hello ladies and gents
so, this may be a silly question, but i bought an old typewriter for $3 at a yard sale this weekend and just got a new ribbon for it last night. it works perfectly and i spent the night typing jibberish about my cat because she was sitting right there.
now, besides typing letters and things, what can i type? sounds silly, but i was thinking about trying to type on fabric, but i'm afraid the ink will just run if i try to wash it. wouldn't it be cool to type on fabric squares and incorporate them somehow into a quilt?
does anyone have any ideas for me? i just love how text looks on a typwriter rather than a computer, and am looking for crafty ideas. help.

thanks guys

1. Ransom Notes
2. Zines
3. The Great American Novel
4. You can also fill out forms.

Wouldn't it be neat to paint your pencil holder and other things on your desk to match your typewriter?


Rio

typing on fabric - I'm quite sure you can do it. I can't remember if you have to do something to make it 'stick'. You can always try with a scrap peice - if it runs, try ironing it first. The heat will set pen ink, maybe it'll work on typewriter ink too.

wow if typing on fabric works, let me know and i'll dig out my mother's old typewriter and go to town.

you could type up words and phrases and make them into magnetic poetry. there's a thread somewhere in here how to do it.

you could also type up a sheet full of words and use it to cover an old juice can to make a swanky pen holder. cover other things and make a full desk set covered with words! how cute would a blotter, pen holder and such things be on your desk with your typewriter in the middle of it?

xo heidi anne-noel

I almost bought a really cool old one (but didn't have cash, damn). I wanted to put it in my bathroom, preferably right in front of the toilet. Besides being kinda funny (like that old saying that that's where people feel the most inspired), it would be cool if my friends could all leave a little message... maybe even like one of those stories where each person types a line...

there's this typewriter at my school that's supposed to be for forms and stuff, but my friends and i write poems and stories on it sometimes we photocopy body parts and then type poems on our hands or faces. i collected all of last year's gibberish and fun and i made a spiral bound book of it all for my friends. i also type random quotes on toilet paper and leave them for people. but that's just me. i love the typewriter because you can be a lot more creative about what it is you're typing on.

I can't remember which magazine I saw it in (I think it was Martha Stewart Living), but somebody had typed messages onto ribbon. For example, if you were giving someone a birthday present, you would type "Happy Birthday" on the ribbon and then use the ribbon to wrap the gift. They used both satin ribbon and some kind of papaer ribbon.

If I find the article I'm talking about, I'll let you know.

oooooh, you ladies are so clever! thanks for the great ideas!
about the fabric thing, does anyone know of a way i can treat the fabric before hand so that the ink won't run? scotch guard, maybe? i suppose i will just have to experiment and see what happens. i work in a fabric showroom and have TONS of discontinued samples that i want to play around with.
i also want to make those desk accessories. yippeeeeee!

thanks guys!

you work in a fabric showroom?? ooh, I'm so jealous. I use my old rickety typewriter to type manifestos when I'm full of too much caffeine. "Deep Blue Sea" (the smart-shark movie with LL Cool J) inspired a particularly brilliant one about sharks inheriting the earth by taking over CMJ but unfortunately I forgot it on the fridge when I moved. Sob.

Oh, I want a typewriter so bad! If anyone has one and doesn't want it, I'd like to buy it. :) (Pllllllllleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaassssssseeeee) I know, that was cheezy.

Anyway, make a zine. I hate typing material fgor mine on the computer, because the way typed letters look is so much better. And, you can also see the text in real size, a big plus for me.

Old Typewriters definitely rock! I have an old royal that's probably about forty or fifty years old (I can just imagine Barbara Stanwyck as a plucky woman reporter madly typing a story before deadline on my typewriter in an old Capra movie). My dad got it used when he was in college. It was always kicking around our house when I was growing up.
When I was about five years old, I used to drag it out (that thing weighs a ton!) and type pages and pages of gibberish. I just liked the sound that the keys made.

I rediscovered it when I was in 8th grade and discovering how much fun writing was even though my penmanship was (and is) so bad. I wrote pages and pages of poetry and closet-rebel rants and odes to John (and/or Sean) Lennon. (I was obsessed with the Beatles at the time)

Anyway my beautiful typewriter lives in this big old case (I think it's plywood and fabric covered tin) with the name "w.e. thornburg" written on it. I love imagining its past lives.

The problem is that its SO old that it forces two fingered typing (My pinkies are too weak for the pinkie keys) And since my wretched day job has brought about a recurring tendonitis in my hands and wrists, I can't do much with it anymore (Sorry, though, I'm not selling it -- Too attached!) I want to track down a newer manual typewriter say, from the 50's or 60's that isn't cast-iron heavy and doesn't require such a heavy hand on the keys.

A good place to look for typewriters is Thrift stores/ flea markets.

OOh! another neat thing to type on is Leaves! I love typing/writing messages on leaves. One day, when I was in college, I was walking across a quad when this little oak leaf blew across the lawn at me. Some one had written "have a nice day?" on it with a little smiley face. Silly but definitely karmically good. Type messages/ poems on leaves and hang them on beaded strings from the ceiling.

But I ramble... Write yourself a Zine! (that's one of the greatest things that I've ever done for myself) Just don't get too serious and you'll do fine!

--Flying Freda**

Isn't it amazing how typewriters inspire such different words than computers? Typewriter gibberish always seems so much more interesting.

I typed out song lyrics on different colored sheets of paper, then bound them into a book to go along with a mix tape I'd made for a friend. I included guitar chords too, for the songs I knew, so he could play along.
It turned out great, except for the typos, but typing it correctly and with the right margins seemed like a nightmare at the time.

More recently I tried to format a similar book on the computer and print the pages in a way that I could bind them later. Even more of a nightmare! I had to give up! Typewriters really are the way to go. They relieve stress. It's impossible to make things perfect, and that ends up charming.