Book First Aid, Part Three

What, you thought that was it on the first aid front? No! My Italian friend gave me two books, the second being this paperback which was nonetheless sewn in signatures - without tapes - and glued straight into a spine which had completely disintegrated.

After thinking hard I decided the best thing to do was to salvage as much of the cover images as I could and re-glue them onto proper hard covers, mending the individual pages and sewing them onto tapes and into a full cloth binding.

























































































Something I forgot to photograph was the smoke damage on some of the pages. I asked my colleagues on the Book Arts Listserve how best to deal with the discolouration of the pages using a low-tech solution and they recommended a dry cleaning pad - which I just happen to have. Used gently the pad abraded the soot off the pages: it wasn't perfect but it did help and ultimately the pages were readable if not fully 'clean'. And I've conquered my fear of hard cover binding!

I've thoroughly enjoyed restoring both books: there's the technical satisfaction of doing a half-way decent job, but also the happy thought that I've prolonged the useful life of the books by another few decades (I hope) which makes it all worthwhile. No cash has exchanged hands: instead we'll be bartering for services in kind in due course! The owner is a tree surgeon, after all...

Book First Aid, Part Two

Once the spine was reinforced and dried I was able to take the book out of the book press and check to see how strong the sewn-in tapes were - and they're fine! Phew. Then I was able to glue in the end papers: obviously I couldn't do what I would usually do, which is to paste a strip of mull along the folded edge of the end papers and wrap that around the first and last signatures before sewing onto the tapes. Instead, I had to rely on a thin strip of glue along the folded edge of the end papers which adhered them to the first and last pages. I could have simply glued the whole of the first and last pages to the corresponding end papers, I suppose, but the last page of the book was printed with the final columns of the index, which I didn't want to lose!





















While the end papers dried in place I made a replacement spine out of thin card, kraft paper and black book cloth. I glued on the fragment of the original spine with the book's title and author.
















The kraft paper strip acted as an additional support for the new spine, extending inside the covers. I couldn't extend the book cloth as far because it would have obscured the gold embossed lettering on the front cover. In the photo I haven't trimmed the kraft paper, but once the book block was in place I trimmed the upper and lower edges to match the edges of the end papers.

















































































































If I say so myself, I think the end product is not bad for 5 hours' work. The new head and tail bands and the two book marks smarten the book up, and their red and gold colouring is picked up by the beautiful hand-marbled end papers which I bought in Italy - just right for an Italian book!

Book First Aid, Part One

Just before the end of last term a friend asked if I could help him save a couple of his books from complete disintegration and although I have NO experience or training in book or paper restoration or conservation I did - rashly - agree to help. I can't de-acidify paper, invisibly mend torn pages or get rid of foxing, but I reckon I can use archival materials to re-bind something so that it will last a little bit longer. Neither of the books is 'precious', in the sense of being valuable, but Andrea loves them for their practicality and the fact that the wisdom they contain is now hard to find. Both are books of recipes: not food recipes but recipes for things like cement, creating different coloured patination on metals, making ink... that sort of thing. All in Italian, as Andrea is Italian, so I don't have a clue what else the books contain but I find them fascinating.




Task one was to separate the covers from the book block and the spine, using a scalpel. The front and back covers are a bit stained but otherwise quite robust, but I couldn't successfully detach the end papers (which were not that special) so I decided to carefully tear them back and put in new end papers, using some Italian hand-marbled paper from my stash.















I cut out the title of the book from the original spine, thinking to glue it onto the new spine so that if the book sits on a shelf Andrea can still see what it is called.





















When I took the book block out of the covers I discovered that the sewing is still in perfect condition, but that there are only stubs of the tapes left - and when I say "stubs" I mean about a centimetre! Clearly not enough to make a firm connection with new covers so I decided to sew new tapes to the old tape stubs, hoping that the resulting double layer wouldn't be too bulky under the new end papers.





















Before I could sew on new tapes, though, I had to clean the tapes and the spine of the old cow glue. At least, I presume it's cow glue, because I remember the smell... Reading up on the web I found that I could safely remove the excess glue and scraps of paper by damping down the spine and tapes with distilled water and a sponge. I put freezer paper and a dry cloth in between the tapes and the bookblock in order to prevent the pages getting wet. To my surprise, the glue softened very easily and I was able to scrape it carefully away with my scalpel, revealing the signatures and the stitching.









































I sewed on new tapes using a fine linen thread and a small needle, sort of darning the old tape into the new tape in order to weave them together as much as possible.





















Once the new tapes were in place I was able to reinforce the spine with mull, gently round it, and leave it to dry in my book press overnight.

Books on books on my shelves

The book meme has been doing the rounds and I was recently asked by someone what books on bookmaking I used, so here are my Top Ten bookbinding books:














Franz Zeier Books, Boxes and Portfolios - I find this book really useful, and he has a great section on proportion and use of colour

Gwen Diehn Books that Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop-up, Twist and Turn - a great resource for working with children making books

Heidi Reimer-Epp and Mary Epp The Encyclopaedia of Papermaking and Bookbinding

Kojiro Ikegami Japanese Bookbinding

Sue Doggett Handmade Books

Keith Smith - well anything, really! His books are not always easy to get to grips with (seen the visual instructions for caterpillar binding, anyone?!) but they are GREAT so I have Bookbinding for Book Artists, The Structure of the Visual Book, Exposed Spine Sewings, Smith's Sewing Single Sheets and Books without Paste or Glue

Pauline Johnson Creative Bookbinding

If you count the Keith Smith volumes separately that's ten books, but I've got some extra titles that I love/find inspirational/look at when I'm feeling a bit lost:

The Penland Book of Handmade Books
Nancy Williams More Paperwork
Gabrielle Falkiner Paper
Tomoko Fuse - well anything really: she does mathematical origami and I LOVE her work
Carol Barton The Complete Paper Engineer, volumes 1 & 2
Peter Randall-Page In Mind of Botany
Jennifer New Drawing from Life: the Journal as Art
Mel Gooding Patrick Heron
Deborah Hart John Olsen
Reed & Shapiro Degas: the Painter as Printmaker

So there you go.

I've been having fun making coptic-bound sketchbooks as stock for when I open my Etsy shop at the end of October. There's something profoundly satisfying about clearing my work space, spreading out beautiful paper, making choices about sizes and threads and fastenings and then cutting everything to size. Shortly followed by sitting with the sun on my back, binding the sections and covers together while sipping coffee and listening to Beethoven string quartets on my little CD player! I feel very calm, very mellow, because the only thing I should be doing is what I am doing: making something.










I made seven sketchbooks, all filled with lovely BFK Rives 250gsm etching paper and bound with acid-free book board covered in different papers with a contrasting lining and sewn with those Danish threads I was lusting after recently. The fastenings range from buttons to beads, and I twisted matching cords from the linen threads so that the books can be tied shut.



All in all it was fun! I'm looking forward to my European trip so that I can collect some more beautiful paper, and also fill the hard-bound sketchbook I made for myself.

Be still my beating heart

This is perhaps only of interest to bookbinders among you, but look at all those lovely threads! They're Danish dyed linen threads from Amazing Paper in Sydney and they are GORGEOUS. Lurking in my studio I have a pile of newly torn paper and some book board waiting to be covered in beautiful paper. Having SOLD my little STOCK OF BOOKS I need to make some more, so for the rest of the day I'm planning to cover the boards, punch the sewing stations and do Coptic bindings with my new threads. Photos in due course...

B-b-b-beautiful b-b-books a-and b-b-b-oxes... brrr

I've gone soft. Almost three years of living on the mid-north coast of New South Wales and now I wibble if the temperature dips below 18 degrees centigrade, so spending the last 10 days driving around southern and western New South Wales in temperatures that reached a high of about 9 degrees C on a good day felt rather b-b-bloody c-c-cold. I've spent most of this afternoon resetting my internal thermometer by sitting in a nice hot bath with a cup of nice hot tea and feel warmer, and I've put all my thermal clothing in the wash!

We've all had a good time in our different ways: darling daughter saw her paternal grandparents, several uncles and aunts and cousins, and went to stay with Daddy's youngest brother for a couple of days on a sheep station near Goulburn. Then some other (very obliging) friends picked her up and she stayed with them at Shoalhaven Heads for another couple of days until I scooped her and her father up yesterday morning and we drove back up to Coffs Harbour. Dearest husband had spent the week bearing up with noble fortitude under the heavy burden of five nights in the Sydney Intercontinental Hotel, although I should add that he worked VERY HARD and the fact that a couple of his delightful clients might be about to stump up some actual cash makes everything bearable.

Meanwhile I stayed at Frensham School in the southern highlands town of Mittagong, at the Sturt Winter School, partaking of Caren Florance's course Beautiful Books and Boxes.



I was doodling with scissors

I always think it's hard, as a tutor, planning courses. Unless you grill your students in advance you have no idea of their skills, interests or experience or whether spending a week in a room with them is going to be tantamount to torture! And the same goes for the students too, I daresay. Will your tutor be a patronising pain-in-the-proverbial or someone who will actually teach you something you didn't previously know...? I'm pleased to say, since Caren was the drawcard for me attending the course, that she's fun, funny, interesting and taught me a lot. Phew! Relief all round I think, for it was a good bunch of people in our group and although our skill levels and experience varied our enthusiasm and energy made it a good course and we all got on well (which helps).






A photopolymer print used as a cover with Japanese stab binding



Clamshell box with coptic bound book inside





Coptic bound book












Examples of stab bindings

Stab binding I'd done many times before, but it's no hardship doing it again. I bound a box full of little notebooks with hand-marbled paper from Venice and put an inner front page of music before the blank paper. I gave them all to the daughters of our friends who picked up Darling Daughter, as a small gift.





Caterpillar binding

Once I'd made the clamshell box I ran out of ideas for an hour until it occurred to me that Caren could baby-sit me through the process of doing a caterpillar binding. I'd seen pictures and loved it, and I have instructions in Keith Smith's excellent-but-intimidating book on open-spine bindings. Caren was able to point me at simpler instructions on the Canberra Craft Bookbinder's Guild website. and between the two sources I was able to understand how to start the caterpillars and use them to bind in the pages of the book. Hooray! I wouldn't have ventured to try it were it not for the course, and having now made two books I hope I've mastered the method and will use it some more...



Final exhibition

Here are pictures of what some of the other participants made during the week:

A whale of a time

Those of you who read Mostly Up will know that I spend Monday and Thursday mornings bending myself into unfeasible positions under the stern gaze of Paola, my Italian Pilates teacher, in the Botanic Gardens. This week we endured a lesson under the fascinated gaze of ont of a year group from a local primary school... One of my fellow-sufferers is Cristina, another Italian woman; we roll eyes at each other while Paola comes round adjusting our posture as we strain to bend and breathe correctly.

Sadly Cristina will soon be departing Australia's fair shores to return to Italy, courtesy of her inept Immigration Agent who has completely mucked up her family's visa renewal to the extent that they have been threatened with deportation and ordered to leave the country. They won't even be able to return as visitors for three years.

Feelings in the group, and in Cristina's family, are mixed. We feel outraged at the iniquity of her situation: her agent very clearly mucked everything up and I, certainly, feel that s/he ought to be brought to book over the whole affair. Cristina's devastated husband has started a business in Coffs Harbour making beautiful hand-turned wooden archery bows from local timber and he's employing local people so one might have thought he was an asset to the country rather than a liability. Their two children are ambivalent. After a year of trying to settle in to local schools and being old enough to remember life in Italy and miss their friends I think they would like to 'go home'. Cristina can't work on their visa so her life has been curtailed: she has had to make new friends and find herself something to do and it hasn't been the best situation for her. In addition she has left elderly parents behind and, although my surviving parent is far from elderly I, too, recognise how difficult that can be.

Anyway, in acknowledgement of the fun we've had together the Pilates group wanted to do something or make something for Cristina to say farewell, and I volunteered to make a book.


















I don't think anyone knew what the outcome would be, least of all me! I thought making a blank book would look a bit pathetic: we're not so close as a group that we'd be likely to fill it with photographs and reminiscences, so it seemed more appropriate to make something small that would remind Cristina of being here, just big enough for us to sign and write our good wishes.














I decided on a concertina binding and cut into the upper edge of each page, then realised that I could increase the effect by ensuring that the resulting images could be 'read' with the pages folded up as well as spread out. A folded cover allows the book's pages to be extended while properly protecting them when closed.

































The images are local ones: a breaching humpbacked whale (especially appropriate as now is peak whale-watching season as they migrate northward to calve in warmer waters), a surfer, a parrot in a eucalyptus tree, pandanus branches and the lighthouse on South Solitary Island.


















I hope that when Cristina looks at her book she'll remember the warmth and the sunshine as well as Paola telling us to keep our shoulder blades together as we try and kick the sky!

Babydusche

A German friend at darling daughter's Steiner school is about to have a baby (and has amazed me with just how spry she still is, two weeks before the birth) and so tomorrow I've been invited to her baby shower. This is a first for me. I did vaguely comprehend the phrase but have never been to anything like it, not that I think this is likely to be typical! I've been asked to bring crystals and a candle. Oh, and I was asked to make a small book so that we could all write something nice and perhaps Kerstin would be able to use it for photographs.



Thanks to my sister for the translation


















Being a complete spoil sport I have baulked at the 'crystal' aspect of things (sorry), but I am taking a delicious lavender aromatherapy candle with me that I purchased in New York aeons ago (still unused, I hasten to add!) but continues to smell divine, plus a beautiful little abalone shell that I found washed up on the beach. It's not a crystal, but hopefully it still sends the same love-the-earth, peace-to-all sort of messages.


















I had fun with the book. I chose a sort of album format with a hinged front and back cover, combined with my favourite Japanese pamphlet binding. Colours were a bit difficult: Kerstin loves handmade paper and so I started with some delicious inclusions and worked outwards, covering it with a wrapping paper I've saved for years. It has a garden all over it and I think it works as a metaphor for new life: things growing, opening doors, beauty and discovery, etc, etc. I've included heavy etching paper with tissue paper overlays for photographs, plus handmade sheets for decoration and some lovely envelopes for bits-and-pieces that I also picked up in New York, at Kate's Paperie (one of my favourite shops!).