Author: thebookhutter

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Wedding Memory Book | Case Binding

This beautiful handmade album is designed to be a Wedding Memory Book of your big day. It is a landscape cased binding, with guards throughout. The guards will allow you to insert photographs, printed memorabilia and ephemera, as well as high quality paper for guests to write their well-wishes.

ORDER YOUR BESPOKE WEDDING MEMORY BOOK

This particular volume has been bound in handmade book cloth from blue silk, with an additional diamante decoration on the cover. This design was complimentary of the bride’s wedding dress. If you would like to order a bespoke Wedding Memory Book, you can have an alternative cover design should you wish. We will need a minimum of one month advance notice to make the book for you.

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Case binding, fully bound in blue silk, with lace decoration and silver tooling.
  • Handmade book cloth from blue silk, backed with Japanese tissue.
  • Textblock to include guards to allow compensation for photographs.
  • Textblock to be sewn onto four tapes.
  • Made endpapers.
  • Endbands to be made from additional blue silk.

For other examples of bespoke bindings, have a look at the bookbinding page of this website.

I made this book for one of my oldest and best friends got married – which was wonderful, especially as I was a bridesmaid! I was asked to create a wedding memory book for the big day, that was be something for everyone to leave messages and well-wishes in.

I knew that part of the wedding dress was to be made with blue silk and diamante lace decorations. So with a bit of help from the John Lewis haberdashery department, I was able to create a complimentary binding, that would keep all the memories safe for the future.

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My first week of college

Sorry I have not been around recently, Kelly from May Day Studio, kindly nudged me for an update on starting at college, and as I have now completed my first week, it seemed like a good moment to let you know what has been happening!

This is my college, Camberwell College of Arts, where I am studying Book Conservation. The building itself used to be a boy’s grammar school, but it’s now all part of the London Arts College.

The first week included a lot of introductions to what lies ahead. We also launched straight into the basics of the chemistry we will need, including the structure of an atom! A little daunting to begin with, but also exciting. Thursday included a trip to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, for an introduction to their ‘Handling Collection’, which was very interesting. The museum itself is beautiful and on fantastic grounds – apparently they have some great Christmas events, including carols by candlelight, which has always been a favorite of mine!

We spent all of Friday in the studio, which you can see above, its a fantastic space, and kitted out especially for the book conservators. We all have our own desk space and have been over the do’s and don’ts of the studio – such as no pens, nail varnish or perfume! The former may damage the book you’re working on, and the latter will prevent you from smelling any rotting pages!!

We then got straight down to making some small pamphlet bindings, which you can see below. The greener one is made with two sections, using a very nifty technique of folding the cover in the middle to allow you to sew the two sections to the cover without any glue!

Anyway – tomorrow sees the beginning of a series of lectures on European Hand Made Papers, which should be really interesting, so I will report back on them next week!

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Collection of Pamphlets | Flatback Binding with Slipcase

This little book uses sections from a collection of Poetry booklets that came free with a newspaper. This is something the broadsheets often do over the Christmas period and are a great thing to collect if you spot them early enough.

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Hand sewn sections onto tape and linen thread.
  • Complimentary coloured endpapers adhered as a single folio to front and back.
  • Spine lined with mull and kraft paper.
  • Boards and spine covered buckram book cloth and hand decorated papers.
  • Cased in as a quarter bound flat back book.
  • Complimentary slipcase was made in the same buckram book cloth, and a sympathetic coloured ribbon.

ORDER YOUR BESPOKE FLATBACK BINDING WITH SLIPCASE

If you have a collection of pamphlets that you would like bound in a similar manor with a slipcase, please do get in touch. Prices start from £200.00 and will vary depending on any additional requirements you have, such as labels and cover tooling.

For other examples of bespoke bindings, have a look at the bookbinding page of this website.

This particular book was for my mother, who was extremely pleased with it, but is still a bit scared to sit down and read it! The paper was paper we had made together one afternoon, so all very appropriate.

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City & Guilds Bookbinding Certificates

Well here they are – certificates to show my City & Guilds course in bookbinding, I have to say I am quite proud of myself. Not sure if you can read the text, but it says that I have completed the general Design for Craft module and the more specific Bookbinding module.

Next step is Camberwell Art School, for Book Conservation, which I’m starting in September – keep in touch!

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Two Bookbinders @ Work

This weekend I spent an enjoyable morning at the exhibition of two bookbinders in The Midhurst Gallery, where I met both Maureen Duke and Gaynor Williams, who were exhibiting some of their work, and were a delight to meet.

Both Maureen and Gaynor are Book Conservators as well as binders and teach at the nearby West Dean College. The exhibition itself was a feast for any keen binder, with a great display of various bindings, including miniature books, designer bindings and works of conservation. There was also a lovely display of some of Gaynor’s new bindings including some address books and photo albums, making use of some fantastic papers from both abroad and the V&A museum!

Outside the gallery was a fantastic selection of hand-marbled papers by Louise Brockman, which seemed to use traditional patterns with bright colours, making them look very modern and tempting! If you are keen to take a peek, the exhibition will remain in place until Saturday 24th July, and I believe they will be holding daily demonstrations throughout this time.