Book #53

Nag Hammadi Codex

I made this in the style of the Nag Hammadi books. The collection of books known as the Nag Hammadi Library are some of the earliest known manuscripts in codex format and were probably produced during the 2nd Century AD in Egypt.

New Year's Resolution and Tea-stained Paper

Happy New Year to all my blog readers! I have just decided that my New Year's Resolution is to post more regularly here on my blog - no less than once per week. I used to be able to manage a weekly post but last year was slack; so, I resolve to do better this year!

I'll try to catch up by posting some things that I meant to post last year. There were several projects where I took pictures with the intention of sharing them here on the blog - but never got around to it. One such project was my first attempt at tea-staining paper - the results were quite good. I realize that introducing tea will make the paper non-archival but I wanted some old-looking paper and this seemed the best way to achieve the effect.


This is how I did it...

I made some strong tea and put it in a shallow pan. I crumpled the pages and tossed them into the tea. I did not fully submerge the paper.


I removed the papers, flattened them a bit, and laid them out to dry.


When they were all dry, I had a stack of paper like this,


Which I put into the press, and got this:


I used this paper to make some thick signatures - here they are on top of some regular signatures made from the same paper (unstained).


I used the thick sections to make some journals in the style of the Nag Hammadi books. I've discussed this book style before so you can read more about the history in some of my earlier posts.

One of these with the stained paper was included in the December BEST book swap and another is pictured here. I think the old-looking paper was exactly right for these journals.


If you have any suggestions for improvements to my tea-staining process, please leave a comment and tell me about it.

Happy New Year

Somehow it has become 2010 already. The last few weeks have blown by in such haste that I hardly noticed the passage of time. In spite of my near silence here in blogworld and my little hiatus from Etsy over the holidays, I was working on a few things. So until I get some new projects underway, I'll share some books that I did in the Autumn and leading up to the holidays, for customers and friends, which didn't get mentioned here previously.

This custom steampunk journal was made for a writer who wanted a special journal in which to write her own steampunk-style fiction.


A model Nag Hammadi blank book, with exposed papyrus in the covers (although I used some Old Masters paper from Saint-Armand for the pages, rather than papyrus).


Two hardcover autograph books for my niece and nephew who are planning a trip to Disney World.


A red leather journal featuring the High School Musical cast on the inside, a hardcover chain-stitch journal with a soccer motif, a tan leather journal with a bead closure, and a set of box-board notebooks made from a Don Julio Tequila box.


I have big plans for the new year... well, I resolve to finish some of the projects that I started last year, and the year before...

My own stash of Nag Hammadi codices

Here is the most common photo of the Nag Hammadi books; I have linked this back to Wikipedia since its copyright is in dispute so anyone who is interested can go there to read about it. The books were just discovered in 1945, so the photograph is not so old. The books, though, are very old, dating from the 3rd or 4th century.


There aren't many photos of these books, because they were dismantled for preservation, I believe. The content of the books is the primary point of interest for most historians... I, on the other hand, just get annoyed when I google this topic and all I can find is the content! Nothing about the structure!


Ah, but I was very fortunate to attend a great workshop where I learned how they were made and have since created my own nice stash.

Three more single quire Coptic books

About a month ago I participated in a workshop about the single quire Coptic books that were discovered in 1945. There were 13 of these books stashed in a jar in Egypt since the 3rd or 4th Century! These books are often called the Nag Hammadi codices. There is a previous blog entry about the workshop.

So this was the next project on my list of historical bindings to do, and I just finished making three of them.

I used leather splits to make these books so they actually have suede covers. The two dark brown books are made with a deerskin split. The white one is a sheepskin split. A leather split is a layer taken off the hide so it is suede on both sides and these ones are quite thin so it worked well for these books.

The covers on the original books were lined with papyrus to stiffen the covers. I didn't have any papyrus, so these are stiffened with just heavy paper. And I used some great Japanese papers as end papers pasted down on the inside of the covers. The best thing about these, is the single quire. The text block is just one thick stack of paper folded in half. These each have 40 sheets of paper (compared to 8 that I normally have per section). I pressed these for a week to get them to stay folded satisfactorily.

I have just two more bindings left on my list of historical bindings to do...

A Workshop on 3rd Century codices

I just spent the weekend at a bookbinding workshop with Susan Mills, offered through the continuing education program at NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design). This is quite exciting for two reasons: first, because there are very few bookbinding-related activities in this area so any chance to do stuff with other bookbinders is great; and second, because it was about a fabulous historical binding that I'd never seen or heard of before.

So we learned how to make Coptic Single-Quire bindings. There were 13 of these books discovered in 1945, buried in a jar in Egypt, dating back to the 3rd or 4th Century - often referred to as the Nag Hammadi codices. These would have been account books or other stationery books, where the textblock could be easily replaced whenever necessary. They were all papyrus and most were single quires.


That is the best part. These books have just one stack of pages, all folded together, up to 40 sheets. The text block needs to be pressed for a long time to get it to fold happily. The leather covers were lined with papyrus to make them stiffer. And they have ties at the top and bottom and a wrap-around strap or tie on the fore edge. The original books were quite large so they probably needed all these ties to keep the books closed properly.


I was able to finish three of these books, one is leather and the others have paper covers. They are each made a bit differently. The brown paper book was done entirely non-adhesive. The leather book is the only one with papyrus in the covers. I also added the pretty paper flyleaf to these books. And the dark red paper cover is the only one with pasted endpapers, but no flyleaf.

The binding itself consists of tackets through the quire and cover. I have tried to make tackets before and was never successful, but I mastered it today. All of the books have several tiny tackets in the corners for reinforcement so I got lots of practice.