Linen

A few weeks ago, I found out that my favorite bookcloth, a chocolate brown buckram, had been discontinued by its maker, which made me so sad because it had become my go-to color, the one that seemed to work with everything.

On the bright side, it was motivation to start making my own.


I'm using the instructions from Japanese Bookbinding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman, which are the traditional method of making bookcloth using kozo paper and wheat paste. This book is fantastic! My other favorite is Books, Boxes and Portfolios.

I'm excited to have a new palette of colors to work with, and to be able to use actual linen as a covering material for my books. It's such a wonderful material. So wonderful that Benoit Millot made a film about it.

BE LINEN MOVIE from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.

Scandinavia

Some of you may already know, I'm fascinated by Scandinavia. Here are my reasons. They may not all make sense...

- I like the way the languages look when they're written.
- A book I read when I first started binding books called Finnish Handicraft greatly influenced me.
- When I was in 6th grade, I did a report on the tundra.
- The Norwegian forest cat
- This picture

- Lichen, birch, mushrooms, little country homes...
- Intensely strange and wonderful mythology and folklore.

I'd really like to go there someday. I would go here.

And there's other things I like, these...

:: From Fine Little Day ::

:: From Anna Emilia ::

:: From Paperiaarre ::

Wilson Jones!

Check out this bad boy. It's the Wilson Jones "Hummer" and it's my new three hole punch that I picked up at the thrift store on Wednesday. You can adjust the distance between holes, and it punches cleanly through book board. I love it.

I also love this children's encyclopedia which has the loveliest end pages. I think I'm going to use them for book covers.

I've been working on a whole bunch of new leather and hardcover books. I'm pretty excited about them, especially the hardcovers. I'm trying something new with those...

I'm making all these new books for the holidays, I'll be selling them at Crafty Balboa on December 4th. More info here, and I'll post about it again when the date is nearer.

What I've been looking at ...

Mary Judge

Avalanche Looms

Lucie Rie

One Hundred!

Welcome to blog post one hundred, a milestone I had doubts of ever reaching when I started this project. It's not that I didn't want to, but I don't have a good track record when it comes to things like this. But I've really enjoyed working on this and I hope you all have too.

This is a book I recently made for myself. I made it with the cover of an old science book. I liked the cover for its sturdiness and classic design. The text block is densely sewn together so it has a nice weight to it.

I rebound the book with a mix of recycled paper from French Paper and old maps, graph paper and illustrations. I made sure to include a map of Scandinavia to daydream over.

This illustration is one of my favorites, the colors are out of this world. Green sky and purple clouds!

The whole book is sewn together and glued in, so you would never know it was a new book by looking at the outside. Pretty neat.

So thank you everyone for reading, and I look forward to the next one hundred. Happy 100 blog posts!

Polaroids

Impossible Objects

Pair of prints I made at Penland last month. They were exercises, to make abstract images using only the wood and metal type and furniture I could find in the letterpress studio. They both will be available in my shop soon.

:: impossible objects 1 ::

:: impossible objects 2 ::