July 19 meeting: 'Italy', Jacob's Ladders, Haiku and Origami

Some of our Italian themed 'swap' books for July's meeting

Our Summer meeting took place on Saturday July 27th at the University of Sunderland, with thirteen members attending.  

In the morning, we followed Pat Duncan’s instructions for making a Jacob’s Ladder structure. Several of us had tried this before, using a range of different methods with mixed success.  However, Pat’s simpler process - using a template to position the ribbons correctly - enabled everyone to complete a working ’ladder’ without too much difficulty and the results were impressive. 

Margaret Beech has forwarded a photo of this fabulous version she created after the meeting:

Our book-swap theme was ‘Italy’ and the topic inspired a wide range of different responses and some impressive structures. It is always fascinating to hear the  stories behind the swap books, the thought processes, triumphs and occasional mishaps that lead to the finished pieces. As is often the case, several of the structures were requested as demonstrations for future meetings. (Only some of the swap books are shown above: apologies to anyone whose book I’ve missed off. Several of my photographs were not clear enough to reproduce: I think I needed better light to do them justice. I promise better photography next time!)  

After lunch and the book-swap, Jo Duncan reminded us how to write haiku: a simple Japanese poetry form of three lines and seventeen syllables. There was (silent!!) concentration for half an hour with much syllable counting. Everyone completed at least one haiku before sharing our mini-masterpieces round the table.  These will be used at the next meeting as the contents for the ‘Herringbone’ Book Margaret Beech will demonstrate.

Finally, Janet Barnett demonstrated two simple origami folds which can be used to create impressive concertina book structures and we finished the day by creating our own versions with the pretty papers she provided.

All in all, a very successful and productive day! 

Next meeting: 26th October

Theme: Herbs

Shared table to celebrate our 18^th birthday