etcetera exhibition at Ryedale is the opportunity to show Hidden Messages 2 and 3 in their final form. Both started life as more conventional quilts, albeit that Hidden Messages 3 was finished as 4 banners. But I was never happy with them. So I cut them each into 12 individual 16x16 inch pieces and stretched over canvas. And then put them away as I didn't even have space to photograph them. But here they are now. I think it was worth the wait!

The Etcetera exhibition opened at Ryedale Folk Museum yesterday and will run until 7th May. The museum is in Hutton-le-Hole, a very picturesque village in North Yorkship. Admission to the art gallery is free. We will be running a few meet the artist events as below and hope that you can join us!

Saturday 26th March: Linda Bilsborrow and Sandra Wyman Sunday 17th April: Julie Bunter and Sandra Wyman Saturday 23rd April: Leah Higgins and Linda Bilsborrow

Here are a few images, more to follow.

Tomorrow we will be hanging the next Etcetera exhibition at Ryedale Folk Museum and Art Gallery. I've spent a good hour this evening walking around in circles trying to check if I have everything we might need packed and ready for an early start. Yes I wrote a check list a couple of weeks ago and have been diligently ticking off items as I have collected them but that hasn't stopped that slightly panicked feeling. After all it can't hurt to have a back up screw driver for the back up screw driver can it? And will one hammer really be enough?? And of course there is always something that is last minute - in this case it was getting handouts printed. I had planned to get them printed, collected and prepared at the weekend but life hadn't read my plan so now I'm sat folding 200 double sided A3 sheets in half. The things we do for our art!

Last week I spent 5 lovely days with 10 other members of the Contemporary Quilt group on a retreat at Rydal Hall in the Lake District. I took my ipad with the expectation that I would be able to blog whilst there. That didn't work out as the wireless network was too, too slow for Wordpress. I did, with some patience (and a little bit of swearing), manage to read my email and got the most wonderful news. My Ruins 4 quilt has been selected for Quilt Visions 2016! I floated on a cloud of smugness for the rest of the week!! Which must have been rather irritating for my fellow retreat members. Sorry about that. One of the great things about the retreat is the amount of sharing we do. We share ideas, we share materials and we find solutions to problems together. All done with lots of coffee, cake and the odd glass of wine. Everybody is encouraged to bring a book or books that they have found inspirational in the previous 12 months. There was a wonderful variety but I fell in love with this one. I think the level of neatness and precision appeals to my 'tidy' gene and it definitely got me thinking about how some of my breakdown prints would look as book covers. I am not somebody who uses sketchbooks or notebooks routinely as part of my design process but I do love the idea of owning them. Maybe making my own would encourage me to use them?