Upper Case Book ‘Quilted’

Last year I was asked to bind one of Uppercase Magazine’s special edition books, Quilted. The book is a real feast for the eyes – it contains interviews with and profiles of modern quilters and is filled with amazing quilting inspiration. Even if you’re not a quilter, the colors and textures leap off the page and just make you happy.

When deciding how to bind Quilted, I looked inside the book for inspiration. While 99% of the quilts featured are made from fabric, I was really inspired by Laura Petrovich Cheney’s wooden quilts. Her use of pieces of scrap wood to create the quilt blocks made me reach for the huge bin of book board scraps in my studio.

Historically quilts were made from recycled textiles and scraps, so in addition to using book board scraps for the cover, I reached for my drawer of book cloth scraps. I mapped out the design grid paper, cut out square and rectangular pieces of board and covered each one individually with book cloth. Once dry, these were adhered to a book cloth covered base. I allowed some of the “blocks” to extend beyond the edge and in a couple of places, I added a second layer of blocks.

I love to see hand stitching in quilts, so I decided to bind the book with an exposed paired needle link stitch. Before binding, I wrapped each signature in a narrow piece of colored Nepalese Lokta paper. I chose Lokta because at 55gsm it didn’t add excess bulk to the spine.

Here’s the finished book:

A big thank you to Todd Pattison for organizing this project. You can purchase a copy of the book here – I have already purchased several for friends.