More books

This book things is totally addictive.  I finished the rounded spine journal, and posted start-to-finish photos on facebook, which you can see here.  I'm very happy with how the whole thing came out and it was a lot of fun to do.  While I was waiting for the glue to dry I did some poking around on the web to see what I could find out about proper medieval bindings and I'm looking forward to trying some of those out.  They appear to be a bit more complicated, and the boards are made from actual wood, but this all makes sense given that the books inside were so precious.  The limp bindings are also really interesting and though they seem simple there is a lot of interesting and rather beautiful stitching going on on many of them.

I think the biggest problem is going to be figuring out what to do with all of these journals.

More coptic stitch books

Again with the modern covers, but as these are just for practice that's ok!  I'm having a lot of fun with the sewing and the gluing.  The cherry blossom paper is left over from my wedding favors and the sheep are from my scrapbooking paper fabric.  And hello, sheep!  I do love the sheep (but not in a creepy or gross way).  I think these came out very well, I like the hard covers.  I'm even more pleased with the end papers on these books, which of course I didn't take pictures of.  Hopefully I will get around to it with the next batch of books.  The sheep have a stripped black paper and I used a green textured Japanese bamboo leaf paper for the cherry blossoms.  Both turned out quite nice and have a wonderful tactile quality that I wasn't really trying to accomplish but am very happy with.  I do need to find some better paper for the signatures  I used resume paper for these two books since I had that in the house and it's ok to write on, but I really need to figure out something nicer that I can hopefully find locally.

Next up is the round spine journal, which I understand is a proper, period technique, even if the kit I have is not using period materials, and the limp binding kit I got at KASF which is actually totally period.  One of them will end up being my new comment book for A&S competitions and displays, depending on how they turn out.  Right now I am leaning towards the round spine journal, it's less period but smaller and will take up less space on the table which can be a serious issue in some cases.

Something completely different

The DH and I went to LA this weekend, partly to visit with my family and partly to work on Top Secret Project Number 1 (more on that later).  It was a nice trip, even if I did bring the cold weather with me and of course no coat.  Who bring a coat to Southern California?  Seriously?

Anyway, my cousin's girlfriend was teaching a class on Coptic bookbinding at this amazing little place called The Makery (if you are in the LA/Orange County area, check it out!  very cool space) on Saturday and since I was there I signed up.  Yay for bookbinding!  How did I not get to do this sooner?  Sewing AND glue?  Seriously?  It's my two most favorite things ever, all in one place!  I'm now super bummer I never took any book arts classes as an undergrad, there was apparently amazing book arts programs at my undergrad college.  Oh well.

Anyway, here is my first ever attempt at book binding.  It's not a period book, obviously  but the techniques used to make it are all period.   I'm pretty pleased with myself.  I've already got two more (modern) books started with hard, paper-covered covers.  I also picked up a long-arm kit from Mistress Aneira at KASF that is totally period so I will get started on that in the next day or two.  I also ordered another kit for a rounded back journal from Hollanders that should be fun.  I don't know what I am going to do with all of these hand-bound journals, I'm sure I'll think of something.  Making them is sort of addictive.