Getting ready for new work

As ever, I remain a somewhat fascinated observer of process- how things come about, how ideas spark one thing and then another - which can lead to a different approach; but nearly always things need to be tested and trialled along the way.

After my middle of the night moment back here, I have been testing what might be possible with the bits and pieces I found and wanted to use.

Barry helped me and drilled holes into the perspex bits I found.

Then we tested if you could drill through he plastic protective sheet and we could so that is good - the perspex can be protected right until the end.

My templates may not have been perfect, but if I move things around a bit, I am pretty sure the holes will line up.

So then to see if the stitched paper could be held within a perspex 'page'.

A few more holes were drilled to allow for X X to hold the paper in.

So then it was down to piercing the stitching holes on paper. But first up I had to draw up a template. The rectangle is 5cm x 1cm and there are 8 lines of stitching in that 1cm. Tiny!

I realised that if I were to pierce the template and then do lots and lots of piercing on a bunch of paper, that the holes might well and truly widen as I repeatedly pierced. 

Then I had to check which of my awls had the finest tip; and was the narrowest along the shaft for  the longest length. That way if I was over zealous in my piercing I wouldn't create a massive hole. The lines are so close together, a large hole would probably join in to the hole above or below and make messy rip.

Not all awls are created equal.

My chosen tool and my first page pierced.

Let the stitching begin.

A lovely soft green.

From my botanically dyed thread - this one is from Scotland.

And I learnt from that rather wobbly first attempt that rather than pierce along the horizontal lines, I was better off piercing the vertical lines against a ruler. Always learning!