I made some books.
Jul. 25th, 2010 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaThis year at SUUSI, instead of taking a bunch of different short workshops and nature trips as I've always done before, I focused all my programming time on one workshop which met every day. For two hours every morning, regardless of what else was going on - and a lot else was going on - I immersed myself in bookbinding.
It was a wonderful experience.
We made three books in five days. The first day, we built very simple sewn pamphlets using materials our instructor had pre-cut for us. It was an easy project, but still exciting to make a real book. The second book took most of us two full days and was considerably more complex, and the third book was even more technically involved. I never would have imagined, on Monday, what I would have learned to make by Friday.
Our instructor teaches university-level business classes. Bookbinding, paper marbling, and papermaking are just her hobbies. Every morning she set up a complete workshop in a dorm study room, fully outfitted with tools, reference books, and examples of handmade books. Every afternoon she dismantled it, even removing the tables, so that a meditation class could meet in the same room in the afternoon. She was dedicated. She was also incredibly good at breaking down complex tasks into small, easily understandable steps; without that skill, I don't think her undeniable artistic talent would have taken us very far.
Here are pictures of my three books. I'll put most of the pictures and all the detailed description under cuts, because otherwise this post would be enormous.
Simple sewn pamphlet.
The coolest thing about the first book, besides the part about "OMG! I made a book!", is the cover. She treated heavy paper using a Japanese product called kaki-shibu, which is fermented persimmon juice. Kaki-shibu paper is water- and insect-resistant. It is also a beautiful reddish-brown color, with subtle shading variations which make it look sort of like leather.
Because our instructor makes and sells marbled papers, she had a huge stash of marble scraps and flawed sheets which we were free to make use of to decorate and line our books. I made marbled endpapers for mine, as well as a simple marble decoration for the cover - which I think looks better in real life than in the picture.
The pages are sewn into the pamphlet with a simple bow-tie stitch. It has a quarter-inch spine for the sole purpose of showing off the binding stitch.
Game board book.
So this one, obviously, is a book made from pieces of a game board. Our instructor had bought a bunch of games at garage sales and thrift stores, of which I was fondest of a National Parks edition Monopoly set. Two other people also wanted to use that board, so we cut it into thirds - which dictated the size and shape of my book. We sliced the board into six pieces and each chose the two sections we wanted for our covers.
This is a proper hardcover book with 32 sheets inside. It opens completely flat by means of a cloth hinge in the top cover. (Made with book cloth, which is just cloth adhered to a paper backing to give it more body and less stretch.) It's bound with a Japanese stab binding; the method should be perfectly apparent from the picture.
We were encouraged to decorate our books using pieces from the games. One of the Monopoly pieces in the National Parks edition is a little canoe, which I absolutely fell in love with. I got the idea of using it as a clasp to hold the book closed. A loop of black elastic is fastened to the back cover and hooks over the canoe. I also glued a partial Community Chest card to the back cover.
I'm going to use that one as a nature journal.
Coptic bound book.
This is another hardcover book. Our instructor takes old, battered hardcovers from free boxes and cuts the covers off to reuse. We covered these old covers with paper (mine is actually thin black cardstock), fit and glued the covers carefully, and decorated them with scraps. I made marbled endpapers again. I can't believe that this gorgeous piece of marbling was one of her "rejects," but she assures me that it has flaws.
We used folded (and trimmed, in most cases) copy paper for our pages, in six five-sheet signatures. The pages were sewn together and into the book with a Coptic binding. We were running out of time at this point, so she encouraged us to only use four holes in the binding. I was a little disappointed about the aesthetics of that until I found out how freaking hard it is to sew a binding like this. We used a needle threaded on both ends, working with both needles simultaneously, and sewed the book together using a beautiful and intricate chain stitch.
I am clearly very much a beginner, and yet I am so proud and satisfied of these books I made. Our instructor did such a great job of choosing projects and leading us through them. I liked that we learned precise techniques, but also had a lot of flexibility and creative opportunities with the design. I doubt I'll do more bookbinding - I don't have time for my current hobbies, let alone a new one - but it was an immensely satisfying way of spending ten hours at SUUSI.
It was a wonderful experience.
We made three books in five days. The first day, we built very simple sewn pamphlets using materials our instructor had pre-cut for us. It was an easy project, but still exciting to make a real book. The second book took most of us two full days and was considerably more complex, and the third book was even more technically involved. I never would have imagined, on Monday, what I would have learned to make by Friday.
Our instructor teaches university-level business classes. Bookbinding, paper marbling, and papermaking are just her hobbies. Every morning she set up a complete workshop in a dorm study room, fully outfitted with tools, reference books, and examples of handmade books. Every afternoon she dismantled it, even removing the tables, so that a meditation class could meet in the same room in the afternoon. She was dedicated. She was also incredibly good at breaking down complex tasks into small, easily understandable steps; without that skill, I don't think her undeniable artistic talent would have taken us very far.
Here are pictures of my three books. I'll put most of the pictures and all the detailed description under cuts, because otherwise this post would be enormous.
Simple sewn pamphlet.
The coolest thing about the first book, besides the part about "OMG! I made a book!", is the cover. She treated heavy paper using a Japanese product called kaki-shibu, which is fermented persimmon juice. Kaki-shibu paper is water- and insect-resistant. It is also a beautiful reddish-brown color, with subtle shading variations which make it look sort of like leather.
Because our instructor makes and sells marbled papers, she had a huge stash of marble scraps and flawed sheets which we were free to make use of to decorate and line our books. I made marbled endpapers for mine, as well as a simple marble decoration for the cover - which I think looks better in real life than in the picture.
The pages are sewn into the pamphlet with a simple bow-tie stitch. It has a quarter-inch spine for the sole purpose of showing off the binding stitch.
Game board book.
So this one, obviously, is a book made from pieces of a game board. Our instructor had bought a bunch of games at garage sales and thrift stores, of which I was fondest of a National Parks edition Monopoly set. Two other people also wanted to use that board, so we cut it into thirds - which dictated the size and shape of my book. We sliced the board into six pieces and each chose the two sections we wanted for our covers.
This is a proper hardcover book with 32 sheets inside. It opens completely flat by means of a cloth hinge in the top cover. (Made with book cloth, which is just cloth adhered to a paper backing to give it more body and less stretch.) It's bound with a Japanese stab binding; the method should be perfectly apparent from the picture.
We were encouraged to decorate our books using pieces from the games. One of the Monopoly pieces in the National Parks edition is a little canoe, which I absolutely fell in love with. I got the idea of using it as a clasp to hold the book closed. A loop of black elastic is fastened to the back cover and hooks over the canoe. I also glued a partial Community Chest card to the back cover.
I'm going to use that one as a nature journal.
Coptic bound book.
This is another hardcover book. Our instructor takes old, battered hardcovers from free boxes and cuts the covers off to reuse. We covered these old covers with paper (mine is actually thin black cardstock), fit and glued the covers carefully, and decorated them with scraps. I made marbled endpapers again. I can't believe that this gorgeous piece of marbling was one of her "rejects," but she assures me that it has flaws.
We used folded (and trimmed, in most cases) copy paper for our pages, in six five-sheet signatures. The pages were sewn together and into the book with a Coptic binding. We were running out of time at this point, so she encouraged us to only use four holes in the binding. I was a little disappointed about the aesthetics of that until I found out how freaking hard it is to sew a binding like this. We used a needle threaded on both ends, working with both needles simultaneously, and sewed the book together using a beautiful and intricate chain stitch.
I am clearly very much a beginner, and yet I am so proud and satisfied of these books I made. Our instructor did such a great job of choosing projects and leading us through them. I liked that we learned precise techniques, but also had a lot of flexibility and creative opportunities with the design. I doubt I'll do more bookbinding - I don't have time for my current hobbies, let alone a new one - but it was an immensely satisfying way of spending ten hours at SUUSI.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 04:06 am (UTC)I don't have time for my current hobbies, let alone a new one
*wry chuckle* Bookbinding and papermaking are crafts I don't dare let myself learn, limited energy/time and a plethora of other crafts & and supplies for them already...
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-27 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-28 09:51 pm (UTC)I went to a really cool art books exhibit in my town's art center. Tiny books, architectural-structured books, nifty nifty.