Adventures in Medieval Bookbinding, Part 4 : Tegumentum Cinereum

For part four of my eight-part series, I decided to make Tegumentum Cinereum (which roughly translates to "ash-coloured", the colour of the original book in the city archives in Tallinn, Estonia).

[for those of you who just joined us, you can find an explanation of my book binding project, plus more of my books in this series here ]

Tegumentum Cinereum (hereafter known as T.C.) has an envelope style front flap, two thin wrap-around straps, and a decorative buttonhole stitch on the spine. The original was created in 1539, and had a parchment cover.

I decided to do my version with a leather cover. Here is a photo of the unstitched cover, next to Monica Langwe Berg's book Bookbinding: Limp Bindings From Tallinn ( my inspiration for doing these bindings).

For the decorative stitching on the spine, I once again dusted off some cobwebby memories of doing embroidery when I was a child. The book spine has long and short stitches, and a buttonhole stitch that goes straight across the middle. Here is my practice buttonhole stitch on a card:

I was aiming at a chunky-looking buttonhole stitch, rather than a finely stitched one. The practice stitching turned out nicely, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, that is until I started doing the same stitch on a book spine. It wasn't as easy as doing it on a flexible leather cover as on nice, flat card. Still, I persevered, and in the end, it came out well, I think. Here is the finished T.C.:

And a front view of same:

Next time: Tegumentum Candidum!

What's old is new

I've been creating some replicas of medieval bindings lately, and one thing that struck me about them is how old, and yet somehow "modern" many of them are in design, with their simple, clean lines.

So I've been playing around with using other elements for the covers, including more dramatic colours, and vintage buttons from the 1940s - 1970s. I really like the mix of medieval and and modern elements--kind of a very short history of design, all in one book cover :)

Here, for example, is a little red notebook I just finished. It has a green button from my button stash that I'm guessing is 1960s vintage.

Adventures in Medieval Bookbinding, Part 3: Tegumentum Spadix

The next book I decided to make, following the instructions in Monica Langwe Berg's book Bookbinding: Limp Bindings from Tallinn, is called Tegumentum Spadix (which roughly translates to "chestnut-coloured book cover" which was the colour of the original book).

[for earlier posts in this series, click here ]

The original Tegumentum Spadix dates from 1364. It looks similar to the book I made in my previous post, Tegumentum Rubrum, but has only one layer of leather, and has a hook and eye closure. I didn't know hook and eye closures were around in the 1300s, so I learned something new!

Here's a photo of my version of Tegumentum Spadix:

Think I must be longing for spring to come, as I've been craving bright colours, like this luscious purple that I used for the spine supports. I have various bits of goatskin in bright colours, so I may have to make more of these. In fact, I got so ambitious I made a second Tegumentum Spadix-style journal/sketchbook, this one using the natural edge of the hide, instead of an envelope-style edge:

Adventures in Medieval Bookbinding, Part 2 : Tegumentum Rubrum

The second medieval leather binding in Monica Monica Langwe Berg's book, Bookbinding: :Limp Bindings from Tallin is called "Tegumentum Rubrum" (for those of you who just dropped by, see my earlier posts here and here for more information about this book and my binding project).

I did a quick search in an online Latin dictionary, and "tegumentum" means "book cover." "Rubrum" means red, and names of all of the bindings in Monica's book refer to the colours of the original book covers.

The original Tegumentum Rubrum, according to Monica, is a German law book from 1282 (all of the bindings covered in her book are in an archive in Tallinn, Eastonia). The cover was made of two pieces of leather stitched together, with a toggle closure made from a rolled-up piece of leather.

Here I am about half-way through making my version of Tegumentum Rubrum:

I chose to use two pieces of thin brown deerskin for the cover. The original binding had two rows of very fine, elegant stitching around the edges, but I did one row instead, and used thicker thread--I wanted a more rustic, handstitched, lets-get-out-and-hew-some-timber look.

In the photo above, my cover is "pointing" toward a picture of the original Tegumentum Rubrum. To the left of my cover is a stack of paper ready to be sewn in, and to the right is the toggle, half done and waiting to be attacked with my handy chisel.

And now, as I neglected to take more photos, I will skip right over a few stages, and show you my finished book:

You will notice on the spine that there are exterior supports for the stitching (the dark-coloured squares). For the supports on this book, I used pieces of a really lovely dark maple leather. I am quite excited about the look of these exterior support thingies, and will definitely be making more books with them.

This is how it looks when open. I used hemp twine for the loop closure. I will keep this Tegumentum Rubrum for myself, as it has a few little flaws, but will make another one soon to put in my Etsy shop.

Stay tuned for my next thrilling adventure in medieval bookbinding--Tegumentum Spadix! :)

More Moon Journals

Here are a couple of new moon journals I recently finished and posted in my Etsy shop. The first one is a grey suede journal with red stitching, and has a quote by Willa Cather:

"The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current."

The second one (seen below) has a quote by Walt Whitman:

Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the East,
the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house-tops,
ghastly, phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.

The Willa Cather one has already sold, so it looks like I'm not the only Cather fan! It's been so much fun seeking out these quotes--a good excuse to revisit some favourite authors. And it's interesting to see all the different ways the moon is viewed, as representing romance, otherworldliness, insanity, beauty, and on and on.

Emily Dickinson leather journal

Here is another of my "moon" journals that I've been making for my Etsy shop (see my previous post for more about these). This one has a quote by Emily Dickinson:

"The moon upon her fluent route defiant of a road --"

Here's what it looks like:

I used turquoise moroccan goatskin for the cover. The reverse side of the leather has a lovely mottled look. I had decided to use a 19th century Japanese print of the moon to go along with the quote, and when I was rummaging around in my leather collection, I realized that the colors of this leather matched the print. I was unreasonably excited to discover this :) To me, the colours of the leather, together with the print and quote, create a sort of otherworldly effect that I think Emily would approve of...

New Handbound Leather Journals

Got a few new journals finished and posted in my Etsy shop. I've been working on some leather journals with quotes about the moon--only seemed natural, since my business name is Moon Bindery! :) Here are photos of a couple of them:

The first one has a quote by Oscar Wilde:

"Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon."

And here is a black elkskin journal with a quote by Albert Einstein:

"I like to think that the moon is there, even if I am not looking at it."

Had a lot of fun designing these. In non-moon news, here is a commemorative leather journal with a quote by Barack Obama:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. "

Big handbound journal

I've been getting some requests for larger leather journals. I have some really nice, soft, thick Napa leather on hand, so I came up with this:

It's 15.24 cm x 22.86 cm (6" x 9"), with 240 pages of sketch paper. Plenty of room for big ideas :)

Off to a Workshop

Hurray, hurray, later this week I'm off to attend my first-ever bookbinding workshop! It's at the Seattle Center for Book Arts, and the instructor is Elsi Vassdal Ellis.

The workshop will cover German long and link stitch limp covers (limp covers are the soft, wrap-around leather covers, like the journal from my Etsy shop pictured here:

As Elsi says in the workshop description: "There are two distinct styles of limp structures: the Italian with a more relaxed approach to the stitching and the northern with structured designs employing more rigid supports." I got my ideas for making soft-cover leather journals when I was in Venice, Italy, a few years ago, so my journals are mostly in the "relaxed Italian" style. I'm looking forward to making more northern-style bindings in this workshop.

Also, I have to say, I'm very excited at the prospect of having other bookbinders to talk to! I've actually been quite happy working out how to make books on my own, but sometimes it does feel a bit isolated out here in the wilds of the British Columbia interior. Very beautiful here, but not a lot going on bookbinding-wise.

Nice, fat journals!

Some of my customers have been asking me to make leather journals with lots of pages, so I did! Here are a couple that I just added to my Etsy store. This one has 320 pages of 50 lb writing/sketch paper:

And this one, with a grey suede cover, has 336 pages of 50 lb writing/sketch paper:

Enough, I think, for a good, solid year's worth of journaling, accounting, of course, for those few odd days when you don't get anything, including journaling, done at all....

The Edge of Leather

More and more lately, I've been using the natural edge of the leather hides as part of the journal/sketchbooks I make. This is one was especially fun:

Here's what it looks like when "unwrapped":

Art Gallery Books

Took a couple of leather journals to the Kamloops Art Gallery today. I sell some of my books through their shop--journal/sketchbooks, some little quote books, and now leather journals. Usually I don't sell through shops, because it takes a fair bit of time to make each book, so I don't make enough of them to sell them in a lot of different places.

The Art Gallery is an exception. I like having my books there, because any profit they make goes to support the arts locally, so it's a win-win thing for the community. And I have to say, it's kinda cool to see my books on the display shelves in their nice little stands! :)

I usually sell my work at selected art and craft shows and, more recently, in my Etsy store. I opened my Etsy store about a year ago, thinking I was going to start selling right away, but somehow didn't get any books in it until last November. Don't know what happened to the rest of that year!

Pictures of Old Bindings

I was recently noodling around on the Internet, looking at pictures of old bookbinding styles for inspiration in making my books, when I ran across a University of Iowa website that has pictures of reproductions of old books, including early codex bindings, stationer's account bindings, and medieval monastic bindings. Here is an example of an account book that uses a binding style that was common in the 9th-14th centuries.

Being a bit of a book junkie, I was immediately interested. I like how they include information about the time period of the binding style. Also, original books are often in pretty bad condition, so it's interesting to see modern versions of old bindings, to see how they might have looked when they were new.

Here is a picture of three books I just finished that have medieval-style bindings (the same ones I have pictured in my previous post) . They are all limp leather bindings. For the books on the left and the right, I used a longstitch/linkstitch binding, and the middle one is a different variation on a longstitch binding. If you look carefully at both pictures, you can see that the one above (from the University of Iowa site) is also a longstitch binding. There are many variations on the longstitch binding, which, for me, is what makes them so interesting to do.

Update: here is a link to the U of Iowa site, which I forgot to include :/

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/conservation/models/models.htm

New Longstitch Journals

Dipped into my Keith Smith book again, and made the three longstitch journals you see here to put in my Etsy shop. I have a shameful confession to make--I find Keith Smith a little hard to follow :/ Maybe it's just me, but I find the directions and the diagrams don't always work together.

So I did what I usually do, which is find two or three sets of directions for a particular binding style, and between looking at all of them, I can usually get my questions answered and come out with a good binding. And sometimes I come up with my own, slightly different variation on a binding style.

I think that's a good thing, actually. I've found that most binders have their own ways of doing things, so each binder's books have a certain "signiture" character that reflects the materials they choose to use, and their own their particular style. That's one reason why handmade books aren't boring!

Medieval Bookbinding

I've been reading a great book called The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, by J. A. Szirmai. He writes about a variety of bindings that were used in the middle ages, but the chapter that I was most interested in is the one on limp leather bindings. Not a lot has been written about the history of this style of binding, so it was good to be able to learn more about it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with them, limp leather bindings are basically soft cover leather books (here is an example of one that I made), with decorative stitching on the spine that looks pretty, and also attaches the paper to the leather. I love limp leather bindings, because they are strong and elegant, and also have a wonderful history. It's cool to be able to write in a book that is made basically the same way that one would have been made 700 years ago!

French Twist Leather Journal

Just posted a couple of new mini leather journals in my Etsy store. I called them French Twist books, cause I used a modified version of a french stitch to bind it with. I used four needles to do the binding, which is always a bit of a challenge, as thread seems to just naturally want to tangle :/

It was actually a lot of fun doing these bindings, once I got the threads sorted out. I like the drama of the black and white journal, and the ooh, la, la quality of the red one. Will definitely make more french twists!

Leather Journal

So, for my first project from Keith Smith's Non-Adhesive Bindings, Vol.1, I made a pocket-sized (31/2" x 4 3/4") longstitch journal. I used a lovely, velvety, thin brown deerskin for the cover, and some 80 lb Mohawk Via paper. In Smith's book, it's called a "Longstitch Through Slotted Wrapper Cover, but as you can see in this picture, I used pierced holes instead of slots. I'd like to try making one with slots some day, but I was in a piercing mood, not a slot-cutting mood when I made it, so that's what happened :)

I used a butterscotch coloured waxed linen thread to sew it with, which is very pretty. I've been making a lot of case bound (hardcover) books lately, and it's nice to get back to doing a mix of bookbinding styles. Keeps things fresh, going back and forth.

Gluing a book together (which is what I do with case bound books) is a very different experience than doing a sewn binding. I use pva glue for my case-bound books, and it dries very quickly, so I have to work fast before the glue dries. When I first started making case-bound books, I was in a total panic, trying to remember to do all the million-and-one steps in making the book (gluing the book cloth, and sticking the cloth and paper to the binders board, and cutting the corners of the paper, and folding corners, etc., etc.) in the right order before the glue dried out (I could and did reapply the glue, but hate having to do that too much). After making my bazillionth case-bound book, though, I'm pretty much on auto-pilot when I do it these days, which is a relief after those early, sweaty-palmed days. That said, there still is a certain zesty feeling to getting all those pieces assembled before the glue dries up.

Making stitched-spine books requires focus, but is a bit more relaxed, as there aren't any glue issues to deal with. Sort of green tea bookbinding, as opposed to double-shot-of-espresso case-bound bookbinding...