cloth.paper.string

this weekend...

... the invites were gocco'ed, assembled, addressed and stamped (with postage, and too, a tiny stamp carved by me);


...ugly apples from the neighbor's tree were sauced and pie-d;

...a sweater was finished. 

A feverish child was cuddled.  A new cook book was discovered.  The post office line was conquered.  Spiced biscotti were twice-baked.  Jerusalem artichokes were tried (and liked).  Really Rosie was rediscovered.  

And a photo was selected for the Shutter Sisters' Daily Click (so many thanks, sisters!!).

A full weekend, indeed.  I hope yours was restful and rich.

autumn's arrival

Fall has rooted itself on my doorstep.  I put on a scarf this morning.  And used the windshield wipers to wipe away the fallen leaves.  We're feverishly lining the pantry shelves and filling the chest freezer with preserved bits of summer.  Bedtime stories are read now with the light on.   We have what will probably be the last camping trip of the year planned for the weekend.  I've been knitting.  And the crockpot came out of hiding.  Sure signs.

And over in the shop, there's a bit of autumn captured on gocco printed note cards, available in sets of four and as singles.

What harbingers of autumn are at your doorstep?

forward

Every now and then I steal away to my attic.  I bring out my gocco printer and paper, or bookcloth, and I pull prints.  There's something relaxing about the repetition.  About the making of many.  There's something satisfying about an orderly stack of notecards.  About the transfer of images from my natural environment onto the page, onto cloth.  Time passes, almost unnoticed. I know this is good for me.

Since I've been finding such peace in the making, and since I'm a girl who needs an assignment, I've decided to open a little shop over on etsy.  If you've tracked the gocco swaps, you'll see some familiar items.  And you'll see some new stuff as well, including hardcover journals with gocco printed bookcloth covers.

The cottonwood leaf screen is one that was retired - ahem, ripped - in the last print run.  There are three limited edition journals and a stack of cottonwood cards in the shop.  A portion of sales from items printed with this botanical rubbing will be donated to the Cottonwood Foundation, an all-volunteer organization that makes small, but significant donations to grassroots groups around the world protecting the environment, empowering people and promoting cultural diversity.  It seems fitting in many ways.

And in other sharing news, I paid it forward, finally.  I sewed up a batch of charlie bags -- three choclate brown linen bags with repurposed cotton lining, one greyish denim one with yellow seersucker lining.  I then paired them up with some gocco'ed cards, and sent them out.  Nine months late.  Many thanks to Marnie, Grace, Kate and Lisa for being so very patient. 

salud

Last fall we visited with great grandmother Ann in southeastern Minnesota.  She had been diagnosed with a rare form of a rare disease and had traveled from South Carolina to the Mayo Clinic for specialized treatment.  Just outside the window of her suite stood a full and vibrant ginkgo tree.  Eastern lore tells of this tree as a symbol of strength and longevity, a bearer of hope.  A fitting symbol, indeed.  I picked a leaf and tucked it in my book. 

Back home I made an impression of the leaf, and tucked it into another book.  When I cooked up the latest gocco swap, I knew I'd use the image. 

I paired the leaf with one word:  salud.  One word with many meanings:  to health and bless you and also cheers!

Since gocco supplies are in short supply I burned a flurry of leaves on the screen, but only used one in the printing.  The others will surely show up here and there in the future.

I printed notecards on recycled paper and paired them up with kraft paper envelopes.  Scraps of blue paper wrapped up sets of notecards, and more scraps of a lighter blue paper were turned into stickers to hold the bundles together.  They hit the mail today.

And so, a blessing to the longevity of the memory of great grandmother Ann.

one : gocco swap

Last weekend I walked along the Mississippi River under majestic cottonwood trees.  Their branches were dappled with soft green leaves just starting to bud out.  The ground beneath my feet was blanketed by the crunching skeletal remains of last season's leaves.  I couldn't not think of the cottonwood leaf I picked up from the banks of that river almost four years ago which became one of my first gocco prints. 

Of course it got me thinking of printing.  And hosting yet another swap.  I'm resisting that deeply entrenched habit I have to over-think everything, and am instead jumping right in.  So, won't you join me for another gocco swap?

The only parameter I'm tossing out for the swap is one.  One image.  One word.  One screen (they are so very precious now, after all).  Feel free to take it wherever you want from there.  Print a single print, a small set of notecards, bookplates, stamps, stickers, a notebook, a fabric printed something-or-other, or anything else that suits your gocco fancy.  Send one of your creations out to each of your swapmates (you'll be swapping with 10-12 folks from around the world).  Receive a gocco-ed creation from each of your swapmates.

The swap is open to anyone, anywhere with a blog and/or flickr account and access to a gocco screen printer.

The sign-up deadline is May 26th.  Sign up by sending me an email at clothpaperstring AT gmail DOT com with the subject Gocco Swap - be sure to include your name, mailing address and a link to your blog and/or Flickr account.   I'll send out your list of swapmates later that week (you'll have 10-12 who you'll be committing to sending your gocco-ed bits out to).

The swap is open to anyone, anywhere with a blog and/or flickr account and access to a gocco printer.

Mail your gocco'd bits to swapmates on or before June 19th.  Don't forget to take photos of your creations and post them to the one : gocco swap flickr group. 

And, feel free to spread the word.  You can cut and paste the HTML in the box to add a button to your blog or sidebar:   

<a href="http://clothpaperstring.typepad.com/clothpaperstring/2009/05/one-gocco-swap.html"><img src="http://clothpaperstring.typepad.com/clothpaperstring/onegocco.jpg" border="0"/></a>

Happy gocco-ing!

And, if you're scratching your head, wondering what all this gocco-business is about, you can see examples here, learn more here and get in on discussions about it here. 

framed

I've been framing...

This year's letterpressed lunar calendar by Alec Thibodeau.  You may recall just how much I loved last year's.  Our upstairs hallway wouldn't feel right without a way to track the moon.  See the detail of the 2009 calendar at Tiny Showcase. 
And - finally - one of my favorites from last year's gocco swap thanks to Samantha Wedelich. This image is so rich for me.  I often struggle with holding back when I should let go.  I've hung this little print in my craft room as a small reminder to be more free.

gocco notes in the mail

It started about a year ago with a weed, the sun and some paper.  You might remember.  I placed a snip of a plant that reminded me of dill across a page of light sensitive paper and watched a bit of magic happen.  As soon as the cyanotype developed I knew I wanted to make gocco prints of their ethereal images.  I tucked the sunprints into a book where they'd be safe until I was ready to use them.  And then I returned the book - and the prints - to the library.  I can only hope the prints were appreciated by whomever found them within the pages.  But this post isn't really about that...

For the art of the note : gocco swap, I decided I'd forge ahead and print one of the cyanotypes, even though I didn't have the original.  I edited a photo of the sunprint and burned two screens of the same image with slight variations -- one is smaller, more crisp; the other larger, mirrored and more grainy. The differences were possible thanks to flickr's photo editor picnik and the light/dark setting on the photocopier.

Green ink was a given, connecting the prints to the plants.  I'm really excited about how this one came out.  The blue ink wasn't planned, but when I scanned through my inks I realized that blue would link the prints back to the sunprint.  The graininess of this image works for me in some places, but not all.  I think I'd like it better if it were tidier kind of messy, if that makes sense.  But, little did I know that the screen, once printed with blue and then cleaned, would bring me full circle, almost recreating the original lost in that library book.  This alone is winning me over.

Please check out the art of the note : gocco swap flickr group.  There you'll find more photos of my gocco'ed swap goods as well as many fun and inspiring prints by other participants.  Thanks again to all for making the swap a success.  I'm off to see what gocco goodness came in today's mail...

And for those of you scratching your head wondering what gocco is, you can learn more about this small Japanese screen printing device here.

art of the note : gocco swap

I'm a huge fan of handwritten notes.  Especially those penned inside handmade and original cards.  Seeing squiggling, swirling or scrawling handwriting of the sender makes the message feel closer, more true.  And, of course, there's that sparkle a personal note brings to a mailbox that is often crowded with uninspired form letters, bills and such.

Knowing that the card itself is unique and selected or made especially for you adds another layer of meaning.  And too, there are plenty of cards that are art in and of themselves.  I know that I am not the only one to frame a card that strikes me so. 

After the fun that was shared by so many through the mid-winter gocco swap, I've decided to host another swap.  This time around is all about the celebrating the handwritten note.  I hope you'll join me in printing and swapping gocco'ed notecards.  And then, in writing more notes to family and friends, spreading the gocco goodness even further. Here's the lowdown:
The sign-up deadline is July 21st.  Sign up by sending me an email at clothpaperstring AT gmail DOT com with the subject Gocco Swap - be sure to include your name, mailing address and a link to your blog and/or Flickr account.   I'll send out your list of swapmates later that week (again, you'll have 10-12 who you'll be committing to sending your gocco-ed bits out to).

Gocco print a set of notecards (4-8 cards with envelopes), send a set of your cards to each of your swapmates (you'll have 10-12 folks you'll be swapping with), receive cardsets from your swapmates.

The swap is open to anyone, anywhere with a blog and/or flickr account and access to a Gocco printer.

Mail your gocco'd bits to swapmates on or before August 21st.  Don't forget to take photos of your creations and post them to the art of the note : gocco swap flickr group.

And, feel free to spread the word.  You can cut and paste the HTML in the box to add a button to your blog or sidebar:   

<a href="http://clothpaperstring.typepad.com/clothpaperstring/2008/07/art-of-the-note-gocco-swap.html"><img src="http://clothpaperstring.typepad.com/clothpaperstring/swapbutton.jpg" border="0"/></a>

Happy gocco-ing!

Update:  the swap is now closed with over 50 gocco-ers on board!  See who's participating here.

little bits

We recently gifted a certain babe-on-the-way with a bundle of handmade:  the simplest of quilts; a onesie freezer paper-stenciled with Olive, the Boston terrier; and a pair of Melissa's baby shoes screen printed with the image she created for the mid-winter gocco swap.

As for gocco, another swap is in the works.  I promise there will be more to come in the next few weeks...

winter tracks

My prints for the gocco swap are finally in the mail.  As the organizer, it's a tad embarrassing to admit that I was eight days late in sending off my goods.  I was set back by a self-inflicted bout of last-minute-itis paired with technical difficulties.  Despite the delay, I'm pleased with the results.

I originally set out to make a print with multiple screens.  I hadn't ever done this before and wanted to stretch myself a bit with the swap.  But the image I had in my head I couldn't wrestle onto paper. 

Then I happened upon the tracks of pigeons near a bridge I often cross on my morning walks with the dog.  I knew I had found it. 

I snapped a dozen or so photos and somehow figured out the very most basics of photo-editing to invert and clean the image for the screen.  Then I ran into some problems.  I printed the image on my HP inkjet which, according to many, works just fine.  But I couldn't get the image to burn onto the screen.  I ran through all of my bulbs and still a blank screen.  A panicked order was placed with Wet Paint for more supplies and I set out to find a photocopier so that my image would be ready when the delivery arrived.

A few days later I burned the screen without incident and started on the printing.  My inks are stored, with most of my craft stuff, in my mostly unheated attic.  I quickly learned that the inks aren't as cooperative when they're cold, which really should have been obvious.  While I was frustrated by this at first, it ended up adding an unexpected element to the printing process. 

The shimmering blue I mixed from silver, white and konjou blue ended up relatively solid for the first part of the print run; but when I reinked the screen, subtle variations of blue became apparent across the following prints.  The more I printed, the more I imagined the prints to be like those actual tracks.  With time and temperature the snow would melt, revealing more and more of the surface beneath.  Fitting too, I think for the mid-winter theme.

If you haven't yet, check out the flickr group for the swap.  The creativity of the group continues to amaze me.  While I imagined that there would be a range of things produced and shared, I didn't expect that so many would also share their processes in making their items - in many cases the photos have links to their blog posts about the inspiration and actual crafting of the images.  Be sure to check these out too.

Many have asked if there will be another gocco swap.  I'm planning on it.  There won't be a seasonal theme though -- I now realize that the notion of mid-winter was the last thing many wanted to think about, especially those in the southern hemisphere!  I tend forget that winter doesn't last for six whole months in much of the world...  I'd love to hear feedback on this swap and also suggestions for the next one.  In the meantime, many, many thanks to all of the swap participants for making this swap a success!!