Africa project: A Swahili quilt

The letters appliquéd on this little quilt read thamani mtoto, a Swahili phrase that means “precious baby.” 

Step-by-step instructions : 

Materials:
You will need two pieces 48” square (1.25 M) of lightweight cotton, and scraps at least 4” x 4” (10 cm), or 1/3-½ yards (30-40 cm) of contrasting fabric to make the letters.

The quilt shown here is made of African themed fabric.  You can use any brightly-colored scraps of your own.

Directions:
1. After you choose your Swahili words, print out the letter templates you need. Cut around them and lay them out to estimate how much they need to grow or shrink to fit on the large square area. Leave a margin of at least 3” (7.5 cm) around the edges.

2. Enlarge or shrink the letter templates (adjust the seam allowances if necessary) and pin them to the contrasting fabric scraps. Cut them out. Iron the seam allowances under and trim any excess. While you’re at it, iron the wrinkles out of the large background pieces.

3. Pin the letters into position on the background. Attach them with zig-zag machine stitching or hand sew them firmly to the background.

4. Sew the back and front of the quilt together inside out. Iron the seam on the right side. Stuff with batting.

5. Anchor the batting with at least nine single stitches.

6. Quilt the front to the back if desired. In this blanket, I left room to personalize the quilt with the baby’s name.

 http://crafternews.crownpublishing.com/2011/09/13/quilt-giveaway-and-instructions-from-margaret-shepherd-author-of-learn-world-calligraphy/

Templates for the alphabet itself are at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/64189517/Virtual-Swahili-Alphabet-Template-From-Margaret-Shepherd-author-of-Learn-World-Calligraphy  

If you do make a quilt with African-themed letters, send me a photograph.  I'll post it here, and I'll send you a copy of my book with a practice pen. 

Check out African motifs in Learn World Calligraphy.

Fly casual

This little gem shows what you can do to include calligraphy in your life.  Instead of just clicking "reply" to send an RSVP to a party, my friend Allison whipped out a marker, wrote this message on mica, and mailed it in the mail.  What a treasure!  It's going onto the Christmas tree shortly, and will become a real heirloom as well as a classroom example of enjoying the moment.  

Don't get too fussy about letters.  Just write them, by hand, whenever you can.  

Simple gifts

It's the first morning of Advent, when we count down the days until Christmas.  NOT just the shopping days!  Many people spend a lot of energy, love, time, and money on the search for gifts to give; maybe too much sometimes. 

Over the next four Sundays--along with all the carols, scripture, and poems--let's keep in mind the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts."  Words are the simplest but most precious gift we can give, and as calligraphers we have a way to gift wrap our nicest words and present them to the people who mean most to us.  

This month is a good time to give words as gifts, through holiday cards, pretty gift tags, personal notes, favorite quotes.  One Christmas I gave everyone note pads with their names written in calligraphy.  You could put names on cookies (see Frosting, January 27) or make personal decorated signs for a bedroom door.  

Pricing your work, an afterword

Last week we looked of categories of freelance work and how to price them.  Now we're ready to add a grab bag of some other guidelines.

• Discuss the work first, the price second.
• Too low is worse than too high.  Human nature and Murphy's Law suggest that if your work is substandard people will forget that it was a bargain and just remember that it wasn't done right; if the quality is high, they may still remember the low price and under value the work.  And in the long run, by undercharging you just make it harder for you and your fellow scribes to make a living.  
• If you ever do work for free, make sure the recipient knows they got something valuable from a professional.  Spell out clearly what kind of barter payment they may have promised to you: publicity, membership, services, free copies.  I once did free work for a group promoting professional women; they promised me "exposure" and then left my name off the program.
• Cover your hidden costs such as special materials and paying the printer.  Ask for a reasonable advance to cover out-of-pocket expenses.  
• Do not take jobs where you know, in your gut, that the client is going to be unreasonable--by undervaluing your time, waiting until the last minute, constantly changing the job, or just asking for bad design.  
• Ask for a contract on a large job; one third up front, one third half way through, and one third on delivery.  Include a "kill fee" in case you get partway through and they cancel it.  
• Sometimes it's not a good idea to work for friends.  You may all be happier if you can refer them to a colleague.... [Has anyone else found this to be true?]
• This all gets easier as you get more experience.  Emerson says "There is no courage like the courage of having done the thing before," and there is nothing like believing firmly that you are charging what your work is worth.

If you are just starting out, ask other calligraphers what they charge.  Find out the "going price" is for such standard jobs as designing an invitations, lettering a quotation, engrossing a diploma, addressing an envelope.  They'll thank you for the courtesy.  

    

Project: Placing a capital in Gothic text

 T  he first letter of a Gothic text is usually enlarged.  There are three ways to attach it to the text: no indent, partial indent, complete indent.

 

No indent

1.  Line up the capital to the left edge of the text without indenting it. The scribe has tagged the next letter with a dash of red after I, left, because it is as tall as three small letters.  P, right, is closer to the text letter's size.  

2.  Indent part of the capital, letting some of its left half hang into the margin.  E and P, right.  

3.  Completely sink the capital into the text, leaving its left edge flush with the text.  N, left, and S, below. 

Complete indent.

The illustrations here are from 50 Medieval Manuscript Leaves, used with the kind permission of photographer David Bindle.  The book is a treasure house of beautiful and instructive examples, well worth its price.  

http://www.blurb.com/b/2272528-50-medieval-manuscript-leaves

Labels

I have great ambitions to be organized, and once in a while I actually find time to do a project that moves me closer to my goal.  Alphabetized spice jars !  That's the nirvana of kitchen cleanliness for me.  Here are some labels--you can print them out on sticky paper, or modify them to make your own.   

Add caption

These illustrations come from Calligraphy Projects for Pleasure and Profit, now out of print. Note that the ornaments and borders are pen-sketches of the plants that the spices and herbs come from.

My loved ones remind me to remind you to replace your spices and herbs once a year.  It's easy to overlook.   
           

153 Stencil

I made this alphabet for a project.  (That's why some of the letters look "used.") Now I'm trying to remember what the word was.  I'll send a calligraphy reward to the reader who can figure it out.    

Stencil letters can be simple cut-outs, or you can take them a few steps further to include thick and thin strokes and decorative swashes.   

They have a physical reality about them that forces you to separate them into strokes, so that the internal spaces stay connected to the external spaces.  Don't isolate any pieces!  

You can fill in the letters using spray paint, airbrush, a stiff brush, or, for these letters, a device from Crayola that transforms a marker into an airbrush.  

Words and images

Look for the word "cat" in the designs here. (you'll also find mouse, bird, window, kittens, and bowl).  
June is “Adopt a Cat” month. ( Just my cup of tea; I love cats!)  If you’ve read  Learn World Calligraphy, you know that I devote a whole spread to writing a word such as CAT so it looks like a cat and the word HORSE so it looks like a horse.  This lets English-speaking calligraphers writing phonetic letters share the visual experience of Chinese calligraphers writing symbolic characters.   

Tips for design: 

• To make a calligraphy picture, play around with the name of the thing you want to draw, looking for lucky coincidences.  The C in CAT, for instance, can have two pointed ears.  The A stands on two paws.  The horizontal stroke of T can lengthen into a tail.* 
• Make a rough drawing of a cat, or pick out a photo of a cat.  Lay tracing paper over it and start to stretch, squeeze, and move the letters. 
• This step is important: go away for a few minutes.  Then come back and look at your word, letting your brain see and read it at the same time.  Make sure that neither way of seeing dominates.  
• Write the letters in ink, using brush or pen.  

*In the design for Mothers Day [May 12] the M s in MOM look like leaves and the O looks like a round flower. Keep looking for these similarities and you’ll start to see them everywhere.  

Remember, “A letter can be anything; anything can be a letter.” 

Embedded capitals

It is easy to combine a Gothic Capital with any small Gothic text letter to create a medieval page.  Follow the steps here: 

1. Choose a text at least 30 words long.  This gives you flexibility in line layout.  The passage here has about 200 words, and I still ended up having to hyphenate 10 of the words.  A medieval scribe would have used, or invented, abbreviations rather than hyphenate.  
2. Arrange the line length to make the first 3-6 lines of the paragraph half as long as the rest of the lines.  Sometimes your chosen text cooperates, sometimes it resists.  Don't give up.*   
3. Try to make the short lines stack up to the same height as your planned capital.  If the natural word breaks in your text don't leave you with enough short lines, you can fill the space with ornament. 
4. Letter the text. Don't forget to start with the second letter of the first word!  (Trust me.)  Medieval scribes sometimes lettered the initial very small in the space left for the capital, to remind the illuminator, as shown with the letter V in the illustration here.  
5. Try a rough draft of your capital, in the space, sketched on a separate scrap of paper with patches of color.  Stand back and squint.  
6. Trace or transfer a light outline of your capital.  Ink it in and color it and gild it.  Those techniques are a whole other project, but you can start with a one- or two-color letter, improvised from your own skills.  

Design tips: 
Don't make every capital large and ornate.; they'll just compete with each other.  The letter O that starts the second column is simply lettered, with a wide pen; it could be blue or red.  
Illuminated capitals: Assorted Gothic May 29
Traditional text letters : Rounded Gothic March 6, Plain Gothic April 11.       

This illustration is a whole page from Capitals for Calligraphy, my hand-lettered how-to book about the history, design, and layout of capitals.  Each page delivers information both to the side of your brain that reads words and to the side that sees images.    

*You may have to make your first lines much shorter, as in the small example at left, where the large capital leaves room for "[A] S  T H E" in single letters stacked along its right edge. 

Calligraphy Circles Project

I'm fond of letters laid out in a ring. The design gives whatever quote you choose an air of completeness, and the form is satisfying to the eye.  

Below: The swashed ascenders will look better if they all extend to the same height, and also extend sideways to evenly fill up the ring without gaps or clumps. 

If you think your readers need help, break the quote into two parts so that none of the words need to be read upside down.  

Using several kinds of letters in concentric rings will give intriguing contrast.
  

[See also February 3, Calligraphy in a Ring.] 

The month of May means we are coming up on wedding season.  You can choose more uplifting text,  a favorite scripture,, or the couple's names to arrange in one circle--or interlocking circles--for a "signature" motif for a wedding.   

Alphabet texture project

Whenever you write letters, you create a visual texture that the reader enjoys along with the meaning of the words. After all, the words text, texture, technique, and textile all come from the same linguistic root.  
Like many calligraphers, I like to experiment with abstract textures, like this sampling of repeated Roman alphabet letters.  

Roman letters, each so individualistic, create more varied textures than other, more uniform alphabets.  I and J share one pane to help the design fit into a 5 x 5 rectangle.

Easter egg calligraphy project

Easter!  I love all the ways you can add color to eggs, and then what you can use them for.  Here is a monogrammed egg, ready to be hidden, serve as a buffet place card, or arrive as a hostess gift.  

Classic, but personalized.  And easy to make.  

Stationery design project

Once you've chosen an initial, monogram, or logo, you still have a design task; where to position it on the page and how large to make it.  And of course, what color.  And what paper...

Give someone an honorary diploma

Bestow an honor, complete with shiny gold seal.  

Now that you have tried Shady Gothic from last Monday, you might like to combine some of your calligraphic scripts into a decorative diploma--a less-than-official page that sums up your gratitude or congratulations.  The wording can be serious or mock-serious; the language can be Latin, English, or somewhere in between; and the layout can be simple or fussy.  This illustration is black and white, from an out of print book of mine Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy.   

You can print out a beautiful multi-color border to start with, from my website.   

Calligraphy Every Day Project 5: Calligraphy in a ring

Letters that follow around a circle have a special appeal.  And special problems; I learned early on that many of my readers found it an imposition to be asked to read upside down.  People who wouldn't boggle at taking a peek at some juicy bit of text upside-down on your desk will suddenly get all literal when confronted with a few Italic letters. It helps if you work with a familiar text, and let them supply the rest of the text in their head once they recognize it.  

Here's a nice design for wedding graphics: a gift, a cover for an order of service, or a decoration for the invitation.  
While you're at it, don't wait for a wedding.  It makes a lovely cover for an anniversary invitation, or a gift to your dedicated, in-house Valentine.  Enjoy!   

The inner circle is anchored firmly with simple Roman caps that allow the Italic outer circle to vary the stroke. (When the line of lettering deviates from horizontal, Upright Italic works better than slanted, as a rule.) The extended swashes are just frosting on the cake. 

Save those DPI!

While writing about how thrifty you can be when you make letters out of pixels, I thought of the final alphabet offered in my Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy, Putnam/Perigee, 1986, ISBN 0-399-51257-8, a book of 366 alphabets for every day of the year.

The letters of this alphabet are made out of coarser and coarser grids, starting with an A that is 26 x 26 [that is, 676 dpi] and ending up with a Z made of a single diagonal slash.  While the high-res letters express their analog pen and ink versions well, it's interesting to notice that even the relatively lo-res Q, R, S, T, and U can express themselves with curves, swashes, serifs, and contrast thick and thin. 

You can fill grids with anything, of course, from pixels to stitches to people.  Here I filled each letter's grid with itself; zoom in close and you'll see the A is made out of A's, the B is made out of B's, and so on.  It's a fun exercise to try.

Dwindling pixels

New source for crafter projects

Detail of "Precious Baby" quilt. 

    I’ve just begun to post calligraphy projects in a new venue, on a website my publisher’s has specially tailored for crafters.  My first project is on view at http://crafternews.crownpublishing.com  In it I suggest a list of the Swahili words for "joy," "yes," "food is life," and "together," that will help you celebrate occasions.  It links to 27 printable African-themed letter templates on my website margaretshepherd.com.

   As a sample, I’ve created a quilt with the words “Thamani Mtoto” (Swahili for Precious Baby) appliqued in African fabrics. 

    I’ll be adding more projects based on my new book Learn World Calligraphy, in response to reader interest and my own favorite themes.   Let me hear from you about calligraphy projects that interest you and what you have made with letters.