And Lots More Books: The Commissions Update!

My previous post had an update of some books - and one more business card case - that I made in the last few weeks, for my online shops.

I've also worked on several commission books and this post is to show you those.

Commission One - An Italian-themed Holiday Journal: 

Anne chose raspberry red leather, ivory binding thread and a wide ivory ribbon to tie her book.  She specially wanted the ribbon to tie vertically, as shown in the photo.  I used a variation of a traditional Italian Longstitch binding to stitch the pages.  It looks rather nice...

Inside, the leather is lined with red mulberry paper, but each cover has half of a map of Northern Italy, from a vintage atlas.  The map was chosen online by Anne and I purchased it for her.  

I made a label for the inside of the book, using a copy of part of the map, printed onto vellum paper, with the title "Italy 2015" (the label is not attached in the photo). 

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Commission Two - An Artist's Sketchbook: 

Danielle and her twin sister have their 18th birthdays in May.  She asked me to make a special sketchbook for her sister, who is a keen artist.  

Danielle chose a rich brown leather for the covers.  This was lined with red mulberry paper and we decided on a fastening with a simple red cord to wrap round a metal button.

The pages were of Murano paper, which is an artists' paper designed for drawing with pencil, pastel, charcoal and other dry media.  It has a slight texture, giving it a good "tooth" for the drawing media used.  Danielle chose several shades of ivory, cream, grey and charcoal for the page sections.  I also added some loose sheets of glassine tissue paper, to be used between pages, so the drawing doesn't smudge, until it can be fixed with spray.   

The pages were sewn with a cross-stitch, in red linen. 

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Commission Three - A Book of Shadows: 

I was commissioned to make a book, by my sister.  She asked for a Book of Shadows, for her friend's birthday.  

The covers are black leather, lined with purple mulberry paper.  The book ties with a black organza ribbon.  The cover is hand painted in silver, with a traditional Book of Shadows design, of a Pentacle, along with a black cat and symbols to represent the four elements.  

There are forty pages of hand-made Indian cotton-rag paper inside.  The book is sewn in a decorative longstitch, with purple linen.  

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Commission Four - A Present for Jen: 

Finally, I commissioned myself!  I wanted to make a gift for the birthday of a very lovely lady, who is a skilled artist and produces the most beautiful papercut art.  She goes by the name of Jen and you can see some of her work here - My Papercut Heart. 

Jen designs large and complex paper cuts, which are all hand-drawn on plain paper, before being copied to the sheets from which they are cut.  We chatted about drawing paper recently and she commented that she'd been sticking A4 sheets together, to make a sheet large enough for one of her commission pieces.  So, it was pretty obvious that I should make a Large sketchbook!  

A3 (16.5" x 11.75") Sketchbook.  This has hard covers, in a Nepalese Lokta paper with a screen-printed "Kongpo" design of a garden - a very special sheet, that I bought some time ago and saved for a "special project".  Well, this was just the right project, as I was able to show the whole of the wonderful design on these book covers.  

The edge trim is a saffron yellow silk and the covers are lined with a matching saffron coloured art paper.  The book is sewn with a Coptic style binding, in double rows, with ivory linen. 

The pages are sewn in several sections, so there are plenty of sheets that open out to A2 size, for Jen's large and complex planning drawings.  Hopefully, she won't have to keep tearing out sheets and sticking them together, to have enough room to plan her next masterpiece! 

I wrapped the edge of each section with brown art paper, to give a bit of space inside the book and also to add a nice contrast to the golden silk edge-trim.  I added a small hand-tied silk tassel to the front of the cover, along with a silk-mounted label, with "Jen" printed in an oriental-looking font. 

I'm happy to report that Jen was very pleased with her birthday present - and I'm still smiling! 

An Interesting Experiment - A Travel-themed Journal Sketchbook

I recently  made a set of concertina photo books, with covers of Liberty print lawn bookcloth.  They turned out really lovely.   

 

 

 

While fiddling around with the concertina-folding for the album pages, I thought about the "flutter books" and concertina book structures, created by bookbinders Hedi Kyle and Alissa Golden (both my heros!).  I thought it would be fun to experiment with a book that used the concertina structure as a kind of support, with sets of pages stitched into each valley fold - on both sides of the concertina.

It seemed to suit a tall, thin type of book, also a journal/sketch book; I had some of the lovely Cavallini paper with a collage design of vintage luggage labels... A Travel Themed Journal started to form in my mind.

I cut hard covers of book board and covered them with the Luggage Label paper.

I folded a concertina of stiff cartridge paper, then used the same type of paper and some lined text paper to create folios of pages, mixing the lined and sketch paper, so that each sketch page had a lined page next to it.  Then I stitched each of these sections into a fold of the concertina.

 
 
I fixed the covers at either end of the concertina, with ribbons to tie each side together - this would allow the book to be opened like a traditional notebook - from either side of the concertina - or for the whole thing to open out when both sets of ribbons were untied. 

Inside the "back" part of the accordian, the three centre pairs of sketch pages fold inside, so there is a large page that opens out to almost A4 size (letter size for my US friends!). 

 

The "front" cover opens to show two pairs of ticket pockets, embellished with the same luggage label paper as the covers. 

I used red linen thread for the stitching, to give a cheerful pop of colour.

The concertina structure allows the book to be used in a very flexible way, not just in the usual sequential "turn to the next page" way you would use a traditionally bound notebook. 

 

It's a nice size too - just right to pop into the front pocket of your backpack or in your hand luggage, to take with you on your special holiday.

A successful experiment I think - I may make some more!