Frustration

Yesterday I finally had friendly feelings towards the hot stamping press (whenever I used this machine at David’s, I dreaded it, the hot stamp press and I were NOT friends). My lettering didn’t come out perfect, but it wasn’t too bad. The tricky thing about this machine is that it’s hard to teach another person how it feels when you’re using it right. When David taught me, he showed me the basics: the on knob is here, turn it up to 8, wait for the temperature to reach 150 degrees, place your letters in like this, tighten here, place your fabric underneath the press like this, pull the handle down like so for this long. Then I’d do it and the letters would barely be legible on the fabric. “Well, hold it longer,” David said. I did, the letters came out fat and thick and unreadable. “Not so long”…. “a little pressure here…” and on and on. I realized it’s one of those things you just have to learn how it feels.
Then I burned my finger. No big deal, I ran my finger under cold water.
Then I worked on trimming a piece of lettered fabric. I cut the word in half. Rats. I found another piece of lettered fabric and trimmed that instead to my almost-satisfaction.
Finally, I was ready for the LAST step of a book I had done pretty much on my own from the start. I had begun the work at David’s, but like a child who has recently learned a skill and now turns her shoulder to her parent screaming, “I DO IT!”, I kept David at a distance as I worked. So it was time to put the text block in its new cover. I sprayed glue on the cover, set the text block’s spine on the cover’s spine and folded up the sides. The end papers bubbled. I tried again, and again, and again. I stomped around in my mind trying to figure out why I was remembering this step wrong. Then I turned out the lights and literally stomped out of the building, my eight year old in tow. We drove nearly two miles when I realized I had forgotten a box of books and a file folder I was planning to deliver to Sister Wolf Books. I turned around, headed back to Beagle Books. As I physically turned around, something turned around in my mind and I recalled EXACTLY what I’d done wrong. The spine doesn’t go in first! Duh! I was tempted to re-do the book as soon as I got to Beagle, but I waited until today.
Today, I cut the above-mentioned book out of the cover. I re-did it right this time, and what do you know, it looks a lot better! It’s not perfect, but it’s better than a book with bubbled end papers that I would never show another person. It seems every day I work down in the bindery, another piece slides into place. So sometimes I’ll burn myself, make a wrong cut, or just totally do something wrong. That’s ok. I’m sure David burned himself, made wrong cuts, and bungled things too.