Making a Book, step three

Continued from Making a Book, step two

 

Last bit of design work

Choosing ribbons and headbands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choosing the ribbon place marker is always fun.  I have a whole box of colors and widths that I can choose. Sometimes I match, sometimes I contrast, but I’m not stumped very often by not having anything that I like.  The headbands are another matter.  Although I have a variety of sizes and colors, sometimes I’m frustrated with being unable to find a real match.  I have made my own at times, but it is time consuming and not my favorite thing to do.  For very special books, I have made headbands that are sewn onto the textblock instead of using the “cut & paste” variety.

 

Selecting the Spine material.

I use a variety of types of bookcloth for the spine and corners of my books. Most are paper-backed Italian cloth, either with texture or plain, but I also use Kennett and American buckram which are unbacked.  Occasionally, if I am in the mood and the color speaks to me, I use leather.  Although I have done some full leather binding, I usually just use the leather spine in a case-bound book.

In the pictures, I have laid samples of possible choices of bookcloth around the cover paper for each book.  The only one that gave me a problem was the purple palm cover.  Seems to be a theme here!  As I was about to give up and settle on a dark navy that wasn’t quite right,  I remembered I had some black leather.  I just had pieces of it, but fortunately one was just the right size.  Using leather means a lot of extra work as the leather has to be pared along the edges so that it is about the thickness of a cover paper.  I’m not an expert leather worker, so it takes a while for me to have nice thin, smooth edges.  Like every skill, it takes practice and I’m getting better.

 

Continued on Making a Book, step four