That special project, followup

The journal project that I mentioned in the last post, will include handmade books from several other bookbinders that are all members of the Bookbinding Etsy Street Team. Here are some of the other contributions:

- Buechertiger
- CinderLisa Design
- Kristin Crane
- Minus + Minus
- Tickerfinch
- PaulinePaulette
- Roundtheworldin80pgs

There are sixteen books that will be "adored and adorned by creative women around the world." Each women will create a 4-6 page story in one of the journals, written and illustrated to show who or what made a difference in their lives and their advice for other young women. A short film will be made to tell the story of the books and the ideas, and the film will be premiered at the first TED Women's Conference in December and the books will be displayed and shared at a gallery event.

Journals for a special project

Hardcover, flat back binding. Front cover uses my own hand marbled paper. Spine and back are cream Japanese book cloth. Three round windows in the front cover containing seeds and bits of dried flowers. End papers are painted. Custom box.



Soft cover, wrap-around with chopstick closure, longstitch binding. Cover is patchwork leather, adhered to heavy cowhide and hand-stitched. Pages are heavy watercolour papers and end papers are bright red handmade paper. Custom box.


These are two journals that I made for the Levi Strauss company when they contacted me about a project they are doing, The Levi's Anthology. There will be fifteen handmade journals (made by women) sent to various women around the world to fill with their thoughts and ideas, seeking to capture the essence of what has shaped young women, what's relevant to them in 2010, and what advice they would have for other young women trying to shape their own worlds. Ultimately, when the books are completed, they will be featured in a film along with some of the women who wrote within them and the books will be made available for viewing at a gallery.

Catching up

I've been busy again and neglecting my blog a bit, oops. So I should try to fill in the gap by showing some of the things I've been doing. I tried a few new things and finally used a bit of my Suminagashi paper that I made back in May. This is a limp leather book, but unlike most of the leather books I make, this one has no visible stitching. The textblock is sewn on tapes and it is backed and "cased in" similar to if it had an actual case...if that makes sense.


I had a couple recent orders for custom albums. This one is for a wedding and it's quite big, about 16" wide. I used Dupioni silk on the covers.


Then there was this half dozen documents that I bound for a local design company - the document was a response to a big rfp and I think they got the deal, yay!


This was a double experiment. I played around with the basic longstitch here, and then tried a different strap closure as well.


Then a few more journals and sketchbooks...some for the shop and some by request...


Phew. That's all for now!

Special Edition CD

Cephalectomy is a Nova Scotia band and they recently released a new CD, The Dream Cycle Mythos. I have designed and constructed this special edition for them: a drop-back box in full black sheepskin leather. This special numbered edition is available through the band's label, Discorporate Music.


I hand printed their logo on the cover and on the insert, using a lino cut that I created for this project.



The insert is a folded wrapper structure with a tab closure and it contains the graphics and lyrics as well as a certificate of authenticity.


If you're wondering what kind of music is inside this box, Cephalectomy's new release is described thus: "The Dream Cycle Mythos" shatters dreams and brims with an originality that is sorely absent from other releases in the death/grind genre. No stones are left unturned on this musical masterpiece -- it is a single song that stretches beyond the 23-minute mark. Thunderous blast beats transition to extreme melody, off-time riffs, heavy metal crunch, and even sprinklings of classic rock. However, metal is the name of the game here with Cephalectomy's fourth official release for Discorporate Music. The lyrics spin a tale of a clearly unstable mind as it experiences new dimensions and the horrifying visions within.

Busy and photos to prove it

The free shipping offer worked out well in my Etsy shop - where I sold about 25 books throughout the sale! That creates a lot of packing and shipping work, sheesh. Otherwise I recently had some orders to fill, so I haven't been able to make much new for my shop. But some happy customers got these orders on time.

Just can't stop

Sometimes I just can't stop making books... they pile up and accumulate...


Well, not really. This bunch is another special order with a predetermined fate. These are a mix of some crossed structure bindings and a couple different longstich bindings.

Books with Pink Paper

Fifteen leather books with pink pages, made by request. Five covers are dark brown, five are a dark raspberry pink, and five are light pink suede. Aren't they pretty?

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.

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.

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!

Lefty Journal

I was asked recently if I could make a "lefty" journal. I do like new projects. So of course I went straight to work.


She says it is perfect! So here it is, a lefty journal. Dark brown cowhide, longstitch and link stitch (or chain stitch) sewing visible on the spine.

I really did need to think about this a lot before I started. But it turned out to be very circular thinking. Because honestly...if I just turned it around it would be a righty-book. I didn't have to do anything different to make this. A little disappointing actually. But good to know.

First Foray into the Real World

I just sent 10 books to a shop. This is the first time ever that my books will be made available in a real store. They are going to be available at "Nomi" in Newmarket, Ontario (206 Main Street South). I just sent 10 leather journals: five are crossed structure bindings and five are combination longstitch & link stitch bindings. The store is owned and operated by KrisCrossDesigns on Etsy.

Ten Journals

Well, I did it. In just four days actually, I made ten journals. On Wednesday I got the request from a local college; they want to give the journals to some award winners at their graduation. So the coordinator dropped by and looked at all the books I had and looked at all the leather and picked out what she wanted. And they would need to have them all ready by Monday.

Since they are all the same size and the same style of binding, I was able to save some time by doing several things at once. They are all 8.5x5.5 with 320 pages.

The first day, I folded and ripped enough paper for all the books and then cut all the leather for the covers. So after that, it was really just a matter of assembly. And I did finish one book entirely the first day. This is how things looked that night:


I was expecting it to be a high pressure situation and initially thought I might need to cancel Father's Day! But I was finished all the books on Saturday night. And apparently they aren't going to be picked up until Tuesday (rather than Monday) so I had truckloads of time.

These books have some little features that I haven't done before. All the straps are attached on the back through a loop - I usually just cut slits in the cover. But also, the first page of each book is a sheet of parchment style paper since they will be writing something on it before the books are presented to the award winners. The rest of the pages are plain white paper. Also, I usually attach a tag to my books on a little string, but I don't think they will want little tags flapping around so I printed my name and info on the last page.



Phew!

More of the same

These books are now listed in the Etsy shop. I was able to make them quite quickly since I didn't have any other custom orders or requests to fill at the time. Things have changed...today I got an order for 10 journals and they have to be ready by Monday, I have 4 days left!

And now my 2 year-old is trying to be helpful.

A Big Project

It is finished. This is what I've been doing lately.


This project was a special order from one of my customers and it's big. It is 11 inches wide and almost 8 inches high and it has over 500 pages, weighing 1.5 kg (about 3½ lbs).

In fact, the pages for this book were too big for my press.



I finsihed it off with a rather wide strap. Much wider than I usually cut for my books because of the book's size and weight.


All done! Now moving on to a few other special requests...