I am SO excited.

I am going to a Jeff Peachey tool making workshop this summer. Even better, I am going with my oldest daughter. What better way to bond with her than making knives together, right?

Quoted from Mr. Peachey's website, here is a description of the workshop  -

"In this three day tool making intensive, we will make several knives by hand, using stock reduction, and make a variety of Delrin and Tonkin bamboo folding and lifting tools. Participants should also bring any tools they wish to discuss, sharpen, alter, clean or restore. The specific tools that bookbinders use will be examined in detail: paring knives, lifting knives, scissors, hole punches, scalpels, spokeshaves and board shear blades. The pros and cons of various sharpening systems will be discussed, including water stones, ceramic stones, diamond stones, oil stones, natural stones, silicone carbide powder, aluminum oxide powder, diamond paste, abrasive papers and stropping compounds. Basic principals of tool steel and edge geometry will be discussed. This class will focus on the techniques of efficient free-hand sharpening, which is applicable to any sharpening system. Participants will be provided the 3M Microfinishing film, a large paring or lifting knife blank, and all hard hacksaw blades to two small knives of their choosing, a variety of Delrin blanks and Tonkin Bamboo. The goal is to free participants from the plethora of misinformation and mystique that surrounds sharpening, learn to shape Delrin and bamboo, and learn to maintain and repair common bookbinding tools."

Is it just me, does that sound dreamy? Tool learning, tool making, Delrin, bamboo and steel? I feel like someone should pinch me, but the reality is, knowing me, I'll probably pinch, bruise or cut myself while I'm tool making. It will be worth it.

Have a Heart

My poor neglected blog...maybe you can grow up to be a New Year's resolution. 

Here is a book I made for my sister for Christmas. Thanks to The Graphics Fairy for the lovely anatomical heart. My sister just got her Bachelor's of Nursing degree and, besides that, I told her I was putting my heart into her gift.

I have had fun messing around with combining Coptic stitches with tackets and linen/cotton blend tape. Maybe someday I'll post pictures of some of my other experiments.

Merry Christmas!

The Amazing Week Of Book Arts Classes in LA

I am SO excited!

I just signed up for what looks to be an incredible week of learning, inspiration and fun. Karliegh Jae and Daniel Heywood, book art instructors extraordinaire, are coming to LA and have organized an awesome lineup of classes taught by them and two other instructors, Jeannine Stein (I love her books) and Kelly T. M. Kilmer.

You can sign up HERE for whichever class you are interested in, OR they have a great deal just until April 30th if you want to go to all the classes. Here's the list -

Creative Boxes
Monday May 7, 2012 -- 6pm - 9pm
Teacher: Karleigh Heywood

The Cordbound Book
Tuesday May 8, 2012 -- 10am - 4pm
Teachers: Daniel & Karleigh Heywood

The Booklace
Tuesday May 8, 2012 -- 6pm - 9pm
Teacher: Jeannine Stein

Expressions
Wednesday May 9, 2012 -- 11am - 3pm
Teacher: Kelly Kilmer

Raised & Inset Designs in Paper, Fabric and Leather
Wednesday May 9, 2012 -- 6pm - 9pm
Teacher: Karleigh Heywood

Exposed Stitch Books
Thursday May 10, 2012 --10am - 4pm
Teachers: Daniel & Karleigh Heywood

Romanesque Stitch Journal
Thursday May 10, 2012 -- 6pm - 9pm
Teacher: Jeannine Stein

The 10 Book Workshop
Friday and Saturday, May 11 and 12, 2012 -- 10am - 6pm
Teachers: Daniel & Karleigh Heywood

The ten book structures are:

Single Sheet Books
Chapbooks
Japanese Stab Bound Books
Flower Fold Books
Accordion with Pockets and Sewn Signatures
Hinged Ledger Book
Circle Accordion
Softcover Leather Longstitch
Hardcover Longstitch
Tapes Bound Book (A Traditional Hardcover Book)

Come join me at their classes! If you live near me, maybe we can even carpool or share a hotel room in LA...

Some More Coptic Bound Books

Here are some more books I have given as gifts lately. I really enjoy inlaying a piece of the endpaper or a contrasting color to make the books I make stand out.

Christmas Presents

I am making six of these coptic bound journals books for various loved ones for Christmas. Here is the first one. I used chiyogami paper for the endpapers and the monogram, unryu to cover the boards and Mohawk Superfine for the pages. It was a little rough on the edges of the inset letter, but I have gotten better at this while making the other books. I'll post pictures of them when I am done :)

First Japanese Stab Bound Books

My next adventure in bookmaking was figuring out Japanese stab binding (I don't know if I really got it right, but I approximated it enough to work) to make some small notebook sized books for students in a class I taught at church to stitch and use in their scripture study.

These were the samples I came up with. I used manila file folders because I thought it would save some prep time (it would have a little bit) and glued some Italian paper to the fronts to spruce them up. The front covers curled, and I didn't like it, so when I bought supplies for the class, I picked out some nice card stock and folded and scored it by hand. The first one I made with the card stock curled as well, but in thinking about it I realized I could just stitch the decorative paper onto the cover with everything else and forget about gluing all together. Problem solved and less mess during my class :)

This is what the preparation looked like. I made enough covers and pages for 23, twenty page books. I used my new Japanese screw punch, which was incredibly helpful. Muscles I am not used to using were sore for days :)

Here are the two books I stitched during my class to show the attendees how to do it. It was fun to figure out and then to teach :)

Second Coptic Bound Book

About a month after I took the class from Karleigh Jae, I finally sat down and made some book covers for more Coptic bound books. On two of the sets of covers, I inlaid a piece of the endpapers onto the outside of the front cover. Inlaying was something I did at the Book Repair Unit and that I always loved. I was out of practice, so the first one I did was a little off center, hence the glitter!

Another thing I tried with this book was covering the folded part of each signature with white paper to make things more interesting. I cut the edges with decorative scissors. I like the way it looks, but it did make the sewn edge of the book thicker than the bottom edge. I told the recipient (I gave it to a friend who moved out of town) that she could glue pictures, recipes or whatever into the book on those white pages, so the extra space might get filled up :)