Book Arts: Edinburgh

After spending a few days in Sterling, our next stop was Edinburgh. I'd briefly visited Edinburgh years ago, and was glad to have several days there this time. Book arts-ish places that I visited included the Owl and Lion, located at 15 Grassmarket in the old town (a hint if you plan to visit them--if you think you're at the right address, but there's a sort of dance studio where the booksellers should be, try looking across the street). They make silkscreen covers for their handmade journals, and have lots of lovely things to look at. Here you can see some of them in their front window:

Also in that same area (at 102 West Bow) is Analogue Books. They have a variety of zines on display:

I also visited the National Library of Scotland, but have no photos to share, alas. If you know of any other good book arts-related places to visit in Edinburgh, I hope you will post them in the comments.

And finally, to continue the animal obsessed portion of my journey, here is a photo of a little dog outside an antique shop. The owner has him tied up there, and if you squint at the photo, you can see above him a picture of Greyfriars Bobby, a famous former citizen of Edinburgh. Bobby's master died, and for many years the little Skye Terrier kept watch over his master's grave. The dog in the photo is also a Skye, and looks about as long suffering as the original Bobby must have been.

Other book arts related places to visit in Edinburgh are:

The Centre for the History of the Book http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/

The National Library of Scotland http://www.nls.uk/

[NOTE: if you know of any other great bookbinding/book arts places to visit in Edinburgh, please do share them in the comments. Book arts - obsessed people like myself would love to know about them!]

Traveling in Scotland

My husband attended a conference in Stirling, Scotland, last month, and I got to go along and just be a tourist. We stayed in a lovely old B&B called Kilronan House:

Later on, we moved to lodgings on the Stirling University campus. There was a beautiful lake in the middle of the campus, and I some happy hours walking around and taking photos of all the wildlife (Ok, confession time: this post isn't really about book arts at all. It's more about the fact that I'm a real softie where animals are concerned :)

Here is the lake:

and a sleeping duck:

And a tiny tree frog, who kindly, if somewhat reluctantly, posed for me:

A swan in the evening:

And a bunny, one of many, many, many, on the campus.


Can anyone tell my what kind of bird this is? It wasn't one I recognized:

To redeem myself on the book arts front, let me say that we did visit other cities in the U.K. on this trip, and I visited book arts-ish places in all of them. More posts to follow....