Book-a-Day: Day 4

I've been moving -- slowly, I know -- through the products of my BookWorks class with Dan Essig. On the fourth day (this series is beginning to sound like an installment from Genesis) our focus was a concertina binding. Think of it as one, long continuous spine-guard that covers the spine-edge of each signature. The concertina adds particular strength to the binding. Folding the concertina EXACTLY is one of the challenges of making this book. In the photo to the right you can see the folds of the concertina between each signature.

It's not an easy binding to stitch, since you're trailing the concertina while you're attaching each signature, but it gets easier with practice (and, of course, as you keep attaching signatures, the remaining amount of concertina lessens). We used a coptic stitch with bent needles. Dan doesn't like curved needles, but straight needles don't do the job, so we softened the metal of our needles over a candle flame and bent the ends at a 45% angle with pliers. Personally, I love curved needles for coptic bindings.

The cover was attached in a style very similar to the one we used for the papyrus book on Day Two. With this fourth book, when we covered the front and back cover-boards with paper, we left a "flap" on each cover on the spine side. We sewed through the inside fold of each flap, treating the cover like another signature. We used Cave paper for our covers, so it was strong enough to withstand being sewn through. If you were using a lighter-weight paper, you'd want to reinforce the area with a material such as Tyvek, which is strong and thin.

We also practiced making insets in the cover (indentations made by lifting layers of board with an exacto knife before we covered the boards). I adhered leftover bits of paper I'd painted and used for signatures in an earlier book.

Dan's primer on concertina-folding

We had great fun, but worked pretty intensely too.

Recent Books

Before Christmas, I spent several days making books -- for one, I borrowed a form that I learned in my very first class in book arts, called a "Spine Surprise;" for another, I used the covers of a lovely old book in French that I'd had on my shelf for over a year; for a third, I re-discovered a sheet of paper that was perfect for a "puppy journal." (I'm still not sure what a puppy journal is, , but as the owner of a new puppy, I knew I had to make one!)

The Spine Surprise book is an accordion-style book with signatures on both sides. One side has pockets and and a signature pamphlet-stitched into the center fold; the reverse side contains two signatures, one in each corresponding folds. The book is secured it with an elastic band.

The other books are coptic-stitched. I used a four-needle binding and combined two different colors of waxed linen thread.

Fun Books

I spent yesterday making a fun book at Annie Fain Liden's studio. I met Annie Fain a little over a year ago when I'd been making books for only a short time. To say that she's a multi-talented young woman is putting it mildly. In addition to making books and teaching book arts classes, she's an accomplished Morris dancer, plays fiddle and banjo --among other instruments-- and weaves and sews. She grew up in Murphy, NC, next door to the John C. Campbell Folk School, where her mother, Martha Owen, is the Folk School's Resident Fiber Artist. This spring, Annie Fain spent two months at Penland as the studio assistant in the weaving program and just returned from teaching a week-long book arts class at the Campbell Folk School. (That's AF to the right with Priscilla, one of my classmates, in the background.)

Locally, Annie Fain (it's a double name, like "Mary Jane" or "Ann Marie") teaches bookmaking in her studio and at BookWorks. She has an engaging, supportive and relaxed teaching style that makes working with her a pleasure. This session's project was a whimsical two-in-one coptic-binding book that opens via side-by-side "doors." Open, the book has the feel of an altar or shrine. We used book board for the back of the book, and covers from old books for the front covers. Part of the fun was deciding how to treat both the outer and inside panels of the book. One of the students opted for textural paper for the outside of the book and collaged the inside panels; another kept the covers pristine but used images on the inside back cover that created the effect of a stage; I used decorative paper for most of the book and acrylic paint and ink on the front covers.

I like the conceit of the book. Unlike a dos-a-dos structure, which also creates two books, but back-to-back, the side-by-side book allows -- in fact, encourages -- a relationship between the facing text blocks. I'd like to spend a little time deciding how best to use my book. But not too long.

Katherine's book - outside, above; inside, below

Priscilla's book - closed, above; open, below

Handmade Book Pix

It's about time I put up images of some of my books. I took these photographs a few weeks ago, but had not gotten around to downloading them to my computer. The book to the right is one that I made in January for the purpose of doing an inset with a transparency. It worked well. The one below is one I made for a good friend. It was the first time I'd done a coptic binding in two colors. Since the colors of the thread are nearly identical to the cover paper, it creates a nice effect.