A Few Finished Projects

This is the turned four colour double weave off the loom, washed, ironed and photographed. It took me from 0930 to 1530 to get satisfactory photos. Anyway the entry form and sample are on their way and that's it till someone decided whether they want it or not.

I have finished the second Japanese book which is bigger as I trimmed it differently. The next thing on that front is to make the cases which I might start on soon.

This is one of three books I am repairing for my son-in-law, Derek. This was awful, the spine was gone, the covers were derelict, the endpapers torn to shreds but the text block was fine. So the spine was repaired and much reinforced, new endpapers (1930s design since the book is 1934) and new covers, made of millboard, not grey board for extra strength. I managed to rescue the lettering from the front cover and reuse that on the new front cover but made a new label for the spine as there was nothing left. The binding is now much more solid than when I received it.

This is the second book, nearly finished. When I got it, the covers were off, there were fragments of spine hanging off the covers and lots and lots of torn pages. The tears have all been repaired. The spine was sewn over with tapes and the hinge strengthened. The leather covers were reused. The marbled endpapers are red and black and, although damaged a bit, were reused. I could never get any marbled paper to match it in style well enough. The spine uses brown bookcloth, all tidily tucked into the leather. That's an unnerving job. I used what I could of the original spine but it is just glued onto the bookcloth. I will get some lettering done in the upper half. I know what it looks like, I have the three pieces it fell into! I also polished the leather and was surprised at how well it came up.

The third book has had its torn pages repaired and the beautiful ornamented front cover stripped down to be reused. That was unnerving too. Put the cover on a tray and cover it with a damp teatowel. Leave overnight. In the morning, take a scapel and free the bookcloth from the cover round the edges, slid the scapel under one corner to separate the bookcloth and the cover and then pull the cloth off the cover gently. This will be glued onto the new cover. That has no spine cover either. The spine has been oversewn with tapes and strengthened. The next thing is to put in the new endpapers and then make the new covers. I should be finished in two weeks. I have a really nice illustrated copy of Omar Khayyam to repair which belongs to my sister. I am very jealous of this and will try to make a really good job of it.