EBEL PRESENTATION & NATURE & THE BOOK

 For those of you lucky to have attended our February Show & Tell by Michael Ebel I'm sure you were very impressed and motivated by his work. He shared photographs of many of his books and provided examples of various techniques as well as ideas for content. If you missed the presentation there is a recording available to watch. Check your newsletter on page 3 for the link to all the recordings. Thank you very much Michael for sharing your work with us. Hopefully there will be a workshop from you in the future. 

Nature and the Book 2025 is the title of an exhibition of work by artists from PSBA (Puget Sound Book Artists Guild) now being held at the Elisabeth Miller Library on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle. 

Below are photos of some of the books in the exhibition.

Laurie Radin

Alicia Bailey

Janet Reynolds

Valerie Carrigan

Bonnie Julien

John Arbuckle

Paige Pettibon

Patricia Chupa

Donna Letterese

Lucia Harrison & Deborah Greenwood

Belinda Hill

Jessica Spring & Yoshi Nakagawa

Mari Eckstein Gower

Suze Woolf

MalPina Chan

Elsi Vassdal Ellis

Judy Lynn

Jessica Greenfield

Abbie Birmingham

SHOW & TELL WITH MICHAEL EBEL

 Show & Tell workshops presented by our members are always fascinating. Our February workshop will feature long time member Michael Ebel who will share some of his books, techniques, and content ideas. Michael says he finds inspiration from looking at the works of fellow artists so I'm sure that will be the case for us when we see his work. Here are a few photographs to whet your appetite for the workshop.

Stamp Book

Panel Book

Panel Book

Tall Accordion inside

Cover of Tall Accordion

When:    Saturday, February 8 at 10 a.m. PST

Where:   On your computer, tablet or smartphone via Zoom

RSVP:     Dolores Guffey by Feb. 3 to receive the password

Workshop Questions:  Michael Ebel - Michael.ebel@gmail.com

Zoom Questions:  Bobbie Hayes

Contact information is in the newsletter

If you will be in the Seattle area between February 3-27 there will be an exhibit featuring work from Puget Sound Book Artists (PSBA) at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library, Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington. The title of the exhibit is The Nature and the Book 2025. For more details visit:  https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/hours-and-contacts/

Admission is Free.

VALENTINES

Valentine's Day will soon be here, but it isn't too late to participate in the NORBAG Valentine exchange. Just make a valentine...a card in whatever form strikes your fancy and take it or mail it to arrive at the NORBAG mailbox by February 8. The valentines will be shown on Zoom after the Show & Tell workshop. This exchange is always a favorite with our members. We want to encourage new members or those of you who have never participated in our monthly exchanges to please join in. Here are a few photos of valentines that were featured in a 2012 display in the kiosk at the Humboldt County Library.

CAT FACE LEDGER REVIEW

What a fun project! If you missed this workshop, no worry as it was recorded and available to watch now. You will need the template and the written directions, so check the details in the newsletter. Many thanks go to Lara Cox for sharing her original design with us. When I first looked at the template with all the tiny dots for stitching holes I thought it would be almost impossible to stitch correctly, but Lara's patient instructions made it all work. Lara shared a website to help design stab bindings that she received from NORBAG member Caryn Lum. It looks like it could be a valuable site if you plan to design your own binding.

 https://nataliefreed.github.io/stab-bindings-designer/

Here are a few photographs of our Cat Face Ledgers

Michele Kamprath

Bonnie Julien

Margaret Beech

CAT FACE LEDGER

We will begin 2025 with a workshop to make a uniquely designed Japanese stab binding. Lara Cox will share her original design that features a cat's face in the stitching of the binding. Here is Lara's explanation of how she came up with this idea.

"I was inspired to create this stab binding pattern when I stumbled upon the work of two artists, Lori Forgues of Lbforgues Papercrafts and Becca of Becca Making Faces.

Both of these talented artists offer various Japanese Stab Binding tutorials online as well as encouraging you to go forth and make your own stab binding patterns. I like cats and after much brain twisting trial and error, I managed to make a cat face binding.

For this workshop we will be making a ledger shaped book with a single cat face binding. I will also touch upon how to make a double (or even multiple) cat face pattern for you to tackle in the future if you wish."

The "book" in this project is more like something that would be used to feature a poem or saying on a page rather than hold many pages. It would be an ideal gift for someone. Lara said "for the number of pages, I've done it this way because the binding is complicated enough as it is without folks having to struggle with lots of pages. During class I will have examples of this structure with more pages."

Materials:

Please have all the papers precut prior to the workshop. All papers (even for the covers) are 3" x 7" grain short.

• 2 pieces for the covers: cardstock, Mi-Teints, or similar weight decorative paper.
• 2 pieces for end papers: light weight decorative paper
• 2 pieces for the interior pages: text weight paper
• 8 feet of thread: embroidery thread or other of similar weight. Make sure your thread is a color that will stand out against your cover paper color so that the binding design will show up.

Tools:

• Sewing needle with a big enough eye for your chosen thread type
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Bone folder
• Ruler
• X-acto knife
• Bee's wax
• Awl
• 4 binder clips (1" size)
• Piece of foam core board or an old magazine. This is to place under your book when poking the holes for the binding.

You will be provided with the template for the binding pattern when you RSVP.

When?    Saturday, January 11 at 10 a.m. PST

Where?   On your computer, tablet or smartphone via Zoom

RSVP      To Dolores Guffey by January 6 to receive the password

Workshop Questions:  Lara Cox, lolastyle@hotmail.com

Zoom Questions:  Bobbie Hayes

Contact information is in the newsletter

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

 Thank you to our members Bobbie Hayes, Mary Conley, and Barbara Clark who organized and ran our very enjoyable Zoom meeting to share some of the holiday cards in this year's exchange. It was a wonderful way for the "out-of-towners" to share in the reveal of the cards. A shout-out also goes to Dolores Guffey and Sandy Vrem for organizing and hosting the local, in-person version of the exchange. The photographs of all of the cards in the exchange will be up on our Flickr account soon. Meanwhile, here is a peek of the very beautiful card by Catherine von Schwind.

Local members who attended the Holiday social were treated to a yummy spread of food as well as the reveal of all of the holiday cards in the exchange.

The cards are all ready to be gathered into bags
for each of the exchange participants.

From left to right, Donna Gephart, Michele Kamprath,
Kathy Warren, and Sandy Vrem.

YUM!

We wish everyone a happy, healthy, 

 creative season and new year!

DECEMBER MEETINGS

In December we will offer two opportunities for meetings. In lieu of a workshop at our usual 10 a.m. Zoom meeting, we will present the cards that are in this year's Holiday exchange. At noon we will have an in-person social gathering to distribute the cards in the Holiday exchange.

It has been five long years since we've gathered together for our holiday social. As in past years, Sandy Vrem has graciously opened her lovely home in Arcata for us to get together to share goodies, see the exchange cards, and have time to chat with each other. One does not need to have cards in the exchange to attend. We will have a short meeting to discuss our 2025 plans for the four in-person meetings we have scheduled for the 4th Saturdays in March, June, and September, plus the holiday social the 2nd Saturday of December. These meetings will be in addition to our regular 2nd Saturday Zoom workshops. We hope our local members will join us to share their input and suggestions.

Everyone can attend either the Zoom, in-person, or both of these events on Saturday December 14. The Zoom meeting is at our regular time of 10 a.m. PST and the in-person social will begin at noon PST. Please RSVP to receive the link to the Zoom and/or directions to Sandy's home.

Examples of past holiday cards

What:    Holiday Card Show & Tell

When & Where:  Saturday December 14 @ 10 a.m. PST on Zoom and/or in-person social in Arcata, California @ Noon PST

RSVP:   Dolores Guffey dguffey1@gmail.com by December 9 to receive the link for Zoom and/or directions to Sandy Vrem's home.