Sketchbooks

I lost the battery charger for my digital camera, and am waiting for a new one to arrive via mail order. In the interim, I thought I'd scan a few pages from my sketchbooks to show projects that might be, rather than projects that have been.

Ideas for rug hooking

I've tried a lot of different media over the years, but have settled on water-soluble colored pencils. I have a nice little travel case with about 20 of my most used colors, a couple of small waterbrushes, and some permanent ink pens. That's for sketching at home or vacation. But I always carry a couple of pens and a single colored pencil in my purse -- so if I'm stuck somewhere for an hour, I can sift through my brain and see if there's anything new to jot down.

Ideas for packaging spinning batts for sale. I did this in a Dunkin Donuts on the pages of a memo pad.

I often use my sketchbook to brainstorm the construction steps of a new project. These kinds of entries don't have a lot of pretty pictures, but they're immensely helpful for me later.

Constructing a padded sewing box

I'm not a prolific sketcher, to be honest. Things come in fits and starts -- like I'll be lying in bed at night and get an idea for something, and have to record it immediately before I forget. Once I get one sketch going, several more often come along, kind of like a packaged set. Then things will go quiet for a while.

Catching stray ideas for later

Not everything I think about is textile related, like these ideas at left for some art to stick around the house. And honestly, I don't do much actual designing of patterns and motifs in my sketchbooks. I generally do that work on gridded pads, since so much of what I do is based on square and rectangular textile structures.

Hopefully my battery charger will arrive in the next couple of days and I can show off a few of my latest projects -- most of which were not sketched out ahead of time. Ironic.

Comments

[Amy]

Your sketchbooks are so beautiful! I would frame some of those pages as art. Mine are full of numbers(weaving calculations)....and only black and white. Hmmmmm.....I have colored pencils. Perhaps this is worth exploring even though I can't sketch worth sh*t.

[June]

Your donut rug made me laugh - that's a fiber project that Matt could really sink his teeth into! (Har.) Does this mean HandWorks is coming back someday? I hope so! :)

[Elaine]

June, you caught the references in that sketch, eh? There's a chance I might be selling my own dyed/carded spinning batts. So I've been mulling over production, colorways, packaging, and such.