Giveaway Winner!

I'm not sure I've ever won anything on the internet before. But, I recently saw Shannon's offer here on her Bathtub Dreamer blog, and left a message. Therefore, I was a bit suprised to win! Shannon says the book has a fault somewhere that renders the book not up to her usual high standards. Well, I like high standards, but I can't find anything wrong with it! It's a lovely coptic bound book, and I especially like the paper covering the inside covers. Lovely. Thanks Shannon!

Suede & Leather - Book No 0015

Another experiment here. I cut 3 strips of soft red suede, and wove them through slits cut in plain leather cover. I then long stitched the signatures into the covers, as per Keith Smiths "Long Stitch through Slotted Wrapper Cover" (Vol I, pg 141). Not entirely successful sewing, I need more sizes of threads. The thread I used was too thin, I think, as I couldn't line it up very well on the spine. No matter, it feels great now it's finished.

Book No 0015. 6x8.5 inches (16x21 cms)

Keith Smith Pamphlet Binding - Book No 0014

Here's another Keith Smith double pamphlet binding I've recently made. I'll post some time soon about approx 250 sheets of mostly handmade papers I've recently bought online for c£60.

This pamphlet is entirely made from some of those papers. As have been my Books 0008, 0009, 0010 & 0011.

Sewn with black thread, the outer cover is a very beautiful stiff paper with a leather like look and feel. The inner cover is a marbled paper of sorts. The pages are made from torn down mulberry papers of 2 alternate colours - yellow and orange. Keith Smith calls the binding Pinking Shears with Bars (see Vol 2, Pg 74). Unlike my previous post, I'm really pleased with this book.

Book No 0014. 5x7 inches (12x17 cms)

Unsupported Blanket Stitch Binding - Book No 0013

It's been a while since I've posted. This is what I've been working on. A Keith Smith binding that he calls the Unsupported Stitch Binding. (see Vol 3, pg 219). I've modified it slightly, in that I've stepped the length of each alternate stitch.

As the sewings aren't linked to one another, I used 2 colours of thread, alternatively brown and black. The pages are made with alternate sheets made from my own handmade papers 0001 & 0002. The ply boards i made from a cheap crate i found at the local garden centre - it was one of their free boxes to help you carry your plants home in, but the ply base has particularly attractive grain pattern.

I don't consider this book a complete success. I used both straight and curved needles, but i couldn't get the boards tight. This shows up in the second image, you can see the bottom board is loose. The back board, the last to be sewn, is particularly loose. More practice needed I guess!

Book No 0013. 4x6 inches (10x15 cms)

My Series of Books so Far

And, finally for tonight, a self indulgent hastily thrown together view of some of my books made so far. I like seeing other peoples 'bookshelves', so I thought i'd lay mine out quickly. I'll probably do this again some time, but I thought you might like to see this. So, let's see an update of all your bookshelves out there, for the rest of us to enjoy.

Tibetan Handmade Book

I recently bought this gorgeous little Tibetan book online for less than £1. It has 7 sections of 20 odd pages. The pages are handamde paper with petal inclusions. The paper covered cover is held by a multi-coloured cord, and small wooden toggle. That's a strip of bamboo on the front.

Japanese Mizuhiki Cord

I don't suppose there's any reason why I should have heard of this cord before, but I haven't, and when I saw some online, I just had to bid. There is an explanation here, for those of you who don't know about this. Wikipedia contradicts the explanation on the above link, and says "The cord is created from rice paper, that is tightly wound, starched to give it stiffness, and then colored". Oh well, I'll leave it to you guys to investigate further if required. My cords appear to be wrapped in a foil like paper. The photos below don't really do the colours justice, they are extremely vibrant.. I have an idea I will try a couple of Keith Smiths pamphlet bindings with them, although i suspect they will be difficult to use, as they are a bit stiff to use as threads. I'll post my experiments, and you can judge. There are 40 cords, each 0.9m long.

My First 'Keith Smith' Binding - Book No 0010

I now have volumes I, II & III of Keith Smiths bookbinding books. As a beginner, I'm drawn to his 1, 2 & 3 section pamphlets in volume II. They seem the ideal quick booklets to practice on. Hence this little book here.

I tore down 2 large sheets of thin mulberry paper for the single section in this book. One red sheet, and one pink sheet, and interleaved the pages. To get a nice deckle edge to the pages, I creased and wetted the folds, before gently tearing them down. The covers are a stiff hand made paper with a few petal inclusions.

Keith refers to the stitch I used as the Laced Dash Sewing (vol II, page 21).

Book No 0010 - 5x7 inches (12x17 cms)

I've also bought a simple rubber lettered printing kit, and (if I remember), will try to stamp all the books I make from now on with the following

Swap No 0003 with Lisa from Parallel Botany

I received my swap items in the post from Lisa at Parallel Botany today. I sent Lisa one of my Bank-Note-Books with bank note paper endpapers, and some sheets of my handmade papers. Heres an image below, and Lisa's kind review of my items can be found here. Lisa sent me one of her delightful par avion notebooks. The cover is Lisa's own handmade paper, and features a brilliant watermark of the books title. The pages inside are a delightful mix of pamphlet stitched plain, lined, squared and other papers. In addition, Lisa sent me an assortment of her other handmade papers, including a notelet and envelope (too good to use!), and some gorgeous joss papers. I'll have to think up something to make with them.

Please visit Lisa's blog - Parallel Botany - It's well worth a browse, and bookmark.

Handmade Paper Sample Book

This is another online purchase. This was less than £1. Its a book of sample handmade papers. There are 12 different papers - 3 sheets of each - total 36 pages. They are a wide and varied set of papers, inc: a snake skin design, a marbled paper, printed papers, embossed papers. Some thick, some thin, most are coloured papers. All cord bound in a beautiful, marbled paper covered, stiff boards. Overall book size is 8.5x6.5 inches ( 22x16 cms ) Does anyone recognise this book? I've purchased a second set from a different vendor also for less than £1. So they must be made in bulk somewhere. I've an idea i will strip out the papers leaving one of each, and adding pages from the lots of other handmade papers i have, so building up a big sample book of papers I've used.

My Self Made Sewing Cradle

Heres a quick post showing my Swing Cradle, just another part of my bookbing toolkit. Construction should be self explanatory, but if anyone wants a tutorial, i can write one.

My First Book with Content - Book No 0008

Today I made this book. I used a programme called Poladroid to turn photos of my 3 year old into old time Polaroid lookalikes - complete with fuzzy image and even the white paper border around. Try it, it's realism is taken as far as that the images take time to 'develop' on screen, and the software needs closing and restarting after 10 images, as in the film cartridge needs changing! So, once I had 18 images, I printed 2 to a page on a photoshop layout (if enough interest - I'll upload the template) on standard glossy 4x6 inch (10x15 cm) photo paper. These were folded to make 9 'signatures'. I then accordian folded a piece of white / silver striped paper, and sewed one signature ('open' end) to each mountain fold. I 'straddled' the fold with the open ends of the folded signature and pamphet stitched them on. I varied the spacing of these sewings, to avoid all 9 knots being in same place inside the spine. I then cut the card cover, and cut the window in the spine. Then I sewed though each valley in spine and looped out and around the paper spine. I did end up tying off directly onto the loops of pamphlet stitch used to hold the signatures! I'm not sure that's a recognised way of doing that, but it worked here!

Book No 0008 - 4x3 inches (10x7.5 cms)

And here is a Poladroid of the middle image above, just so you can see what the software does.

Anyone for a Copper Coffee? - Book No 0007

Inspiration can grab you anywhere. I was on my way to a site meet for my business, and stopped for a coffee at a fuel station on the way. It suddenly occurred to me that the corrugated card insulator used to stop you burning your fingures on way back to your car, could be used as book covers. So, I took a few spares, much to the confusion of the attendant!

So, as coffee is best shared, i made a dos-a-dos book. The 16 page signatures are just ordinary copy paper. On one side the paper edges are dipped in coffee, and on the other, completely immersed in coffee.

Both sides are pamphlet stitched with copper wire. One side stitched internally, the other externally.

Book No. 0007 - 5x3 in (12.5x7.5 cm)

Hell Bank Note Bank-Note-Books

While looking on Ebay for some bank notes to make into my Bank-Note-Books, i found these Hell bank notes. The biggest is huge, it's 18x8 inches (45x20 cms), and the smallest is 5x2.5 inches (12x7 cms). They are designed to be burnt as offerings in Chinese worship. See wikipedia and BigWhiteGuy in Hong Kong for more info. I won't be offering these as my swaps, see here if you would like to swap something book related for my other Bank-Note-Books (and a few of my hand made papers).

Little & Large Bank-Note-Books

Heres a few more Bank-Note-Books that I've made for possible swaps (see here if you'd like to swap something book related you've made for one + a few of my handmade papers).

The larger one is a 1923 100,000 Mark German note, pamphlet bound with copper wire, using my Bank Note Paper for end papers, and some very nice cream laid paper for the pages. It is 3.5 x 4.5 inches (9.5 x 11.5 cms). The smaller ones are just over 1.5 x 1.5 inches (4.5 x 4.5 cms)

Tutorial - Handmade Plywood

See my last post for further information and a couple more images of this Book No 0004. The covers of this book are plywood, handmade from thin wood veneer.

How to make Plywood from veneers.

Most commercially available (search on Ebay, etc) wood veneer, is 0.6mm thick, or thereabouts. This is far too thin and fragile to use as book covers on its own, so it needs to be laminated together. As you would expect, exactly like paper, a single sheet of veneer has distinct grain. It bends very easily in one direction (along the grain), but not so easily in the other (across the grain).

Because of these flexing properties, you must laminate adjacent sheets at 90 degrees to each other. ie, if using 3 sheets, the 2 outer sheets should have the grain running 'north - south', with the middle of the sandwich having its grain running 'east - west'.

For my covers, I laminated 3 pieces of veneer, to produce a board approx 1.8mm thick. For bigger boards, more laminations will be required, but always use an odd number of pieces, eg, 3, 5 or 7 pieces, and always alternate the grain direction. Different colour veneers will also be attractive.

The theory is no different to pasting paper onto a cardboard cover for a book, you need to paste paper on both sides, to allow shrinkage / warping of either side to cancel each other out.

I use ordinary pva glue, well spread, and once protected by waxed paper, pressed in my book press until dry.

Finishing.

Timber finishing generally is a huge subject, but this is what i did.

Once dry, trim the boards to size with a knife. Using a very fine sandpaper, sand the faces, and edges of the board. I then applied Boiled Linseed oil sparingly to each side (again, both sides need to be oiled, to avoid distortion in the boards) with a cotton cloth. Rub the oil well in, and buff thoroughly. Ideally, leave for 24 hrs, and repeat the process. Numerous coats build up to produce a wonderful soft sheen.

But, and its a big but, ensure the oil is thoughly dry before taking them anywhere near your paper, as any excess oil will leach into the paper. To ensure this didn't happen, I wrapped the boards in kitchen tissue, and pressed again in the press for 24 hours. My theory is that the pressing will ensure any leaching goes into the tissue. Once you're happy they are dry, you can use the boards.

Coptic Stitch in Handmade Plywood Boards - Book No. 0004

Earlier this week I made a small coptic stitch blank book. This is only my second attempt at coptic stitch, and the stitching was less successful than last time - see here. After reading a few other comments on the web, I've come to the conclusion that bigger is better, especially where beginners are concerned (and that's me!). This book, at half the size of my first attempt, is too small, particularly for the thread I've used. I think a bigger book, with a thicker thread would be better. Roll on next time. The pages are made from my Paper No 0001. There are 8 signatures of 12 pages each, totalling 96 pages.

Book No. 0004 - 3x4 in (7.5x10 cm)

The plywood boards, on the other hand, were particularly successful. I have a hige stack of 100's of different wood veneers to use on various woodworking projects. I picked a nice orange coloured veneer. I'm not sure what the wood is though! See my next post, on how to make plywood from veneers.

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Bank-Note-Books with Bank Note Paper Endpapers

Two new Bank-Note-Books, both with endpapers made from my Bank Note Paper. These are the booklets I'm now offering as swaps. They will be versions of these booklets, using the Bank Note Paper endpapers, but varying the banknote used, or the stitching, or the paper used for the pages.

My First Overseas Swap

I completed my second swap today, and my first overseas swap. With Judy from Iowa, I swapped one of my BankNoteBooks and 3 sheets of my handmade paper: for only Judy's second ever handmade book. I'm touched, and its delightful. Its Japanese stab bound, and made from an old macoroni package, with pages cut and folded at different sizes from (I'm assuming) a brown paper bag, with the stitching incorporating bead work. I'm extremely pleased with this swap.

My First Swap

. I completed my first swap today. With Lubna - see Looby Ruby. I swapped one of my BankNoteBooks and 3 sheets of my handmade paper:

for one of Lubna's delightfull stab bound Mini Books 4.5 x 3 in (11x7.5 cm)

If anyone else is interested in a small swap see here for details.

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