I love the Best of Handwoven eBooks. And that might sound surprising, because it’s one of my jobs to make them.
 |
|
|
A portion of Madelyn's eBook
collection printed out and
organized.
|
|
I’m doubly lucky there, since it’s a job I love. For one thing, I get to go through all the old issues of Handwoven, starting with the very first one in 1979. Every time I do this I am amazed by how enduring handwoven fabrics are—especially when they are beautifully designed, woven, and photographed.
With each project I choose and edit, I get to follow the original designer through all the steps of weaving it, a virtual weaving experience with a guaranteed successful outcome. Many times the yarns are no longer available, so I get to wallow around in my yarn samples to find some that will work. With the digital drawing programs available now that weren’t when many of these projects were published, I get to make the drafts prettier and clearer. This means I do a lot of learning. There are those who believe that “projects” are not something to learn from, but I have learned as much from Handwoven projects as from teaching texts. You just have to really look at what’s there.
The best part, though, happens after my job with them is done. As each eBook is finished, I add it to my collection. I love seeing the finished pages on my computer screen (where they are brighter and sharper than they ever are on paper). I can enlarge them if I want to see them better.
I print them out, of course, knowing that if I need more than one copy of a page—to make notes on, to take to a loom, to put with another similar project—I can print out as many as I want. But my favorite part is making them into actual books.
This usually means a trip to my nearest office supply store (darn). I buy what are called presentation books. These come with 12 or 24 plastic-pocket pages, and they have a plastic envelope over the cover. I put the eBook pages inside the pockets, arranged in book form. I can put woven samples, notes, enlargements of the drafts, yarns—whatever I might want to keep into the pocket with a particular project.
If I am inspired by the project to weave something different from it in some way, I like to put that sample there, too, to remember the source of my idea. I print out the cover and slide it into the plastic sleeve on the outside of the book, and I even print out the title, cut out a strip with the title on it, and slide that into the plastic envelope along the spine.
I put my eBooks in magazine holders on my shelves, where I can find the one I’m looking for in a flash. Sometimes I worry that I “love ’em” (organizing my eBooks) more than I “weave ’em” (getting that warp on the loom).
