Bookbinding
Miniature Books
These are the first books I ever bound, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. They're only about three inches tall .. because that's all the leather I had to play with. I sewed the signatures (with one folded page in each) with a stab-like binding. Then I sewed the back cover directly to the book block, then the spine piece to that then the front cover to the spine and the book block.
The most unique thing about the red book is I made the paper myself, but it didn't turn out too well, so I only had small pieces when I was done.
Retchoso, The Butterfly Stitch
After making the miniture books, I was hooked, but I knew I'd better figure out how to really bind a book.
While I was looking, I ran into this site about Japanese bookbinding. I made this book to try out the Retchoso style. Notice how it lies flat? That's what it was like when I just finished it, amazing and perfect for journal and workbooks.
Quenya-English Dictionary
Many many moons ago, I was learning Quenya (the learned language of the Elves in Tolkien's Middle-earth). This book is a Quenya-English, English-Quenya and Quenya rhyming dictionary that Helge Fauskanger put together. The title says something like Quenya Word-book, but it's been a few moons too many!
I didn't really bind this very well, but it's held together even though it doesn't look too good.
Grimms' Fairy Tales - Rebinding
My uncles got this book for Christmas in '46. It was handed down to the other three Stokes brothers, gaining a library envelope when another of my uncles created a family library. Then came the grandkids . . . My Dad was the youngest of five so when I finally got around to reading it, you can imagine how beat up it was.
My grandma has a habit of giving things away, and I ended up with this book. The covers were falling off as well as the first few pages.
This is my first re-bind, and I certainly learned a lot - I would redo it totally differently now!
The hardest part were the end papers. I didn't have a whole end paper: the front cover had a library envelope, and the back cover was drawn on. I took one side from each cover and pieced them together, coloring in some of the missing sections. Then I took it to Kinko's and made color copies. It turned out VERY well.
Michael's Missionary Journals
I made these journals about a year apart for my brother Michael. I finally got away from the red covers! These pictures are after they'd been very well used. They took a lot of abuse and still look like books - no loose pages and the cover hasn't fallen off. These books really boosted my bookbinding confidence.
Books of Shadows
Jeff and I made these for the local occult/magic shop here in Roseburg. we haven't finished the whole set of five yet, but we're going to try and sell them when we do. The endpapers are the hold up - they're a lot of work to do right.
On Fairy-Stories
This book is really just practice for a book of fairy tales we're going to make for our friend William.
I laid out the text in Publisher (part of Microsoft Office), then printed it on regular letter size printer paper. I cut the sheets in half then soaked them in tea for a couple hours, and dried them out in the oven. I tried sprinkling ground coffee on the pages, but it didn't really work very well.
The cover is made from elk leather, courtesy William Walther (thanks!). I soaked the whole cover piece in warm water then pounded it with a hammer to smooth it out and thin it so it could be pasted over the book boards.
After everything had dried, I realized that I had forgotten to stain endpapers... so, I ended up using the first blank page instead - good thing I left that there!