2000 posts, plus pegs and type

 When I was trawling through Blogger trying to work out how my ability to comment and reply had been randomly removed from me, I noticed I was about to make my 2000th post. Wow. 

In the days of FB and Insta and TikTok and all, people often wonder why folk continue to blog.

Fortunately I have moved on from any angst I may have once had about lots of people reading what I write, of wondering how many comments I get, how many posts get read and so on. I have come to the belief that primarily, I seem to blog for myself, and that is fine.

Whenever I am wondering when I made something, or did I do something a particular way - I turn to my blog and go searching. It is actually the most reliable memory of my artwork that I have and I am grateful for its existence more often than seems reasonable.

I also blog because I know that some folk are interested in what I do; that some folk like to see how I do things; and because I like to share thoughts about making, and processes, and highs and lows; and also because it that it is just lovely to still be part of an online community that is generous and kind.

So a HUGE thank you to all the folk who read, who comment, who email  and message me.; and who keep me motivated to make a record of my work, and the odd other event here and there - including flowers and travels. Thank you.

Yesterday I taught a one person workshop and we had a grand time. So much wonderful experimentation, testing this, trying that.  As part of my Introduction, I pulled out some type for comparison.

The tool on the left is a pica ruler - picas down the left hand side and inches down the right. I love the ingenious little hook at the top which makes it possible to hook it on a piece of furniture and measure how long it is.

With this type I was showing type at 8pt and type at 72pt. BIG difference. I was also showing how 72pt is generally as large as they make metal type, because after that it gets too heavy, and too expensive to make. Beyond that point size, they usually head for timber. Some timber, like the A here, is 72pt as well. 72pt is about 2.5cm (or an inch); whilst 8pt is approximately 2.8mm.

I have only ever worked with 8pt once. You can see why really...

And in this shot I am comparing the smallest type in the studio to the tallest/largest type in the studio.

The M here is Italian, and is measured as 30 ciceros (no points used with Italian type). A cicero measures about 4.5mm and therefore, 30 ciceros makes this block of wood type around 13.5cm long. Italian type is also a tad higher than the type we generally use.

In between times when the weather was cold and time inside was the best kind of time; I re-rolled some of my natural-dyed threads from round pegs onto square/flat pegs.  I like flat pegs and they are hard to get hold of; so when I come across a stash of vintage ones I nab them and then sit quietly rolling from one type to the other.

Before.

After.

There is a way to go, but I am getting there with the transfer.

The current stash from Maleny.

And the current stash from Scotland.

Still plenty of round pegs to be replaced!