Back to Bookbinding

But first a photo of the space dyed silk chiffon. This is for a course with Liz Clay on felting.

The Convergence fabric was stiffish when dry so I consulted with the guru on silk noil, Rosie Price, who puts hers through the washing machine.  So I prepared a 12 inch square and did just that. Much improved but it is not quite dry yet.

The other job eating time today was scouring Malvern for a pedal bin not too large to go under my kitchen sink. In the end, I worked out what capacity I was looking for and ordered it from Amazon.

But mostly the day was spent making a proper Japanese book.

It is a copy of a Japanese design book of the early 19th century by Futatsu Yanagi Mabuchi. It is printed on proper Japanese paper and I have bound it properly too. You can see that the paper is very transparent. Two pages are printed on the same sheet and it is folded so that the fold is at the fore-edge. The book reads from (our) back to front and the top photo which looks like our back cover is actually the front with the title attached. Very little gluing, mostly folding. There is no board in the covers which are of Japanese chiyogami. As it stands, it is fairly fragile but I will make a Japanese cover for it when I have made the other book. That way I can make both covers together. The cover has got board in it and should be covered with a fabric which makes it quite robust. I will have to see what I have already in the way of suitable paper-backed fabric.

One extra sheet of Japanese paper has a lovely large tiger printed on it, nothing to do with this book. I need to think of a use for it. If I store it, it will just get ruined because the  paper is so fragile.