Bookbinding Update | Week 19

Well – I finished my box, and am pretty proud of it! My teacher loves it which is always a good thing, she always likes us to use papers that we have made, so the fact it is covered in my splish splash paper made her very happy! (I uploaded a picture of the splish splash paper a while back, hopefully you will recognize it in its transformed state!)

Most importantly, the book fits, which is fantastic! Unfortunately it still doesn’t stand up on its own the right way up (its upside down here), but we will skim over that problem – its tricky with such a thin box, but in future there will be no excuse. I just have to snip off my excess ribbons and its complete! 

I am really very pleased with it – there are a couple of things that annoy me, they may not be noticeable to many, but they niggle at me – still – next time it will be better.

Anyway – pictures…

Bookbinding Update | Week 18

Here is the product of last nights activity. I had to take more pics than usual during the evening, otherwise I’ll never rember how to do this again, I may have to make another one, just to practice it at home!

Anywho, this is the slipcase for my ribbon book (limp binding), and praise the lord, the book fits! Unfortunately after this, the second test for a good slip case is if it stands up on its own (the first being the fit of the book!) and sadly mine did not pass this second test, when covering it with cartridge paper, I was able to build it up a bit at the bottom, but whether that will make any difference, we will see next week. The worry over the slightly narrowing head and tail was infact mostly unfounded (though it may have something to do with it not standing up on its own), but luckily it all stuck quite well and the end result is not bad.

Its a little snug, so it remains to be seen whether the book will still fit once I’ve properly covered it, but fingers crossed. I’ve also attached the paper I was planning on covering it with – what do you think?

Bookbinding Update | Week 17

Well last night was a mixture of emotions, good and bad!

The bad bit was not disastrous, but not fantastic either really – we were making the slip cases for our project 1 limp bindings (the one with the ribbons) and we had to trim the edges, which on mine are very narrow. The edges on mine should really be 12mm all round, but I think they are out a bit which is really annoying, especially as two of them seem to be 12mm at one end and 12.5/13mm at the other, so I think my box may end up being a bit skew-whiff. More worryingly than that, we were told to use the front and back of our boxes as a guide, which mean that my covers are a bit out. Mmph – am not impressed.

On some happier notes, I took all my stuff in that I’ve done so far, and it was all ticked off as OK – I think I may make another disappearing spine book (that was the one with the owl on the front) as the one I did was a little skew, and I should be better at it by now. I’ve also got to do some more art work, printing, mark making, voids etc, all the stuff I’m not that good at!

Most excitingly of all, we were given our project 2’s, which we’ll start this term and do next as well – so a massive project which will end in a proper bound book. The project uses books provided by the Folio Society – they initially give unbound books to the society of Designer Bookbinders for their annual competition, the ones we have are left overs of these. I’ve got Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which I’ve photographed below and you’ll see has PICTURES!! Amazing pictures – its very exciting! I have to design end papers, and the cover, so need to read the book – has anyone got an old tatty copy? It won’t be done using leather as I have no experience in leather, but still very exciting all the same!

C&G Week 16 | Packed Sewing

Yesterday I was learning about ‘packed sewing’, this is another form of sewing, which dates back to the middle/dark ages. It was used for binding vellum and parchment and all those old forms of paper, the reason being this type of paper would expand at the fore-edge of the book (the bit opposite the spine), the packed sewing would ‘pack’ the thread together at the spine, therefore expanding the spine in compensation for the expanded fore-edge, making the book more square shaped rather than wedged!

All very interesting I thought – the one above is a practice and I have not ‘packed’ it out enough. This colourful one I have made at home and made it a lot bigger – very pretty!

C&G Week 15 | Casing-in a flat back binding

Yesterday was a good day, we didn’t have the board to start the slip cases, so the evening was a catch up evening – giving me the chance to finish my Flat back binding, which I managed and is now complete. This was the one I sent an image of some time back showing the card and the pink cloth on the spine and corners.

Well to finish it, I covered it in paper which I had made from the art part of the course, and then had to ‘case it in’. This you have to do fairly quickly – its covering the end paper with glue and sticking the text block onto the boards. This however is also the part which most easily goes wrong. Unfortunately due to it being the VERY last thing you do, it is also the most disastrous if it DOES go wrong, as you have to start from scratch! Things that could go wrong would be the skew-whiffing of the text block and misaligning it completely, or possibly over gluing, which might mean the covers bend or the glue seeps through the end-paper, or you don’t dry it properly and it goes through the rest of the book, as C&Ds did. All of which you can do nothing about! Luckily, this was my most successful gluing yet, and I am thrilled to bits!

C&G Week 14 | Lacing onto limp boards

So I didn’t get an awful lot done on Tuesday, I had a bit of a panic that it would all go wrong – lack of confidence – however, I managed to overcome it in the end and get going again, perhaps it was first day jitters! It seems the further you go on a book, the more is at stake, one thing could easily go wrong! 

The first ribbons are now laced so the cover is not going anywhere. For the rest of the lacing I was thinking of some sort of checker board with voids, but I’m not entirely sure how to do it. We start the slip case next week which is quite exciting!