Bookbinding!
I am absolutely loving my bookbinding class and I have made two books thus far. It is so hard but so worthwhile once you are holding the finished product in your hands!
Yesterday one of the girls in my class said "I think 'Ooops I think I did that wrong!' is the motto of bookbinding!"
And that is so true.
My teacher, Judy Sommerfeldt [she is absolutely amazing--her books are incredible and so beautiful! And she makes the process look effortless.], gives a demonstration of the part of the process we will be doing in class that day. I have class every Wednesday for 4 hours. That may seem like a long time, but the demonstration sometimes takes an hour and a half or ever two hours. During the demos, we all take really detailed notes- I write down the directions and draw little pictures to accompany the written part. And then when we are turned loose to make our books, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I second-guess myself. I am so grateful for Judy's patience because we all ask so many questions! Bookbinding takes a lot of patience and precision, and I am learning so much. Even though the class gets a little expensive, I am finding some ways to improvise and save some money. And I am truly loving the experience!
This is the first book I made, using a coptic binding.
the front cover:
the back cover:[I made the paper for the covers using Arches Textwove paper and watercolors and a little walnut ink. The technique is called cooked paper!] The textblock is also Arches Textwove.
This is my second book, a flatback. I am obsessed with batik fabrics so I used that for the cover, but had to adhere it to paper with heat n' bond and then apply glue to the paper to attach it to the cover boards. [otherwise the glue would soak through the fabric].
In this picture you can see the endbands, and the gutter [the indentation that you see on many books!]
this is the pastedown on the inside cover, made with black ink and watercolors, using the technique of Sink Art. [WHICH I LOOOOVE!]
the back inside pastedown, also sink art.
and this is the front cover. <3 
This is my second book, a flatback. I am obsessed with batik fabrics so I used that for the cover, but had to adhere it to paper with heat n' bond and then apply glue to the paper to attach it to the cover boards. [otherwise the glue would soak through the fabric].In this picture you can see the endbands, and the gutter [the indentation that you see on many books!]this is the pastedown on the inside cover, made with black ink and watercolors, using the technique of Sink Art. [WHICH I LOOOOVE!]the back inside pastedown, also sink art.and this is the front cover. <3 
these are stunning. the book on my blog I have always heard referred to as "case-binding". I made the covers and dropped the text block into them. For your second book, did you glue the pages together? Or did you start with a text block?
ReplyDeletethank you :] oh ok the case binding is what i'm doing in class next week! for the second book, i cut the text block. then after sewing it, i put some pvc on it and used a bone folder to smooth out the folds and to get it really flat. after that i glued a piece of muslin to the spine and some paper just over the spine part. the muslin overhanging on each side [front and back] were glued to the cover so they act as hinges.
ReplyDeletehow long have you done bookbinding? i just got into it recently and i love it so much!
Love, love, love that books. Where did you learn this?
ReplyDeleteMika (www.mikascrap.typepad.com)
Beautiful..
ReplyDeleteHope that such lovely books help you to put even lovelier stuff in them :)