Levigator Press

(cross-posted here from my personal weblog)

Here is another project abandoned around 1998 or so, recently rediscovered.

It’s an embroidered panel designed for a small book cover, for a book roughly 8 by 10 centimetres (3 by 4 inches). Somewhere in the attic is the book it was intended for, probably about 6 signatures of 3 folios each, sewn on linen cords, rounded and backed and trimmed, with endpapers sewn in and board covers laced on, naked and waiting.

The cover’s design is based on 16th century embroidered bindings such as those found at this link. The vertical floral motif in the centre is designed to run down the spine, and the horizontal gold bands will line up with the ridges formed on the book’s spine by the tapes the signatures are sewn onto.

Like every abandoned project in the history of forever, this one was entered into with loads of enthusiasm and worked away at like gangbusters for a good while. And like every abandoned project, the fun parts (outlines, filling in the tiny sections of colour!) went quickly but the promise of a beautiful finished object shone more dimly, from further away, once the tedious background-filling was practically all that was left. Add to that a growing disappointment with the low contrast of chosen colours and this pretty thing was doomed.

Will it ever get finished? Hard to say. The base fabric isn’t nice enough to just leave unstitched, but the dark blue is deadening. It should be picked out and replaced with red, or pale blue, or pink. But the thought of picking out embroidery stitches from a 15-year-old dead project isn’t an enticing one. The book would probably have to be remade as well, since after 15 years in a box who knows if the covers are even on straight anymore.

For now, this little panel is out of its tin work-box and pinned up onto a corkboard in the studio, where it can act as a reminder of every creative failure ever. Also, because it’s pretty to look at.