The Time Traveler's Wife - My First Fine Binding

Fine Binding - A full leather book where each step from forwarding to finishing is executed perfectly and expertly. Sewing, rounding, backing, edge decoration, board attachment, leather paring, leather covering, onlay, gold tooling, etc. Everything must be perfect.

Keep in mind -- this is my first fine binding. So perfectly and expertly will surely come with practice and time.

I was not ready to perform such concentrated tasks on a random book. The book needed to be special, motivating. The only book I thought was worthy of this process was my favorite, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I took a shot and emailed the author, expecting no response. She did. I asked if she had any unbound copies left. She did. She forward my message to the right people and a couple of weeks later with tears in my eyes (I know, sounds cheezy) I opened the unbound copy of my favorite book.

Over a month later I have completed my fine binding. There were several obstacles to face in the very beginning because the sections had already been blown out for factory gluing and binding. I got around this by sewing extremely carefully and instead of attaching the boards with german tapes, I attached them with airplane cotton. Worked wonderfully. This being the first of many challenges which I won't go into, I have finally gotten through them all and the work is officially complete.

Of course now I have to make a glorious box to house this piece. Thank you Audrey Niffenegger for being my hero and making a dream come true. It was an honor to fine bind your book. Thank you again over and over.

"To world enough and time"

Doublures and Fly leaves. French split goat skin leather.

Detail of Cover

The Hope Chest

In December I was hired to make boxes. Seventeen leather boxes. Two proofs before the holiday and fifteen more by February. If you have read previous posts you know how much I love boxes and how much I love edition work. Combined = heaven. I got to work in a assembly line style cutting all the board, paring all the leather, applying all the cloth, etc. The boxes are now home to photographs by Cig Harvey. See them featured http://cigharvey.com/pages/books.html and view the rest of her brilliant work at cigharvey.com.

The boxes appear to be full leather but I used a technique that not only saves material and money but gives the right balance of strength and seamlessness. I constructed the trays normally, with Davey board and Brillianta book cloth. I then covered the B tray (which hides the A tray when closed) with a thin layer of leather. The covers are assembled separately and were covered with leather fully then attached to the trays. Voila. When the boxes are closed they look completely covered in leather.

I used Alran leather, which while stretchy if not handled delicately, is buttery soft and smooth and takes gold tooling beautifully.

I want to specially thank Cynthia Belanger for giving my name and information to Cig Harvey. As a proclaimed lover of box-making, this project really was a dream come true. Thank you again.

A Millimeter Apart - The Rubow Variation

The Rubow binding is a variation of a millimeter binding -- a small amount of leather is used but instead of running vertically up the spine it lays across the head and tail of the book. Below is an example of a Rubow binding, my own paste paper and a graphite decorated edge. The black leather blends with the paper but look carefully and you'll see the millimeter of black leather shining over the edges. Wicked classy.

So Much Leather! Too much leather? A Millimeter Story

Back in the day when all books were covered with leather and the whole world was covered in goats things were just fine and dandy. Eventually bliss had to settle for simple. Leather needed to be conserved a bit. Enter: Millimeter bindings.

Millimeter bindings use a little less leather than full covered books because they use pieces that average (while varying in height) 30 - 40 millimeters wide. This method conserves leather while still giving books that swanky stature of being called a leather binding. Traditionally millimeter bindings are covered with paste papers.

Below is a copy of David Foster Wallace's This Is Water and a blank model featuring paste paper I made on my kitchen table.

An Appointment Before the Holiday

In late December between leather paring, text block sewing, and tool heating I received several commissions. This particular one was extremely fun to make. The client requested an appointment book holder for a specific booklet. I made the case with black french split leather and the pockets with black Brillianta book cloth. I stamped the initials with gold foil using a Kwik print press. I really enjoyed the sleek elegance of the black and gold together.

A Tudor Treat

Because the North Bennet second year bookbinders were so well behaved and on point during the Dominic Riley workshop, we finished the Cambridge panel binding a day ahead of schedule. Of course Dominic had so much to share so we chose to learn how he constructed a Tudor Style Plaquette. This plaquette is made my overlapping pieces of leather the create vertical lines and diagonals. Designs can be simple and elegant, fierce and curvy, or systematically chaotic. All beautiful.

Detail

The Wonder of Dominic Riley

As a fantastic treat, the spectacular and extraordinarily talented Dominic Riley taught my class how to make historic Cambridge panel bindings in September or was it October? He was with us for an entire week. Too much can be said about how amazing this experience was and how brilliant Mr. Riley is so I cannot get into it. Simply put - all was amazing.

The Cambridge panel binding was a massed produced rough and tough style and so we produced it similarly. It was the first full leather binding I had ever made.

The Second Year - Leather

It has been a long time. A long, long, long time. Last September I began life as a second year student at North Bennet Street School. Before I catch you up on my fabulous adventures here's a little review.

"Previously On (the first season of) CTO Adventures..." The first year focused on models. Models of ancient binding techniques and structures. From ethiopian coptic stitch books all the way to glue filled fan bindings, I made model after model and edition after edition. Heaven. No I didn't make heaven. It was just glorious to make a ton of books. Towards the end of the year the class was introduced to leather...

This season, the second year, has everything to do with leather.

The first project of the year was to create a Sampler Plaquette which displayed various types of traditional blind and gold tooling on leather.

The first panel above features blind tooling, which I define as the blank impression of a hot tool into leather. If enough heat from a tool is present and enough moisture is applied to the leather, color can be brought up from lighter colored skins. (See middle decorative tool in the 4th panel above). All lines you see in this panel and across the plaquette were made using pallets. Pallets are pieces of straight line that come in different lengths and point widths.

You may have noticed the fun squiggly line in the second panel. It was made using a special tool called an ascona tool which is crucial for irregular lines. After impressing the shape I cut a tiny sliver of yellow leather which I glued directly on top of/into that curvy line -- this is called an Ascona Onlay. The weird shape of material at the end of the line is a feathered onlay. I pared the leather so thin that only the top grain layer remained hence the feathered effect and name.

Panel three displays a different type of onlay and shape. I created the circles by using gouges (pronounced using the OO from goose, not the OW in cow). Gouges are pieces of circle and are quite challenging to work with. The first circle was made by making a blind impression, then applying a layer of gold, then pasting on the leather onlay, then applying another layer of gold. Phew!

The fourth panel was created using a decorative finishing tool. The left and right impressions show blind and gold tooling but the middle one features a blind tooled onlay over the original brown leather impression. I thought this technique was really snazzy.

The fifth and final panel displays a great deal of gold tooling which involves the application of a type of adhesive (fixor or egg glaire) and a grueling process of getting 1000th of an inch thick gold leaf onto a blind impression, then re-stamping the same impression with the tool leaving it filled with delicious gold.

QUESTION: I see that gold is in the straight lines and the circles. Why can't gold be applied in a line made with the ascona tool?

ANSWER: Gold cannot be applied to a line made with an ascona tool because one uses a rubbing sort of motion to create it. If you rub gold leaf it will crackle and turn into dust. Gold leaf must be applied with a straight up and down motion into any given impression.

Seems simple enough but it was a challenging project that involved hot tools, a few burns here and there, and in the end a pretty rectangle of historic decoration.

CTOs at Frog and Toad

Fantastic News! Long story as short as possible -- I met with the owner of an awesome local store called Frog and Toad and he really liked my books. An order was made, I produced the goods, and wham bam thank you ma'am. CTOs are now for sale at Frog and Toad! Located on Hope St. in Providence, Rhode Island! This is my first big break of getting my products into a store and into the world so I am super psyched. Woohoo!

The order consisted of 2 x 1.5 inch mini books, cereal serial bindings, tiny ornamental minis, and soft leather historic long stitch books. Check some samples of what you'll find at the store below!

Remember readers that I am always excited to produce custom orders.

Biggest Book I've Made Yet

Over the summer I received a request to build a scrapbook. Yes build, not make. This baby was supposed to be huge. And it was. Huge. When I think scrapbook I think three ring binder -- ppff -- or stickers or semi maybe perhaps tacky decorations depending on respective tastes. The scrapbook I was asked to create was to be classy, smooth, and I would not fail to make anything less than hunka hunka gorgeous. I decided to build the book simply as a large book at first. I used a beautiful thick Rives BFK paper and made sure to keep the deckled edges. Deckle is the rough "fringy" looking edge of certain paper. I sewed the text block, lined the spine, glue the case together and voila! Phase one - Complete.

Phase 2 - Book turned Scrapbook Transformation.

A scrapbook contains pictures, letters, photographs, etc. If one inserts extra material into any book the entire structure will expand, puff out, stress the spine and heighten the risk of deterioration of the book. In order to compensate for extra material pages need to be left out from the beginning, or cut out at the end. I chose the latter. It was a bit heartbreaking to cut away from the massive text block but I was comforted by the thought that it would rise again after filled with letters and other mementos. I used a black Brillianta bookcloth for the spine and my own green stone marbled paper for the covers. Very proud of this gigantic piece which has inspired me to produce another one without removing pages. I just want a gigantic book next to my mini 1 inch ones.

Bill Used to Display Size

Deckled Edges

Gold Stamping on Cover Label

Final Scrapbook after Pages Were Removed

I have recently been informed that it has chunked back up quite close to it's original thickness. Happy Birthday Mr. Wojie! It was a huge pleasure to make this book.

Phantastic Mr. Photoshop

So, if you've read the About Me page on this site than you already know I am an experienced photographer and photoshop nerd. Earlier this year my grandmother gave me a giant photograph of herself and her twin brother. I was asked to transform the image into a smaller one that might sit nicely on a mantel or bedside table. Wish granted. And I thought I'd share another passion of mine with you. Don't worry, books still rock my socks off.

BEFORE

The original photograph was roughly 18 by 20 inches (still is -- the original is intact completely). The edges weren't in great shape either and the right bottom corner had ripped off. The picture needed to be scanned in four segments and then pieced together in Photoshop. Once I finished that part I edited the different colors and cleaned the photo of dust, specs, time damage, and replaced some lost areas. My grandma's birthday rolled around early August and I presented her with a lovely 4 by 6 inch framed photograph. Another will be printed and sent to her twin.

AFTER

Summer Summary

Welcome to EM Letterpress!

This was my place of employment this summer. The space included several Heidelberg presses, a manually operated Vandercook press, digital guillotine, polymer plate maker (probably not a technical term), and much much more!

My professor from Brown University, Elias Roustom, was kind enough to offer me the greatest summer internship position ever! Third floor, hottest summer I can remember, humid, sticky, offensively loud machinery. IT WAS THE BEST! Seriously. I witnessed the fantastic speed and genius of letterpress work and did my part to help out whenever and wherever needed. Duties included but were not limited to: duplexing, trimming, printing, cleaning, edge decorating, sewing, and polymer plate prep and production.

Some of the most beautiful menus, invitations, and business cards passed right through my fingers. Towers of paper, clickety clanks of a working presses, great people. I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity. If you want to see more of Elias (and Matt -- the best graphic designer I know!) check out their blog -- http://emletterpress.blogspot.com/.

A Heidelberg Printing Press

I only used this machine a few times and let me tell you the speed of this baby is unbelievable! At least compared to the Vandercook which needed to be operated manually. I scored pretty decent arm workouts though.

Meet my frenemy. Vandercook.

Some of my first projects involved this printing press. The machine is heavy and when I lost rolling momentum my shoulder would get a lovely burst of tension as I attempted to pull back without completely disrupting the cycle, which if done can lead to errors in the print. Must say, my delts are lookin' pretty sweet now. The impression potential on this press is incredible. Of course depending on the amount of impression desired and paper thickness final products will vary, but the menus and invitations I printed were stunning. It was really interesting seeing how different papers and fiber types react to different impression thicknesses. Some softer paper would take heavy impression beautifully but required only a brush of ink otherwise the type would bleed. Other harder papers need lighter impression with slightly more ink. It was always a long and different experience with each project, all however were highly enjoyable.

Another little project.

Above you see the edges of cards. Edge decoration in cards is much much different than in books which was a bit difficult for me to overcome. I wanted to treat the cards as though they would be lying next to each other like pages in a book which is completely unnecessary but alas I am a creature of habit and routine. While I didn't go so far as to use French talc powder between each card I did sand down the edges to create a more even surface. The initial problem with the order was that the paint kept ripping and peeling off leaving scruffy edges. No good. I suggested using a highly diluted paint, instead of straight acrylic add some water. This is not the mixture one would use on books! But it did work. Diluting the color and smoothing the edges allowed for clean separation of each card. Success!

My best friend Glue Machine.

I can say confidently that I am a master duplexer. Or laminator. It means I glue paper together really well. Wahoo! I spent hours with this glue machine and grew very fond of it. I'm a bit nervous to go back to my brushes at school. So slow. With this machine the paper is inserted on one side and comes out the other completely covered in glue on the bottom, ready to be slapped down onto another even and clean. This baby was mucho importante for creating thicker card stock. Sometimes thicker paper can be purchased but what if you want a sandwich of white paper, green paper, and white paper? That's where I come in. With usually only an eighth of an inch to spare I would glue sheet to sheet. Hundreds of them. Hundreds. Maybe more. I really liked it. My eyes felt so trained and precise. But then of course I would drive home in the dark and become agitated that the lights of cars reflecting in the mirrors would really bother my highly astigmatic eyes. It's cool though. My eyeballs are wicked trained in soft indirect, non fluorescent light. Duplex for life. Repeat.

Digital Guillotine! (Hawh! Hawh! Oui! Oui!)

Digital guillotine. Wild. Scariest machine. Luckily, the edge won't budge unless both buttons are pressed on either side. I happily still have both arms and all fingers.

I am in the process of printing my very own business cards so keep checking in to see if they've made it here.

My summer was fun and informative. I learned a great deal working with a fantastic crew! Thanks Elias, Matt and Dave for an awesome opportunity. And big word up to Maggie, Rose, Izzy, and Siba. You are all wonderful and it was a pleasure working for you.