the well-protected scribe

The kittens are growing up. They have (or at least one of them has) become a Mighty Hunter. When I went to the kitchen this morning I found that a roll of paper towels had escaped from its assigned position and was apparently making its way to the bedroom where I lay sleeping. If it hadn't been for my fearless kitten, I might be dead in my bed right now, smothered by a vicious roll of paper towels. My protector, however, had gutted it thoroughly and I only needed to dispose of the shredded remains of this most dangerous of creatures. (Cue Wild Kingdom music.)

My apprentice came over to work last night. We sewed on her dress, and got it done except from some embroidery she's going to do around the neck, and hemming it. We can do that another night this week.

The scroll has reached the real-paper stage. I had laid out the calligraphy lines last night, so this morning I got up, practiced a bit to get my hand (and my Hand) warmed up, and started to do... Real Calligraphy. Since I had done at least three practice runs of the main body of the text, and had the best one taped beneath my (translucent) Pergamenata as a guide, I figured this would be a piece of cake. I was not even a third of the way through when Idonea called. While I was talking to her, I glanced at the scroll, and noticed that the last line I'd done was, in a word, embarrassing. The first half of the text was condensed and the last half was stretched out to make it fill the line. I stood back a few feet and looked at it, and it still looked crappy. WTF? How did I miss that before? When we finished talking, I looked at it some more and debated. I finally took it off the desk and got out fresh paper. With all the work I've put into making this calligraphy right,, I couldn't let it go out looking like that. By the time I got the calculations done for how to get the most scrolls out of the sheet, cut the paper, and re-drawn the callig lines, it was lunch time. So now I've eaten and read all my friends' journals, and I'm ready to go back to work. At least I know I won't be attacked by a sneaky roll of paper towels.

whew!

The callig is DONE. It looks pretty good, too, especially in terms of spacing. I wound up penciling in the words that weren't evenly spaced, and that helped a lot. Geva always said she did that, but I'd never been sure enough that I would make the letters the right size for the pen. Got it this time, though. Now I can start transferring the drawing, and then do the gold leaf. I'm going to try the raised gilding again, for the first time in a long time. Maggie showed us a lot about how to do it, and what to look for when making the gesso. I know that was the problem before-- the gesso wasn't right, so the gold wouldn't stick to it. I sure hope it works this time. Nothing is more gorgeous that good raised gilding, but nothing can be more frustrating.