Making books
Making books has always fascinated me. A decade ago, I made fiber books complete with stories I wrote.
During the pandemic, I discovered the Handmade Book Club and have enjoyed making the challenges and some of the monthly book projects.
I worked really hard on the last challenge…..the prototype was meant to have a soft cover and used Kraft-tex. I wanted a sturdier cover but with the feel of cloth.
I faced a piece of faux leather, created pockets to install mat-board for the covers and spine. I stabilized the holes for sewing the signatures with lines of stitching.
I am still perplexed as to how to note the type of paper used–I am not good enough at guessing paper content or weight to leave it to my guess—so this book I placed the paper identification inside the cover loosely.
The next book was a tacket. Dos a Dos Tackets were found in some jars in Egypt–and dated to early Christian churches. One side contained the Gospels, and the other the Psalms.
I made a small sample using a hand-carved stamp (two erasers) to make the covers.
I also did a single tacket model as I could not figure out how to make the covers firm and not floppy or fragile as plain paper would be.
The base for the covers was a smallish piece done for the word prompt ‘zipper’. I wasn’t fond of it and so cut it in half, worked away at making the covers more sturdy with the insertion of matboard and used eyelets to stabilize the sewing holes.
and again here is the inside. Using not so favorite fabric makes experimenting with techniques less anxiety provoking—and again I noted the type of paper in one of the books.
Those extra pieces of paper are for trying out colors before drawing or painting on the pages.
Sylvia Weir Art 