Devil's Dictionary - Fine Binding #3

The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. Third fine binding. And I'm pretty proud.

I have had a couple of first quality black leather skins from Harmatan for quite a while. One had a smaller smoother grain which was flawless throughout the skin. I figured something dark and comical would fit this leather well. I used the tudor panel technique that Dominic Riley taught my class (see post - A Tudor Treat for detail) and spelled out DEVILS on the cover with layers of leather. As the front was full of texture I decided the back should show off the almost velvet-feeling leather hence the lack of tooling or design. I solid edge gilt the head to really make the board edges pop and thought an excellent challenge would be to sew completely white head bands. To those who don't know black leather --> the challenge is not smearing the headbands with purplish dust and pasty mess of the leather while covering.

FRONT

BACK

SOLID GOLD EDGE AND WHITE HEADBAND

DETAIL SHOTS WITH DIFFERENT LIGHTING AND ANGLES

Soft Leather Historic Longstitch

In the last few weeks of school I happened upon The Leather Guy, a company that sells all different kinds of leather. I bought a bundle with the intention of making soft leather historic longstitch bindings. In the past I have used stiff wooden spines and hand made papers for this structure but wanted to see what I could do with this new leather which is quite unfit for paring as it was vegetable tanned and rather tough on the fleshy side.

I have seen this structure all over the place but the sections of paper are sewn directly through the leather -- I am not a fan. The book ends of super floppy doppy and I prefer a more controlled item. I produced a stiff spine using 40 point board which keeps the sections of paper snug. The leather is completely soft and drapes open beautifully.

I used a goat skin strip for the wrap enclosure.

Something simple. Something pretty. It was the end of the year.

My Brother's Birthday Present - Don't Worry, He Knows

My brother's birthday was last month and I decided to make him a leather spine book, but not just a blank leather book, a blank leather book with meaning. My big bro is a writer and I wanted him to see what his novel might look like when complete. I used gorgeous black goat skin leather, stoned marbled paper I made myself, and made a maroon leather label with gold stamping.

The Worthy Candidate - The Casing of My First Book with Content

One of my favorite books is William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. I was introduced to the novel during my senior year of high school and still love it five years later. A classmate of mine recently found an icky copy of it featured in a two in one book. Sound and the Fury was great too so I thought this book deserved some love.

I used the quarter binding structure for this project. After man handling the leather with the Scharfix and my knives, I molded it onto the book's new case. I use a stone marbled paper as the decorative paper,which I received as a present last winter.

While the case dried I used a Kwikprint Stamping machine and stamped the title onto a thin thin thin thin thin piece of leather in gold, which later was applied to the spine.

Below are some before and after shots of the beautification process and my latest Box creation.

I love boxes. I love leather. Latest Assignment - Leather Spine Box. This Faulkner project deserved the best housing so here lies my newest box.