Posted by jerry on January 31st, 2006 — Posted in Journal, Woodwork
My latest Amazon.com purchase arrived today! The book: Wood: The world of woodwork and wood carving
by Bryan Sentance. I first saw it in a bookshop just after Christmas and nearly bought it on the spot – the graphics are excellent and the scope is very wide.
The book is organised into 7 chapters covering: Raw materials (types of wood); Carving and shaping wood (lots of illustrated examples of different styles and techniques); Joinery (fixings, types of joint and corners); Decorating and finishing (veneers and surface treatments); Wood at work (from pots and bowls to chairs, implements, technology, wood and textiles and transport); Heart and soul (printing, toys, rituals, and masks); and Tools (organised by family – measuring, making holes, smoothing, holding and so on).
This is a richly illustrated compendium of brief articles showing a range of treatments, techniques and tools in a social context with some historical examples. The great thing is you can pick the book up, read a quick section over a cuppa and then go on with something else – and wherever you dip there is another fascinating snippet.
To celebrate this new arrival, I have signed up as an Amazon Affiliate and I’ve finally got around to putting my own book in the sidebar, as well as my current reading – you will see the latter change as my reading selections change 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on January 29th, 2006 — Posted in History, Journal, Technology
Leonardo da Vinci was known for many things – his wonderful paintings, his anatomical science, his optics, his flying machines, his war machines etc – but not so many know he also contributed many innovations to textile technology.
Bear in mind that textiles was one of the leading industries in the Renaissance and played a central role in many European economies at that time.
In addition to innovative mechanical looms and hand looms, Leonardo designed bobbin winders that evenly distributed thread across the bobbins to avoid tangles or high-spots.
He also designed teaseling machines for carding fabric; and a machine for doubling silk – the silk road had been opened to the Orient by then and Europe had a rapidly expanding silk production industry; and a continuous teaseling machine for large bolts of fabric.
So he was clearly as interested and curious about how to solve problems for textile workers as much as for other occupations.
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on January 28th, 2006 — Posted in Journal, Writing
I do a lot of writing, and wherever I write I always carry one indispensible grammar guide – and that is Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.
More concise than Fowler’s The King’s English; Clearer than the MLA guidelines, the Elements of Style is the ultimate guide to spotting split infinitives and the correct use of the apostrophe.
Strunk uses a terse declarative style which is clear and unambiguous – and there is not a single extraneous word in the whole book – and it’s all online 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on January 27th, 2006 — Posted in Journal
In Australia small lizards, known as skinks are considered good luck if you see them – especially for women. Well, since we have been doing so much to the garden recently, and disturbed all the insects and provided drippers for irrigation, the population of skinks in our garden has multiplied considerably. Anyhow, today the little luck dragons came into the house (they eat mosquitoes and other annoying little insects), and I even had the camera nearby to snap the one in our kitchen 🙂
The little fellow was about 15cm long from nose to tail, and had a beautiful opalescence to his skin – I wish him happy hunting to rid the house of tiny biting insects 🙂 He’s welcome anytime!
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on January 26th, 2006 — Posted in History, Journal, Writing
I was having a quick browse of the Project Gutenberg top 100 books for 26 Jan and came across this one not too far from the top – It is the complete “English Embroidered Bookbindings” by Cyril Davenport. This is a fascinating look at embroidered bookbindings, and includes essays on the embroidery techniques employed. The language is a bit “Mr Collins” of Pride and Prejudice – a bit on the precious side, but the articles make great reading.
Davenport categories the bindings into four classes: heraldic, figure, floral, and arabesque. He further divides the figure designs into three: scriptural, symbolic, or portraits. He then also categorises them according to the material on which they are worked: canvas, velvet or satin, noting that canvas was used from the 14th to the 17th centuries, but notes that velvet was most largely used during the Tudor period, while satin was the material of choice for the early stuart period.
The stitching techniques are illustrated, as are examples of embroidered book bags. There is a large number of illustrations – mostly in black and white, but it is clear that there is some exquisite work in these book bindings.
Cheers
Jerry
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