Woven Codex

You’ll find book number 49, Woven Codex, in Alisa Golden’s phenomenal book Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms. This has been a real companion to me on this 50 Book Project journey and I highly recommend it. I’ll write a blog post later this month detailing all the books I’ve found helpful during this project.

The Woven Codex structure is interesting and one that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. It links or weaves together folded signatures and single sheet signatures, which could have some interesting applications. It’s hard to photograph well, it’s the type of book that you need to see in person, but here goes:

You can see in the following two photos of how the seam binding I used is woven through slits cut in the center of the folded signature and close to the spine edge of the single sheet signature.

I dyed the pages, a lightweight 90lb watercolor paper, with tea and created some rust prints on them.

The cover isn’t attached with glue, but folded and the book structure is slipped inside

If you own Alisa’s book or borrow it from the library, I would definitely try it. It’s pretty easy once you understand the weaving pattern, and I think it could be very versatile for including photographs, postcards or pieces of artwork in your books. Feel free to email me with any questions you have.