Ode to Stones

So, I got my act together and managed to complete this Variable Edition of 5 books.

I had wanted to test and try a range of things when I began, so the books are on different papers, with different surface treatments and are different sizes.  In the end one of them has a completely different finished look as well.

All I know is that I know a whole lot more about letterpress and making now, than I did when I began making these more than 18 months ago.

I dismantled the ones I had stitched and prepared earlier because they were so flimsy.  I had tried to rescue them a few times with different approaches, but in the end all the covers were binned.

See what I mean by flimsy? An overhead shot of the spine with it nicely held at the tail but way too much play in between. To this day I don't know what I was thinking...

A couple of the earlier covers, ready for binning.

And the first look at one of the finished ones.

I prepared a firm-soft cover in Magnani Pescia Grey to act as a wrap around cover.

I unpicked all the stitching on all five books and started again - this time with a simple coptic stitch holding the book block together.

I stitched in a fly leaf both front and back and these slip under the inside fold of the cover to hold the book block in place.

 And so to the words and printing.

The books are all about stone circles  or standing stones which we love to visit and discover when in Scotland.  They are majestic and powerful and I really feel their strength and presence.

I did some naive type lino prints of different circles, wrote some words, sorted out the layout and printed the lino then the letterpress.

This one is on cream BFK Rives paper.

 You can see here how the fly leaves slip within the fold of the cover.

Four of the Variable Edition of 5 - the long tall one is Gmund Cotton 300gsm covered in book cloth to try something new and different.

The two tall ones have Grey Pescia paper for pages with some marks on the paper.

The fifth in the edition where I just taped the sides together to create a simpler journal sketch book kind of thing. Also nice in its own way, with grey rolled ink as the background.

 So many learnings, so many steps forward then backwards, but before the year is out they are complete!