December 2002 Bookbinding Journal

12-1-02 Finished editing and formatting the book, then turned it over to my husband for his expert editing. Second page he found an error. Ack! There are 6,000 words. How many more mistakes will he find? I love it!

12-2-02 Too many, most of them errors from previous editing. It's amazing how many mistakes occur when you change one or two words in a sentence, or make a change that is intended to shift the direction of a thought. Whatever. These have been corrected and the project set aside to be finished sometime between now and July of 2003 when it's due.

12-8-02 Been a bit under the weather and haven't tackled anything new. Did a few mini books to pass the time, but nothing deserving comment. Early yesterday morning the idea came to reduce the size of the mini book enough to make earrings. (The bad part about getting harebrained ideas at 3 AM is that no one else is up to talk you out of them. Yesterday morning I should have waited till my husband was up before tackling this one. My fingers seem much fatter than they used to be.) These earrings have three signatures of three hmp sheets each (hemp/cotton rag), a pastedown from agrimony, covers from kudzu and a spine protector from lemongrass. The difficulty with scaling down books comes from the inside paper rather than any other factor. It's easy enough to use thread instead of bookbinding cord, and there are any number of things that can be used for the bookboards. Even the cover papers aren't that much of a problem, but the signature papers are. Fortunately, the hemp/cotton rag papers I had are very thin. I'd like to try a set using the parchment thin Johnsongrass paper, as well.

12-17-02 I've been off playing with paper rather than books for the past week or so, but today it was time to get back to books. A couple of days ago I decided to do a split, interlocking front cover book. I had an ulterior motive. I needed to know how to construct the overlapping right edge cover for another book that I'm planning, and I thought this would be a good way to work through that part. This split cover book was to be quarterbound with left and right hinges made from paper backed cloth. The two-piece front cover for the book was cut from one piece of davey board, the cloth attached to the davey board, then the handmade paper front and back covers were added over that to cover the raw edge of the cloth. In this case, I used bleached velvetleaf bast paper (as it turned out, not a good choice). The layout of cloth, hmp and davey board formed the entire quarterbound case. Additional strips of paper, approximately the weight of manila folders, were glued to the inside of the right and left hinges to provide extra weight and strength. The additional strip in the left hinge had an 1/8" gap on either side; the strip on the right hinge ran the full width of the gap. The corners of the cover were trimmed, then all edges were folded over and glued down. The signature block was six signatures (four pages each) sewn onto tape with a super added. This was mounted to the case by the super, then the tapes were glued down. Normally, the pastedowns are added to the signatures, then the tapes are attached to the pastedowns, but I couldn't do that with this book. The pastedowns were a problem all their own because of the irregular ends that had to mate up with the covers. These ends made measurements a nightmare. I cut templates for the edges, but that still left me a bit uncertain of the length of the pastedown from that irregular edge to the fold. Ugh. On the back pastedown, I had the additional problem of accounting for the extra length to go around the right hand side and back across the right side of the front cover. Fortunately, both guesses came out right. (Before the pastedowns were glued to the covers, the suede latches were glued to the front then stitched down. Groves were cut in the inside of the covers so that the stitching would not show as bumps under the pastedowns.) When I'm doing an experimental book, one that I'm not certain will work the way I expect, I seldom use the best materials. Usually, this works out fine. I make my mistakes with stuff that doesn't matter. But occasionally, when the book turns out perfectly and is one that I wouldn't do again if you paid me, I wish to high heaven I had used better materials. This book falls somewhere in between. The book is not perfect. I should have allowed an 1/8" more on the right hinge. It's just a little too tight for my taste, causing the book to "pop open" in the front. But part of the book's imperfections are the result of the imperfect materials. The velvetleaf bast paper is too thin and allows the darker cloth binding to show through. Not sure I'll do this one again. It proved to be a series of problems that required guesses with no guarantee of an exact solution. Don't like that. Whatever.

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12-21-02 Oh, happy day. I've found the book that contains my measurements and super secret formulas. It was missing last month when I switched from papermaking to bookbinding, leaving me to guess at and refigure various things. Now all is well. **Did a quarterbound book today using some of the rust colored cloth I found at Wal-Mart last month. I coupled it with another contrasting green/black print cloth bought last year. Using two book cloths on a book leaves the raw edge of one showing, so I pasted a ribbon over that. Worked well. There are nine four-page signatures of commercial 70 weight linen; pastedowns are rust colored Canson paper. The book measures 4.75" tall by 4.5" wide. It wasn't until after it was assembled that I realized how much the spine cloth looks like suede. The contrasting print worked well with it. Finding cloth with a print that is suitable for book covers is difficult around here. I've been known to do a happy dance down the aisles of Wally World when I do.

12-22-02 I am a compulsive keeper, especially of hmp snippets. This paper is made from plant materials, and a good deal of work went into gathering, cooking and pulling the sheets. When I look at even a tiny 1" square scrap piece, I can't stand the idea of throwing it in the trash. As a result, there are baskets of the stuff stashed here, there and yonder. The project for today was to find a use for some of this and justify my compulsion to keep it. One of the results was a "pinto pony" or "calico" book, at least that's what the cover reminded me of. Because of the nature of the papers, a good deal of care was necessary when gluing up the scraps. Some papers were never intended to be folded, so those could not be used close to an edge. Some papers were super thin, while others were thick. It was possible to use both, just not side by side. I'm not fond of gluing with Elmer's, but this turned out to be the only viable option for attaching the scraps to each other. Special care was needed on the edges to make sure they were covered and would be secure against the paper scrap beneath. This is a picture of the backside of the glued up scraps, the side that went against the davey board. After creating large enough sheets for the front and the back, I glued on davey board using wheat paste and put this in the book press. Took it out a few minutes later to check and discovered that the hmp paper was warping in places from lack of even pressure. To take care of this when I put the cover back in the press, I place a sheet of pressboard.against the hmp side. This was just enough hard padding to make the paper conform evenly to the board. The result was a surprisingly flat, smooth cover. Most of the glued up papers were in the range of brown/rust/cream color, so I used the rust colored cloth for the spine. Like the book yesterday, this one is 4.75"x4.5". For some reason, I find that a very pleasing size.

12-25-02 I usually don't mind making an occasional mistake. Often those will lead to new ideas, but I truly do hate making a dumb mistake, particularly when there is no readily apparent way of correcting it. That was the case today. The calico book cover impressed me so much that I opted to make several to trade or give away. The first one was completely finished and had been in the press for two hours when suddenly it dawned on me that I'd failed to put the ribbon on to cover the raw edge of the spine cloth. Arrggghhhh! The ribbon must go under the pastedown to be secure, and the pastedown was...well, pasted down...securely. Discovering mistakes when a project is totally finished irritates the heck out of me. I spent the next hour kicking myself, then I took a nap. When I woke up, my first thought was...what the heck. The book is no good as it is. Let's see what we can do. Using a fresh X-acto blade, I made gentle cuts under the edge of the pastedown until just enough of the paper could be raised to make room for the ribbon's end. With the point of a punch, I added a touch of glue to the slit, then edged the ribbon down into the slot. I glued the ribbon to the front of the cover, leaving the other end loose and put the book in the press until all that was secure. Then I took it out and slit under the pastedown on the other end to insert the ribbon there. That end was more difficult because I had less room for play. The ribbon had to be cut to exactly the proper length, which left little on which to shove, and the little I had to work with was threatening to fray. After three or four tries, it did slip down into the glue slot. After that was dry, I repeated the process on the other side. Worked perfectly. Just goes to show what an hour of grumbling and a good nap can accomplish.

12-27-02 Did a couple of quarterbound books -- one calico and the other with a hmp cover made from gill-over-the-ground and underbeaten cotton rag. The white threads in the hmp are a lovely contrast to the deep green of the plant material. Gill-over-the-ground is one of the few plants I've found that seems to hold the green without fading. There is no guarantee that the green color is permanent, but the paper that covers this book was made in the summer of 2001, so it does hold over a year. However, the paper isn't something I would want to expose to direct sunlight for any length of time. **I've used commercial linen paper in the signature blocks of the quarterbound books I've been doing, and because those signatures are only 4.5" tall, I have a stack left-over 2"x8.5" strips on the desk, possibly a nice size for mini books. Cut and folded the paper to make signatures that are 2" tall by 1.75" wide. There are three sheets in each signature, with six signatures for the book. I'm not sure where my mind was today, but it definitely wasn't present and accounted for. After I had all the signatures folded, I thought...why sew these?...I'll just glue a super on the back and let it go at that. And that's just what I did. The "duh" moment came later as I was looking at the dried block in the clamps. Hey, Gin, wake up. There is nothing holding the two inside sheets in each signature. Even the tiny earrings I did had sewn signatures, and I don't know what possessed me not to sew these. However, some good did come out of the error. I learned that, not only can tiny signatures be sewn after they're blocked up and glued to the super, but sewing is much easier that way. Care had to be taken to place the holes in the center page of each signature, but once that was located, the holes were easily punched and sewn. I don't use tapes to secure the stitching on the tiny books (can't find anything suitable to use for the tape), but the stitches went through the super and that secured them nicely. I'll do this size book again and in the same manner, but next time I'll use a slightly heavier pressboard for the covers. This one used the back from a legal pad, but it's slightly out of proportion, not quite thick enough for the dimensions of the book. The cover is bleached Siberian iris with a pinch of straw; the spine cover is bulrush; pastedowns are Canson paper.

12-31-02 Did a few more of the small quarterbound books (approx 4.5"x4.75") over the past few days. The one on the left is covered with a weirdly wonderful paper made from elephant ear (courtesy of Linda Wallpe) and gampi. On the right is a cloth cover I marbled with acrylics a couple of years ago. The center book is covered with a hmp that I had crumpled, then spread out and traced the valley lines with indelible ink making a map of sorts. I'm ready to move on to something else, but I haven't the foggiest idea what that will be yet. Just seemed like a good idea to wait for the new year before making the change.