A Letter a Week

I have joined A letter a week 2012. I came across it at Paper Ponderings . It is a project that began in 2010 where each week one produces a letter (alphabet) creating 2 alphapets in the year and putting them together into a book or other format that takes your fancy. The quality and variety of work from the past two years is stunning. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to revisit calligraphy which I loved in school so I dusted off my pens and nibs and began what seemed simple before I started, but actually doing it was another  thing :(  Each letter has to be on a square 7cm.x7cm. and to create some unity within the project circles or dots have to be incorporated into the design. Below are some of my first attempts.

Not happy with my actual letters I thought I'd try a different approach

                                                              and another

But this just looked too crude so then I tried some more

At this point I was beginning to think maybe I should forget about the project, but I was having far too much fun to give up and after all that's the main reason for the exercise so after many more trials and errors cutting and sewing and using differant papers and pieces on hand

I decided to use a type writing stamps  instead of creating the letters myself which rather defeats my initial motivation for taking on the project but perhaps by the time I get to the second alphabet I will have more confidence! So using an old map, fabric and some beautiful hand made paper with paper dots I eventually decided on a theme and look.

I am looking forward to the project and sharing and learning with the others taking part. You can see my "A" and what the others are doing Here