Sunday, January 18, 2009

Only in Philly

Only in Philadelphia can the city plan for the non-existent. Since they under-planned for the Phillies, now they over planned for the possibility that the Eagles would go to the Super Bowl. There was a 'no parking' sign in front of UArts when I go there this morning in anticipation of the riots that would happy if the Eagles won or lost. Only in Philly. But there were other cars parked, and I didn't really think the date through. Well, okay - so it was for today 3pm-6am on Monday morning, no parking on Broad. My fabulous workshop ended at 6pm, and guess what? No car. So I called the Parking Authority and the nice operator (read - Philly nice-dripping sarcasm) says, "All cars parked on Broad street were moved within a four block radius of where you parked. You'll just have to go look for it." Now, initially this seems like a blessing in disguise. Four block radius, how bad can that be? And I don't have to pay $175.- to get it out of impound. So I start walking. I've been hoping and wishing for snow all winter. Guess what it's doing tonight? Snowing. It's not bad snow, just light, just a little dusting. But I'm gettin' the dusting too. Snow in the eyes isn't really that fun. An hour and a half later, I've waked 8 square blocks from where I've parked, and I have not found my car. :( I decided to call it a day. I go back to UArts and pick up my stuff and head home. And the blasted Eagles didn't even win! Guess what I'm doing tomorrow? I'm going to go riding around on my bike until I find my car. I'm going to be really peeved when I find out that they actually did impound it. :(. I have so many other things I could be doing tomorrow.

Okay okay - other than that, I had a great weekend. I took a Coptic Binding workshop. Coptic bindings are most likely the precursors of our books today. Books that have pages that turn rather than scrolls. This book was really really cool to make.
One starts with a pile of papyrus:Then, one laminates them together to make the boards.
All of this gets sewn together.
We put an endband on. This had to be the easiest endband ever.
The book gets a peg and leather thong to hold it shut. We filed ours out of brass stock. I know why I'm not a jeweler! This was my very least favorite thing of this workshop. Hands down.
The leather work is done off the boards. All of it is blind tooled, leather inlaid, (sort of behind the base leather), stitched together, and then parchment (the white stuff) is woven into the leather.
I really loved working on the cover. It was very hard to decide when to stop.
I managed to get the leather on the boards, but haven't managed to finish.
I got the leather on the boards, intending to finish once I got home. Nope. The saga to find my car began. When I finally got home I had a dirty martini - and knitted. I'll have to finish the whole thing tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll post.

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