The closure on a handmade book is a great finishing touch that brings your book to the next level. Keep the following things in mind when choosing your closure type: The book’s cover material The book’s size The book’s use The book’s style In the Facebook live video below, I talk about 4 different closure […]
After a week’s break, I’m back to doing my weekly Facebook lives. This week I created a small accordion book with sewn signatures from handmade paper. Click on the play button and then on the 4 arrows to make the video full screen so you can see it better. Alternatively, you can watch it on […]
We hold Open Studios at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, MA on the first Saturday of every month but as the Covid 19 crisis has forced us to close the building to the public, we’re holding a Virtual Open Studio event instead. Normally, I do some form of demonstration but today I’m taking it online […]
In this week’s Facebook live video I show you to create a double pamphlet stitched journal with image transfers. The basic steps for the journal are: Make 2 signatures/sections from paper of your choice. Print a favorite quote, cut into strips and glue to the pages. Collage the page edges with found papers. Find high […]
If you’re a printmaker and would like to transform some of your work into simple notebooks, this is a fun journal project. It’s a single section sewing with a Bow Tie stitch pattern and is sourced from Keith Smith’s Non-Adhesive Bindings Volume II. I use the following supplies in the video below. If you can’t […]
I went on live on Facebook this morning to show you how to sew the long stitch journal featured on yesterday’s blog post. The recording is below – please note the first 2 minutes has no sound. Here are links to the materials I used and some other resources mentioned in the video: Paper for […]
This blog post was updated on April 8th, 2020. Watch video here. Here is a printable template that will help you to visualize the sewing pattern and create your own template. Please note that it’s not to scale. Long Stitch with Packing Printable Sewing Template One of the first books I made in my 50 […]
During this time of the coronavirus lock down I’ve been working on creating stacks of paste papers. It’s a soothing and meditative process that doesn’t require a lot of thought, so it feels appropriate for the times we’re living through. I posted a live demo on my Facebook page today and below is the recording. […]
I recently did a live video on my Facebook page giving some tips for using glue in your handmade books. I’ve summarized them below and included a link to the video: General Tips Store your glue in a heavy bottomed jar so you don’t tip it over. Place a piece of wax paper between the […]
I’ve been so busy getting the Handmade Book Club off the ground that I haven’t posted any of my work for a while. Two books that I’ve enjoyed making are these Secret Belgian Bindings with beautiful hand marbled paper by Claire Guillot on their covers. Anne Goy created this structure in 1986 and called it […]