Thursday 27 June 2013

Granny Square Book Cover & Pencil Scribblings

I am just coming to the end of the notebook I carry around with my crochet and sewing projects and will shortly need to start a new one. This notebook has become disproportionately valuable to me and I would hate to lose it - it contains all my pencilled notes on the things I've made over the last few years - variations on patterns I've followed, but have adapted or tweaked (because I seem to be incapable of just following a pattern, exactly as it is given); lists of fabrics, yarn names and colours; scribbled references to blogs or books; hook sizes used to make particular things - almost the most useful info in the entire book, especially if I've put a project aside for a while and then returned to it and cannot remember what on earth size hook I originally used; templates and pattern pieces, cut from newspaper or the backs of Earl Grey tea packets, drift occasionally to the floor from its pages, as well as oddments of yarn, receipts and snippets of fabric; there are written notes, and little drawings, sketches and diagrams that all chart my hooky and sewing progress and the book's cover is now endearingly dog-eared. It's become a kind of friend who marks my creative life alongside me. Looking back through it, I can instantly recapture the mood associated with particular projects and times, even though it is by no means a diary and it only charts one very particular aspect of my life. I shall be sad to come to the final page but hopefully, in time, Volume 2 will be as precious to me as Volume 1.

I say "pencilled notes" because I only write, or draw, in pencil, in this book. Pencil feels creatively provisional to me - it is reassuringly easy to erase and rewrite - but in a way it's strange to have information that I really want to preserve, mapped in such an ephemeral medium. When I was at university, my tutor was very sniffy about writing in pencil and claimed it reflected a "lack of willingness to commit to a given thesis and a lack of confidence in what one was expressing". I didn't agree then (and I don't agree now) that that is always a bad thing.

There's a softness about pencil notes that makes the transition from thought in the mind, to arrival on paper, easy and because writing in ink always feels more definite, it can restrict experimental expression, whether written or drawn. Pencil invites the experimental -  it says, "Don't be afraid to try something, even if you decide it doesn't work and want to redo it or rework it." It says, "Why not push the limits, because you can always change your mind?" Ink is more demanding and less open to possibility and playing with options. It says, "Are you sure about this? Because if not, think again!" It says, "Stick to what is tried and tested rather than potentially make the mistake of playing around with what you don't know will work." Perhaps my tutor was right to be pejorative about a pencilled essay discussing Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" but for notes exploring creative options and marking creative progress, the open possibilities of graphite, I find much more congenial and comfortable than the unequivocal definition of ink.

Anyway I digress. Notebook Volume 2 is waiting in the wings and actually has quite a pretty pink cover of its own already, but I'd seen Sue Pinner's pattern for a notebook cover in "Granny Squares" and it seemed like a nice small-scale project that would have the benefit of making the notebook distinctively difficult to lose or, (God forbid!), leave behind somewhere, and the nature of its construction would supply the book with two convenient pockets for all the things that currently have a tendency to drop out of the old one.

So here it is. Complete with the first pickings from my slightly-dilatory-but-getting-there, sweet peas whose colours happen to harmonise rather nicely with the granny square centres.


I experimented with the colours of the tiny grannies a bit and wondered about making them all different but in the end I restricted the number of centre colours to six and made all the outer rounds in this chartreuse green. The squares are worked on a 3.75mm hook and I've used Cascade Ultra Pima cotton yarn from my stash. I usually use a 4mm hook with the Cascade Ultra Pima but this time I went down a size to make sure the squares came out nice and dense.


I know it's bright, but I love the way this kind of lime green acts unexpectedly, almost as a neutral colour, setting off all the others, while still blowing its own bright trumpet. I used the same green to crochet all the squares together once I had them arranged as I wanted them. I just can't get on with joining-as-you-go, somehow - quite apart from getting the components lined up as I want them, which I can't always decide on happily in advance, my joining-as-you-go efforts always look lumpy rather than smooth and even. I know many of you hooky people swear by it as a method and it saves a lot of time, so I wonder if I am simply doing it wrong. Perhaps I must try again.


The button is a printed wooden one


- couldn't resist them when I saw them here.

The cover is held in place by two panels of straightforward (but deliciously stripy!) single crochet, crocheted onto the border of the outer cover, to make two "sleeves" at either end. Perfect for holding templates, small pattern pieces, yarn labels or other vital scraps as well as their primary function of holding the cover on the book.



And the loop for the button neatly holds a nice fat twiggy pencil in place, ready for use. I like these pencils. They are made from Indian Neem twigs. Not very practical to sharpen as they are too fat to fit any normal pencil-sharpener and when blunt, require the judicious application of a very sharp craft knife, but they remain useable for a surprisingly long time and their quirky, slightly irregular shape, sits in harmony with the invitation to irregular possibility, that writing or drawing in pencil offers.


In his rather grim poem, "Dolor", Theodore Roethke writes "I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, neat in their boxes" and you may agree with Roethke, but I can't see it that way. As a school-girl of around eight or nine, one of my favourite rainy break-time activities was to wend my way along the long corridor that led to "Stationery" and visit dear, kind Mrs Pepper in her treasure-store. The little room was piled high with new exercise books, pink blotting paper, pairs of compasses (with inch-long stiletto points, that would now be deemed far too dangerous to allow in the classroom, but which we blithely wielded without the slightest anxiety, or indeed, injury) and boxes of beautiful, shiny new pencils, each tipped with a soft, new rubber, on one end. On production of a completed exercise book, or a note initialled by the teacher, you could collect new supplies, gratis, but you could also purchase items for yourself, for next to nothing.

"Stationery" smelt of paper and wood-shavings, coffee and filing boxes. It was a little hidden world in which no mistakes ever marred the white, squared pages of the red mathematics books (unlike mine, back in my desk, which was a sorry mess of painfully reworked sums, rubbings out and red ink crosses); creamy sheets of graph-paper waited expectantly for the perfect points of new "H" or even "2H" pencils to draw flamboyant, rainbow arcs against their checkered skies; ordinary "HB" pencils "neat in their boxes", held, not "inexorable sadness", but the promise of stories and poems waiting to be written and drawings that, you never knew, might give Picasso a run for his money; all was possible somehow and when the bell rudely ended my exploration of Mrs Pepper's wares, I never failed to return to the afternoon's lessons that awaited, without feeling re-energised and somehow encouraged to renew my efforts at intractable maths problems or whatever was on the timetable. I still love stationery shops and can happily wile away the odd half hour in them although they don't have the same evocative smell as the secret, paper-and-pencil-filled nooks of Mrs Pepper's hideaway, all those years ago.



Happy Hooking and Scribbling!

E x

23 comments:

  1. Oh it's lovely, I love the stripey goodness hidden inside the covers, and how handy as a place to store yarn bands. I have to confess to a real love of notebooks, and stationary generally. I have so many notebook on the go for different things, my crafting, knitting and crochet my lyrics and several others. Your sweet peas are gorgeous too, mine are no where near flowering yet, they are so behind this year, I saw some lovely wild ones growing on the beach yesterday.
    Clare x

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  2. Oh, Elizabeth, you have such a talent for putting together words, for choosing just the right colors and for marrying your thoughts in such a unique way. I feel like I am in Mrs. Pepper's storeroom and smelling the items stocked there.

    The journal is just so sweet, complete with wooden bark pencil and the exactly right button to fasten all your thoughts together. I wish my mother could have had tea with you while perhaps I could have observed your conversation from a nearby windowsill as a butterfly might have caught the two of you together.

    Many smiles for you.

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    1. What a lovely thing to say, Nancy! Wish your trip to the UK was a bit further south and then you and I could have met for tea! E x

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  3. Your notebook is lovely and I do like your wooden woodsy pencil, too!

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  4. Que c'est joli Elizabeth...ça donne envie de créer créer créer.....j'adore
    Surtout l'intérieur et au niveau du crayon.....félicitation...
    Muriel du Monde de Miel

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  5. I am so with you on using pencil for jotting down crafty ideas, pen just feels wrong somehow! I love your diary - it's so bright and colourful and surely will aid you creativity!!! Sx

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  6. Wow what's fab idea for your journal cover, I have a notebook but I keep forgetting to write in it...lol...one day I will remember xx

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  7. My heart always jumps a bit when I see there is a new post from you...and then if it involves crochet...well, then it give my heart a jolt. And this project is definitely jolt worthy. LOVE the colors and the application! Well done, my dear. Happy journaling to you!

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  8. It's just so beautiful, you're an inspiration to me Mrs Thomas Tittlemouse! :) x

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  9. Oh yes, there is just something about a box of pencils or a new blank notebook - it's the promise of what's to come! The notebook cover is delightfully summery. I am loving the Susan Pinner Granny Squares book - my mum and I spent many happy hours last weekend going through it and making up the odd motif, trying out new patterns. x

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  10. Dear E - There is definitely something strange going on as I've just finished drafting a post about two new notebooks that two of my class children bought me last week as farewell gifts!!! You beat me to it tho so I'll wait a few weeks to post it! Don't want to flood the market! Love your book cover and especially the pencil! xxx

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  11. Dear E
    I do share your love of stationery, whether in a cupboard or in a shop or at home. For me, geting a new notebook or journal is linked to that exciting 'I wonder what I'm going to put in here?' moment. What fascinating (to me) things will be added to these pages full of promise? I have lots of books on the go , all for different things - felting, blog related info, jewellery making ideas/designs/inspiration, garden journal...the list goes on and on. Probably none of them would be of the slightest interest to anyone else, but they are all vital to me. Long live the notebooks! I love the brightly coloured cover you have made too - perfect for inspiring you.
    Best wishes
    Ellie

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  12. Beautifully written post. I've been using the beautiful book you covered for me to keep knitting notes in, but I'm very scattered--with scribblings in notebooks, on sheets of copy paper, on sticky notes, etc. I like your idea of using one book completely (creating a wonderful record) and then beginning afresh.

    Looking forward to seeing you soon.

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  13. Beautiful notebook cover, I LOVE the colour scheme which just screams, "HAPPY"! I share your love of notebooks and stationary and in fact always have a number of them on the go at any given time for different purposes. A lovely post Elizabeth, have a wonderful weekend :)
    Janine xox

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  14. wow!! love it stunning another prohject tick off hey? lol
    hugs x

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  15. What a wonderful post! And I couldn't agree more with everything you say about pencils, although I find that a Bic biro and reporters notebook is nearly as liberating when drafting something written because it looks more like a shopping list than a piece of serious work.

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  16. Oh I am totally with you on the pencil thing. There's something about the smoothness of graphite on paper that allows the words to flow.

    I was the stationery cupboard monitor at school. Best job ever.

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  17. How funny - only the other day myself and another 43 yr old teacher were discussing the joy of pencil cases! I am ashamed to say that I own a selection of 3 and have to force myself to walk on by when I discover new ones in lovely stationary shops. One of the joys of being a teacher is that you have the excuse to purchase interesting stationary - I've got a bit of a reputation amongst my students for my bright pink and purple marking pens ( I absolutely refuse to mark in red) I think the love of stationary never leaves you - there's something so promising about the potential of brand new pencils, pens and beautifully secretive notebooks. Which reminds me, I've mislaid my one at the moment... Judy.

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  18. Hi I am going to do a post on projects people are making from the book....can I include what you have made please? With links back if there is one some people don't blog.
    Hugs x

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    1. Of course! What a lovely idea! Thank you for including me! E x

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  19. I have just come across your blog. You writing reminds me of Harper Lee, are you familiar with her work? What a beautiful ten minutes I have spent reading your story. I think the best books are the ones I forget I am reading and the words seem to jump out of the page and transform into sound and vision.. I could hear your voice so clearly as you talked about the pencils and Mrs Pepper. I look forward to reading more of your blog and would be delighted to find out you have written a book perhaps? I also look forward to making a crochet book cover. Thank you so much for sharing your talent. Lisa

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  20. Love this idea, thanks for sharing!

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  21. Your blog brought back to me in a rush the passion I had as a child for new exercise books and pencils and things - I can suddenly smell the cupboard that my 3rd form teacher, Mrs. Irving, kept the supplies in, in my primary school in North London - that woody-papery-rubbery smell, and those gleaming exercise books all new and fresh that I longed for. How lovely it was to read your words!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to visit me at Mrs TT's and comment. I love to read what you write.