Bookbinding as a Trade

I don't think this happens very much anymore - where somebody learns bookbinding as an apprentice to a bookbinder, learns everything there is to know about the trade, then eventually takes over the business and continues working as a master bookbinder for the rest of his life... The New York Times just published this article about Mr. Schnerb, a real old fashion tradesman making a living as a bookbinder. This has to be rare. It seems to me that for most bookbinders today who are trying to make a living, that a career as a bookbinder is more like a career as an "artist" rather than a tradesperson. Mr. Schnerb is not being presented as a book artist or as anything else with a similarly vague title - and there are no artistic pretensions to bother about...he is a bookbinder! Plain an simple. Which, in my opinion, is absolutely fabulous! A real, honest-to-goodness bookbinder. Ah, nostalgia. Why don't we still do this apprentice and master process for the trade of bookbinding anymore? Maybe it happens somewhere...but certainly not anywhere that is accessible to me. Too bad.

Collaborative Bookbinding

Just before Christmas, I had fun working with a fellow Canadian Etsian, designing and creating a special golf book. Her Etsy shop is called Neawear. She contacted me to see if it would be possible to create a book for her boyfriend, that he could use to track his performance when golfing.

This was a fun collaboration. She had lots of ideas to work with and after several lengthy convos where we hashed out the details for all the book's specifications, she designed the pages and printed them herself. Then she shipped them to me from Montreal. I sliced them and diced them and made the book.



I also put together a 2008 weekly planner using the same leather and same binding - both have a basic longstitch binding and a neat and tidy tab closure. So now he has this great set of books! He'll be the envy of all his fellow golfers, for sure.

More time for bookbinding...

...because I have a floor washing robot! Super Hubby decided that the perfect Christmas gift would be a robot to clean the floors, whooop! And I thought I wanted a sewing machine....pfffft! That would have created more work for me. But this....check it out.


It is hard to tie this in with my bookbinding projects....but I had to share. And now I can make books and clean the floor at the same time. Can't get much better than that!

A Little Merry Christmas Book

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Inspired by the season, I made my Christmas book this past weekend. The signatures have been sewn to create the shape of a Christmas Tree on the spine. The cover is some shiny, almost glittery, green cardstock. The pages are a mixture of many different handmade papers in a variety of colours. The beginning and the end of the sewing threads have been finished with some little beads for a little extra festive bling.




I'm going to list this little book for sale in my Etsy shop, just for one day. If it is still there tomorrow when I get home from my mother's house, then I will keep it for myself! It was a fun little expiriment with the longstitch and I could probably do it a bit better next time....but it'll probably be about a year before I'll want to make another Christmas Tree book!

Bookbinding 101 - Getting Started

I seem to get a lot of inquiries from people who are interested in learning how to do some bookbinding. It would be nice if I could just send these people to a single magic website for some good introductory bookbinding lessons; however, that website doesn't exist yet. There are some amazing resources online for bookbinders and lots of tutorials, but I have found nothing that is as organized and dedicated to teaching basic bookbinding as a face-to-face class or a good solid analog book! For people who have never made books before, I would suggest buying either Cover to Cover by Shereen LaPlantz or Creating Handmade Books by Alisa Golden - these two books cover many of the same techniques so you would not need to have both (ok, so you can't afford to buy a book, well, you can probably get one of these or some other similar book from your local library). The Japanese Bookbinding book by Ikegami is another great book to start with.

Aside from having a good book, I think the best way to learn bookbinding is with an instructor so if you can find an introductory bookbinding class you should get in there! Being able to ask questions is important and it is the best way to get your hands on the tools and materials so that you know what you really need to get started. But if you are trying to jump into this without books or instruction, here are some online resources that may be useful:

The CBBAG Home-study programme:
www.cbbag.ca/HomeStudy.htm

A big list of bookbinding tutorials:
www.philobiblon.com/tutorials.shtml



For people who have never made a book and want to try some online tutorials, I would recommend starting with pamphlet bindings and Asian stab bindings...for example...

• The 3-hole pamphlet binding tutorial
• A chopstick pamphlet tutorial
• Chinese 5-hole binding tutorial

WHAT Feature

The WHAT Media blog people contacted me today to tell me they had one of my books featured on there. A nice little post about getting your new journal for the upcoming new year. Some of the other members of the Bookbinding Etsy Street Team are also there. Fun fun. As it says... "2007 is coming to an end and 2008 awaits like the blank pages of these journals....ah quit the soliloquy already...." Heehe!

New Leather

I buy all my leather online, almost exclusively from Ebay. There don't seem to be any local suppliers and I haven't even had much luck finding a competitive supplier in my own country. So I've become an importer of animal hides. This box of leather came in the mail this week, mostly deerskin, all wonderfully soft and rich amazing colours.

This box of leather came from Wholesale Leathers, an eBay store. I have ordered from here many times and always get great hides and can usually get anything I request even if it isn't listed in the eBay store - good customer service is a bonus. I think these are garmet-quality hides so they are really very soft. This leather isn't typical of "bookbinding leather" really...and by that i mean it probably isn't the best for hardcover full-leather casebound books; however, these hides work really well for my limp leather journals.

Filling a tall order

A while ago, a local college asked if they could buy journals for all their board members, to be given as Christmas gifts. So, 4 days ahead of their deadline, I now have 24 journals ready for them.


Ten of them are the "longstitch through a slotted cover" style (a better name is needed for this binding!) with a narrow strap and sliding bead closure. The other 14 books are all done with a combination chain stitch and long stitch, with a wide strap and "belt loop" closure. So at this moment, I have no orders pending. Phew. I may not make another book for days....

124 Signatures

Seems like all i've been doing lately is preparing signatures! I have 128 of them here, to be used for 14 books. Ten of them are orders, the other four are just extra. I just poked holes in 80 of them. Incredibly mundane...not my favorite part of bookbinding. But it seemed worthy of a photo and blog entry, nonetheless.

B.E.S.T. Sale

The Bookbinding Etsy Street Team is having a sale this week. Dec 7-14th. So my Etsy shop now has a "10-15% Off section" where I've discounted some of my books. The following is a full list of the Etsy shops that are participating, so check them out. Visit the BEST blog too!

BESTBooks
Flurrsprite
Roska
Yatsu
Subu
DecklededgeBindery
YellowcraftyChick
Arrrt
Moonbindery
KupoKiley
MyHandboundBooks
Temno
TheCraftyKitten
RePaper
JennysBooks
LadyArtisan
Jellygnite
Tomoebookarts
Scodioli
MoonlightBindery
LifeStoriesBooks
ThisisBexx
LostmyMarbles
DevilsParadise
LolaLuv

Little Books

I registered for a 2-day bookbinding workshop to make miniature books. Very miniature, small enough to use for ear rings. The workshop was scheduled for this weekend (Dec 1-2) but it was canceled. Bummer. So I made a couple little books anyway. These are not so miniature as the books we would have made in the workshop...these are about 8.5cm X 6.5cm (3¼" x 2½").

So here they are. One is hardcover with wood grain paper on it, the other is a limp leather cover. Both are sewn onto supports: the hardcover book is sewn onto some narrow ribbon; the leather book is sewn onto strips of leather.



The little hardcover book turned out quite well. The leather book, though, is crooked. I pasted the spine directly to the leather cover and tried to pull the leather tight over the supports to enhance the three bands on the spine but I distorted it mostly... I was able to trim the cover leather to make it look better. It functions well enough. I think I will use it myself, I need a new little book to carry in my bag.



Since the workshop didn't happen, I need to have a look at some of MissRuth's mini book photos to see how she making them.... they are VERY miniature. One of her books:

CSB Hidden

I finally did the one remaining Crossed Structure binding on the list. This is the CSB Hidden. I have done two of these books now: one with a leather cover and one with a handmade paper cover. I found the paper cover worked better for me, probably since i was able to get more accurate folds and such.

So the sections are sewn onto the D-shaped part of the back cover.


The front cover is cut with an extension that folds over the spine and overlaps the back cover a bit.


It has little windows for the sewing to show through and the D-panel on the back cover to poke through.


The overlapping pieces on the front and back are then simply secured - I just pasted them into place. Cutting the front cover can be a bit tricky, requiring very accurate measurements for the various cuts. But overall, the process of making the CSB Hidden seemed simpler than some of the other CSBs. Here's the finished book, with the green apple handmade paper looking a bit better in the natural light outside...unlike the washed-out photos above.


So I've worked my way though all of Arregui's CSBs. I am planning to revisit the CSB Solo since i think I'm not doing it quite right. But otherwise, let me see...I think the CSB Basic is my preferred style to make - I find it very flexible and can produce several different "looks" with that structure; however, the CSB Protective and CSB Linked are my new favorites so I want to do more with them now. Well, maybe not right NOW...but soon. I seem to have agreed to make several books for a local customer...24 books actually, to be ready by mid-December....so I'm kinda busy with that for now!