The colour in these photos is not quite right, the cover is actually purple and the pages lighter brown, but I didn't finish the book until after it got dark (which was actually about 5pm, oh yes, it's the end of British Summer Time next week, the clocks go back and it stops getting light...)
It's a neater version of the green fuzzy felt book I made a few days ago. I used paper for the joints (I loved how the felt looked but it was too bulky for this album). I learned the structure (stiff leaf binding by Julie Leonard) from this book, which I would recommend to any one interested in book making, it has some lovely photographs, lots of interesting projects and interviews with all the featured artists. Inspirational.
The structure is beautiful in it's simplicity, but that also means the book needs to be constructed really precisely... so even though I measured all the pages, making sure they were square and equal; even though I made templates to show me exactly where to attach the joints and even used a ruler to cut against; even though I checked and double checked every detail right down to the grain direction (after reading Rhonda's great post) the the book still ended up less than perfect...
Oh well, more practice I suppose...
5 comments:
it is gorgeous and i think she will love it :)
xox
It is a beautiful gift, I am sure your mum will love it.
this is a really marvelous album! i really love it. i know these problems with measuring and cutting very carefully but getting uneven results nonetheless. i guess it's because working with rulers and cutters simply bears these impreciseness in themselves as they are no machines. but i have already seen imperfect bindings in trained bookbinding master's shops as well, so I guess that's just what "handmade" is about.
i peeped at your photos on flickr.. such a great design. She is one lucky mum!
Thanks all, I'm glad you like it!
And thanks tulibri, that is really good advice, I think that even the width of my pencil makes a difference when measurements need to be that precice, which side of the line do I cut?! And *I* am definitely not a machine so 1mm out will just have to do I suppose!
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