A stitching commission

 Last weekend some friends stopped by the studio in a bit of a dilemma. They were heading off to see a precious new grandson and had had a children's book, which was part of their own children's early years, reproduced, hoping to be able to continue the story with their new grandchild.

Their only problem was it had come back; but hadn't been bound and they were leaving soon.

We spoke a bit about what might be possible and agreed to go with a single sheet binding, even tho the stitching would intrude onto some of the pages. It is a good solid stitch, and lets the pages lie flat.

Fortunately the book had been re-produced on a card with a shiny finish, which proved to be very tolerant.

I knew it would take a while - stitching can be slow - but I had no idea it would absorb 8 1/2 hours of my time! Oh my goodness, this book caused me grief with each and every stitch. There was also the pressure of knowing the deadlines as well and approaching!

But we got a great outcome and it will hopefully be treasured for years to come.

The unbound version with holes marked for piercing.

Some of the pages where I knew the stitching would intersect with the illustrations.

I was scared witless I would lose the sequence of the pages so I popped little stickers on each one numbering them. Usually if it is my book, I know which pages go where. If this slipped or fell off the table I could have ended up in mess.

I made a massive miscalculation regarding the length of three I needed. I used one measurement instead of the right one and ended up with metres of thread. In hindsight I reflected I was grateful I had overcalculated rather than undercalculated - there is nothing worse than running out of thread; but the length made for SO MANY tangles.

And so we began...

So many moments of tangled threads. So many deep breaths taken. So many knots unravelled.

But eventually we're done. Such a relief.

And the red thread stitches look fine on the pages. The pages are really easy to turn and the book feels sturdy. I hope the young one enjoys it!

Books and more books

I love having a local book shop that knows you.  We often describe the coffee there as the most expensive in town, because we always come away with a book or two each time we have coffee.  Rosettas is a legend in Maleny, and is onto its third main owner (there was a short period in between two owners I recall so I think there have been four all up).

The last owner Anne always knew the sorts of books I would like; and never failed to find them a new home with me. The new owner Jan, seems to also have a sense of things, so I bought Rachel Hazell's  book "Bound" the other day.

Barry said - but can't you do all those bindings?  And I said yes, pretty much, but its nice to see a few ideas and if there's a gem in there it will all be worth while.

One rainy afternoon I sat down to read it from cover to cover, and found myself getting all enthused about making some journals.

I decided that given we are headed back to Scotland for eight weeks later in the year and maybe it would be fun to have a little book fill each week. I decided on the eight books I would try to make and happily whiled away some random moments in the studio making books.

And here they are.

A simple pamphlet stitch but using a ribbon - a good reminder of a simple stitch made a little bit more interesting.

I didn't know this one, and I like it!   The cut outs on the cover hold it together, and appear in the centre pages. I could think about better or different placements, length etc in future ones.

I've done this before but still, I like it - chain of pearls.  Pretty simple and yet rather lovely.

A chain stitch which I also like.

The Turkish Map fold.  This one will be interesting to fill!

The good old make a book from a single sheet of paper book.

This was also a fun one with slits and slots - unfamiliar but definitely worth doing again.

I didn't like the flaps flapping, so I trimmed them down and tucked them inside - much better and tidier.

This was supposed to be single running stitch, but I doubled back and did two runs so to speak (mostly because I did an odd number of holes when I should have done an even number!). You can always make something of your mistakes...

 And all together again. It makes me feel like holidays already just looking at them there. You can see I chose the same ink to decorate the covers - again, following on with suggestions from the book.

All in all, a great little reminder to play, have fun, try a few new things and just enjoy yourself.

Workshop work in progress

Barry and I have just spent a great weekend with the Queensland Bookbinders Guild, doing the Introductory bookbinding course.

Whilst I may make book; I  Have not had any real understanding of how to properly bind books, so we thought it would be good to develop some skills if we are planning to print some letterpress books with decklededgepress.

The photos are pretty random and the book is still drying and not perfectly finished, but when it is I shall share it!

I learnt so many things - here you can see how I might need to learn to saw a bit deeper on my kerfs (what a delightful addition to my vocabulary that word is).

Sewing onto tapes, and trying to work out how firmly to pull the stitching - not so loose that the pages flop about the place; not so tight that the spine loses flexibility.

The extra joy of practising weaver's knots to join threads...always does my head in and so it was good to have to do a few - helped me memorise them a little bit better.

And some of the cool tools you meet along the way - this safety cutting ruler that has the hinged bit to protect your fingers - genius!

And me oh my, I rounded my spine.  I loved this bit - it was like magic as you hammered gently on the spine and rounded it - producing this beautiful concave curve at the forage.  It was soooooooo satisfying!

We worked with pre-prepared packs, so I traded my green buckram for purple (no surprises there) but that meant my end papers were golden yellow.  A bit of a tricky match for purple, but I pretended they were orange and found I could live with them.

The next tricky part was selecting a headband for the book that would blend with my two rather special colours - I went for this yellow/grey blend and I think it was a good choice.

Look at that rounded spine!!! And that beautiful headband in place.

Covering the spine and preparing to glue.

I went double purple on the case.  Bold purple buckram for the spine and the corners and a patterned purple paper for the rest.  Heavy duty purple.

And this is as far as my photos go!  I have actually glued the endpapers down and have a text block sitting within a case, but it is still drying - the paste takes a few days to really cure before you can do the finishing touches to it and I don't have photos of it at that stage, but once dried and trimmed I shall share.

It was a really good weekend: a well run course, well-paced and full of additional bits of learning.  Excellent resources and the chance to purchase materials rounded it off and we both came home with our heads buzzing and another book to be made!