I have never been to a conference of bookbinders. Not very different from weavers in one way. The bar is heavily patronised. The College is built of Cotswold stone and its heart is a collection of farm buildings which must be not later than 1700 looking at the size of the roof timbers. Last night was an AGM and then 7 or 8 people demonstrating in the foyer. Some were really interesting, how to do leather inlay, how to make an Islamic book.
Of greater interest to me was the exhibition of Sweet Thames books. I could have submitted my book. It would not have been the worst. But, on the other hand, there were some stunners. There were 3 or 4 embroidered covers but all the rest were leather and many were boxed to match. There were 33 entries in all.
River and landscape
And again.
A box to match the endpapers. I noticed that quite a few had no title anywhere on the outside. And a few had only a title on the spine.
I am bothered by putting titles on fabric covered books. JetFx worked nicely provided that the fabric was a closely woven cotton and that the pattern was light enough. It only really worked with black lettering. Thermofaxes have this problem with not doing fine lines and in any case, I think the ink is inclined to wick a bit. I will carry put some experiments with this replacement for JetFx that I have at home which does not wick. The moral is really that I need to do a sample with the chosen method on exactly the same fabric as the final cover.
I looked at the next bit of binding which is two volumes of Mallory - Morte d'Arthur. They have been sewn. With string not tape. And are very thick. My tutor says this is for leather and a quarter binding would be nice. So I will put this off till autumn, take a deep breathe and set about binding in leather. I need to look out some marbled paper, in particular, have I got enough to do matching endpapers on two books.
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