#reliure

And so the binding was complete! I used a spare piece of the endpapers to create a title for the box. The words were pierced out using a scalpel and backed with gold leaf. The title was then sewn to the lid of the box through small holes drilled around the outside of the label.

I knew early on that wanted the container to be made from Maple wood to tie in with the book title and I was pleased to be able to source some. The inside of the box was lined with felt, with a ribbon lifter attached to help to get the book out of the box.

THE COMPLETED BOX

THE BOOK IN THE OPEN BOX

THE BOOK ON THE OPEN BOX

THE BOOK NEXT TO THE BOX

THE EDGE DECORATION

THE FULL COVER

THE PASTE-DOWNS

BACK COVER DETAIL

FRONT COVER DETAIL

THE ENDPAPERS

I was finally able to order the outer conservation box from The Bodleian Library a few weeks ago. 

As well as adding a title to the spine, I glued into the inner lid of the box a map dating from 1910, showing the area of “St. Denis-Pontoise” in France, including the town of “Eragny”. 

The press was named after the Pissarro family’s home village in Normandy, I will have to try and visit it someday! 

Finally the time had come for me to do the bit that I like the most - decorating the covering leather! The first step in the process was to cut out all of the leather onlays I needed to complete the design, including lots of lots of little leaves. On a couple of occasions I brushed past these loose leaves sitting on one of my benches and dislodged a few and it was a rather frustrating game trying to find their correct positions again!

When it came to the apples, I cut out a multitude of discs in different tones of leather and tried to spread the colours out as evenly as possible over the front cover.

Once all of the onlays were down, I went through my box of threads and pulled out a selection of greens, reds and oranges with which to start sewing the detail onto the cover.

Firstly I concentrated on sewing all of the ‘branches’ using a dark green thread. This also helped to secure each of the leaves onto the leather. Each leaf in turn was then further embroidered with little stitches all the way up in a contrasting green to the colour of the onlay. As the leaves on the front and back covers were mirror images of each other, I made sure to sew the corresponding leaves in the same coloured thread.

The apple blossom was attached to the leather using a double criss-cross stitch to look like the stamens of the flowers. I pricked the holes first with a needle pricker as the vellum inlays were tough to push a needle through.

Onto the end of each of the criss-cross stitched (eight in total for each flower) I tied a small French knot. These were done in a variety of different coloured threads to add variety.

The apples on the front cover were also embellished with a variety of coloured threads, enhancing the colour whilst also securing the onlays down.

The back of the leather looked like this once the embroidery was complete - a random scattering of coloured threads!

So, the time had come to cover the book, always a daunting task after spending so much time embroidering the leather beforehand. I laid a few layers of newsprint down onto my bench and got together all the tools I needed for the process: sharp scissors, teflon folder, scalpel, fine metal tools for forming the head caps and some cord, also for forming the head caps.

The front of the leather was spritzed with some water to prevent marks from forming on the front of the leather once it dried. The back was pasted out three times using flour paste, with time left in between each application to allow for it to absorb into the leather.

The covering of the binding requires all the hands and nerves I have so I often don’t get many photos of this part of the process! The leather went down well and the book was left to dry under weights between blotting paper for 24 hours, with the blotters changed regularly. The following day, I dampened the joints with a water pen and carefully opened up the boards. The leather joints were stuck down into position with PVA whilst both of the book boards were open.

I bought some 18 carat yellow gold sheet in order to add one gold apple to the front cover. This was pierced into shape using a jeweller’s piercing saw and holes drilled through it. One of the criss-crosses was sewn with metallic gold thread, the other had gold wire passed across it to physically attach the gold apple to the book board through small holes that had been drilled using my Dremel..

Small channels were cut out of the reverse of the board and the ends of the gold wire were bent into these to permanently fix the gold apple in its place. The insides of both the front and back boards were then infilled and sanded. The first layer was some watercolour paper, which was the same thickness as the turn-ins and the leather joint. The second layer was a piece or Zerkall, cut a few millimetres smaller than the size of the boards. This was then sanded completely flush to get rid of any lumps and bumps.

It was then time to stick the paper doublure down to the front and back boards. All of the pierced shapes had been filled with gold leaf backed onto Japanese tissue.

Once stuck down, I wanted to add extra detail to the endpapers and doublures. For the apples inside the front board, I cut out tiny criss-crosses from black paper. 

These were then stuck down onto the gold using PVA glue.

For the blossom inside the back board, I used black acrylic paint on the end of a needle pricker and applied paint to each of the flower centres.

Finally, I wanted to add a little of the cover leather to the endpapers and doublures. I cut out small shapes from thinly pared cover leather and stuck them randomly amongst the branches.

The next, and final, blog post in this series shows images of the completed binding and wooden box that was made for the binding.

The client wished to retain the gilt calf paste-downs if possible to include them within the new binding. To do so it meant removing them from the existing limp cover so I could mount them to new sheets of paper.

The leather of the limp calf cover had started to degrade, so I removed it by peeling it back carefully from the reverse of the paste-down. I was then able to sand the surface using a fine sandpaper.

Once sanded the paste-downs were mounted to a bi-folded sheet of paper and sewn to the textblock as an additional section on the front and the back. I wrapped a bi-folded strip of paper to this new section as a guard, the other side of which (as visible in the below photograph) was then tipped onto the endpaper section once that had been sewn to the textblock.

The sections were all then sewn together onto four tapes.

Once all the sections were sewn together, with the endpapers added on at either end, the spine of the book was glued up in-between the tapes with PVA glue and left to dry.

I then rounded and backed the book, and lined the spine attaching a one-on, two-off hollow and then sanded the top edge flush. I wanted to add some edge decoration and did so using watered down acrylic paints. I first applied a thin layer of dark green to match the paper I had used to mount the new paste-downs onto. I further built up the colour by dabbing on small amounts of white, peach and green paints on top to create an abstract pattern in colours to match the binding.

The foredge and bottom edge were left deckled so I did not need to apply edge decoration to them. The next stage was then to sew the endbands. I selected colours that I thought would work well on the binding.

I then created double core endbands using a mixture of these coloured endband threads. The larger core was made from a lamination of leather and a thin strip of vellum. The vellum side was paced pointing towards the top edge of the binding to try and keep a crisp edge where the endband silks wrapped over it. The smaller core was made by stiffening some linen sewing thread with PVA glue and letting it dry out.

The boards were then laced on and bevelled. The covering leather was pared in preparation for the next stage of the binding process.

The next post details how the leather onlays and embroiderd elements were added to the covering leather to build up the design.

Throughout the book there were numerous wood cut prints so I decided to try out some lino printing to tie in with this. In order to transfer the design onto the lino for cutting I placed a sheet of carbon paper on top of the lino. On top of that I laid a line drawing of the design and then I traced the lines with a biro in order to leave a mark through the carbon paper on the surface of the lino.

I only wanted to print the leaves using the lino plate, so only marked these areas through the carbon paper. It was very clear to see what I needed to cut once I was done marking the lines.

I invested in some rather lovely new “Pfeil” lino cutting tools in a variety of cutting shapes. Each tool is made from chrome vanadium steel with ergonomically shaped hardwood handles – they made slicing the lino a breeze!

The sample board was done in the same manner, just cut on a smaller scale.

The cut lino was inked up with black intaglio ink using a roller.

The apricot Satogami paper was then laid on top of the lino plate and put into a press. Once printed they were pegged up and left to dry for a few days, I did extra copies so I could select the best ones for the final binding.

I chose to split the cover design so there were apples on the front and apple blossom on the back of the book. I wanted this difference to carry through onto the endpapers and doublures. To add another level of complexity to the design I decided to make it so that each of the flowers and apples on the endpapers and doublures would have gold leaf behind them to catch the light when the book boards were opened which meant cutting out each shape using a scalpel.

I glued some squares of gold leaf to Japanese paper in preparation using PVA glue and left them to dry.

I flipped both the paper-backed gold leaf and the pierced endpapers over and drew around the shape of the flower and apple clusters that I needed to back onto the reverse side of the gold leaf.

I then made a slightly oversized cut around the pencil outline so that there was enough extra to glue it onto the reverse of the printed paper to span the pierced void.

The next post covers the forwarding of the book!

I was shocked to look back at my last blog post to see that it was back in August of 2019, nearly one whole year ago, where did all that time go? I have found it is all too easy to get out of the habit of writing, unless I do so as soon as I have finished a binding or project it seems like a real effort to look back retrospectively and write a post. I have five outstanding things to write about, all of which with photos to edit which seems a bit of a mammoth task!

So, to kick start my blog again I am starting with a binding that I have literally just shipped off to France to a client, I hope it reaches him safely and is well received. In fact the binding itself was finished a couple of months ago but due to the global pandemic I was unable to order an outer conservation box for it, I get these from the University of Oxford, so the binding sat safely in its wooden container in my plan chest until I was able to place an order for a box of the correct size.

The binding is a copy of, “La Charrue D’Érable” (The Maplewood Plough), one of 116 copies printed in 1912 at the Eragny Press in France. The Eragny Press was founded by Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944), the son of the Impressionist, pointillist painter Camille Pissarro. The press was named after the Pissarro family’s home village in Normandy. The Eragny Press specialised in small hand-made books in limited print runs featuring superior coloured wood engravings. The press was active between 1896 and 1914 and produced 32 titles in total, La Charrue D'Érable was the penultimate publication from the press. This is not only the most important book of the Eragny Press, but is also Camille Pissarro’s only substantial illustrated book.

The book is illustrated with twelve full-page, colour wood-engravings drawn by Camille Pissarro and engraved by Lucien Pissarro, primarily printed in shades of peach, green, and/or blue from multiple blocks. In addition, there are numerous wood engraved vignettes, initials, and the title-page border by Lucien Pissarro.

Taken from Via Libri: The World’s Largest Search Engine for Old, Rare and Out-of-Print Books;

“Camille Pissarro exhibited in the first Impressionist show in 1874 and continued his association with the Impressionists for the next dozen years. He then adopted the style of Pointillism briefly, before reverting to an Impressionistic style of landscape painting. It was during this last period of his life that he made the drawings that would eventually result in La Charrue d'Érable. Although the book was not published until 1912, most of the blocks were cut and proofed by Camille before his death in 1903. Lucien Pissarro was trained as a painter by his father, exhibited with the Impressionists, and eventually became interested in book making. After settling in London, he and his wife Esther learned the arts of printing and book design from Charles Ricketts. The early books from Pissarro’s Eragny Press were printed with type supplied by Ricketts. This book is printed in a typeface designed by Lucien Pissarro.”

The original book was bound in full limp green calf with gilt titling on the upper cover. The leather had begun to degrade on the copy I was due to rebind, especially on the spine section. There were calf paste-downs inside the limp cover, stamped in gold with apple patterns and a central “Livre Contemporain” monogram. The client was keen to keep these paste-downs in the new binding so I had to think of ways to achieve this. I did also enquire whether he wanted me to try and retain the paper endpapers opposite these leather doublures, they had a sort of ‘halo’ of the leather doublure pattern on them due to the acid from the leather affecting the paper. In the end I though that they were too brittle and damaged to transfer to the new binding.

In early 2011 the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford ran an exhibition entitled, “Lucien Pissarro in England: The Eragny Press 1895-1914”, I was able to buy a copy of the catalogue they published online with the same title in order to read up more about the Eragny Press. Lucien was sent to England by his parents where he fell in with a group of artists who were followers of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. In the 1890s, William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press to produce exquisite, hand-made books. Lucien and his friends wanted to do something similar, and so for the next 20 years he laboured over the spasmodic production of 32 hand-crafted books with his wife, Esther.

I found it interesting to read that Lucien Pissarro had to wait a long while for the text to be written, it was delayed due to illness and other reasons. He therefore ended up making the initials before the text was written so the writer then had to begin his chapters with words which began with the letters that had been cut!

Although inspired by the Kelmscott Press, the woodcuts are very different to those done by William Morris. There were no floral borders in this text block, although the title page had some floral elements like apples on a tree with one of the chapters actually being called, “Sous Les Pommiers”, or “Under the Apple Tree”. I really liked the way that these branches looked so began to think of ways of incorporating these into the design for the cover.

The book is a quaint representation of rural French farming life. I lived in France for 18 months a few years back although unfortunately I didn’t become a fluent French speaker so I required some help deciphering the, ‘Table des Matières’. I asked a French friend to help me translate the chapter titles which she did, although she was unsure about a couple of them as they were written in old French. Fortunately these gaps were filled by my French-speaking client. Alongside egg and cattle markets (Marché aux œufs/au bétail) and harvesters (Les Moissoneurs) the more interesting descriptions were:

Messidor: During the French revolution, the name of the months were changed. Messidor was the tenth month (from mid June to mid July).

Lavandière Nocturne: A ghostly spirit in the form of a washerwoman doing laundry in the river or pond seen at night. This is a bad omen, usually a herald of death. This is a widespread southern French folk-legend.

La Batterie Mécanique: In this context it is a mechanical thresher for grain.

The book was very easy to pull as the covering leather on the spine had degraded and the sewing threads were loose. The central sections therefore pulled away from the leather spine well and I carried out a couple of small repairs on tears using Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste.

Some of the sections within the text block were unopened, so the top edge of the sections had never been cut meaning that some of the 'hidden’ pages in the original binding would have been hard, if not impossible, to read without tearing the paper.

Many books were sold with unopened pages, this may have been to save the publishers labour and money or to make the sections easier to sew as the pages wouldn’t move around like modern single folio gatherings if left uncut. The reason they were sold like this was that the purchaser/collector was supposed to take the book to a bookbinder of their choice (usually local) who would bind the book according to their personal taste, often the same leather and finishing for each book so that their library looked the same. This was the way books were brought on the market until well into the nineteenth century, until industrial bound books came into being, with their edges cut flush.

The original binding was simple limp calf, perhaps meant as a 'temporary’ binding. Had the edges of the pages been cut, the bookbinder would likely cut them again when rebinding, each time taking more off the text block decreasing it’s size. I made the decision to cut the top edges of the sections in order to make the binding function properly, but left the foredge and bottom edge deckled.

In researching the reason why books were left unopened I was directed to an interesting article entitled, “Uncut, unopened, untrimmed, uh-oh” from The Folger Library about the terminology behind it, having initially referred to the pages of my text block as ‘uncut’ I realise that they should have actually been described as ‘unopened’:

unopened:a book sold with the bolts uncut, to be hand-slit by the purchaser with a paper-knife. It is then said to be opened. Cf. uncut.

uncut:a book is said to be uncut if the edges of the paper have not been cut with the plough or guillotine. Cf. unopened. 

The difference between “unopened” and “uncut” is significant for the history of reading: unopened leaves are a pretty good indication that a book wasn’t read when it was new. Uncut leaves, on the other hand, only show that the text block was not neatened up by having the edges trimmed to the same size.

I was inspired by the earthy pastel colours of the woodblock prints. I found a really interesting supplier of Bull skins in a wonderful array of colours, appropriately this was from a French supplier called Remy Carriat. The colour I opted for was a pale green called ‘Pistache’ which was the perfect match for the green on the title page and throughout the binding. 

I paired it up with some 80gsm Japanese machine made paper called ‘Satogami’ in the colour Apricot which made the perfect colour palette.

The design was based on a repeat pattern inspired by the apple branches on the title page of the text block.

Rather than having apples on the branches over the whole book, I decided to divide the design in two and have apples on the branches one side and apple blossom on the other. I traced the leaf shapes through onto a piece of tracing paper, changing the placement of the apples for flowers for the other half of the binding.

With the colour palette chosen I searched through my bag of leather off-cuts and parings for a variety of pieces to use for the onlays. I chose a selection of greens, oranges and peaches in both leather and suede in order to have a nice selection of different tones on the cover. The suede pieces were backed onto lens tissue to keep them stable.

I chose to use thin vellum for the apple blossom, cutting out multiple flower shapes. I then stippled some acrylic paint onto the centres to add some colour.

I first worked on a small piece of leather to make a sample board to test out the design. I make a sample board ahead of each of my fine bindings to test out colour combinations, this one is number 55 in my collection.

A piece of tracing paper with the design on was stuck on top of the pared leather at one side so it could be lifted up and down. The onlays were picked up with fine tweezers, PVA glue applied to the reverse and then they were stuck down in place using the tracing paper template as a guide for placement.

The sample board was then backpared on the reverse before being embroidered.

The completed sample board was an excellent match for the title page so I was very pleased.

Jumping ahead, but still on the subject of the sample board, the above picture shows the reverse of the board illustrating the endpapers and the doublures alongside the title page and the paste downs. Please read the next blog post for how the endpapers and doublures were created!

OPEN BOOK NEXT TO BOX (ABOVE)

It is always a wonderful feeling when a book is complete. However long it has taken from beginning to end, there is always a sense of achievement. The work doesn’t stop there though, it needed to be photographed and I still had my blog post to write about it. 

It turns out that this blog post has been rather a long one! The fact that it is such an interesting project to have worked on with the recreation of such an spectacular original and all the background research that Kitty Maryatt put in to realising it, alongside the point that I had never worked on this structure of binding before, and also the editing of such a lot of images and stages to write about has turned this in to a five part post.

The book is also on my website here.

OPEN BOOK COVERS (BELOW)

But what do the covers read? I took text from near the beginning of the poem for the back cover:

I was in my adolescence at the time
Scarcely sixteen and already I no longer remembered my childhood
I was 16,000 leagues from my birthplace
I was in Moscow, in the city of a thousand and three belfries and seven railroad stations
And they weren’t enough for me, the seven railroad stations and the thousand and three towers
For my adolescence was so blazing and so mad
That my heart burned in turns as the temple of Epheseus, or as Red Square in Moscow
When the sun sinks.
And my eyes shone upon the ancient routes
And I was already such a bad poet
That I didn’t know how to go all the way to the end.
.
The Kremlin was like an immense Tatar cake
Crusted with gold,
With great almonds of cathedrals all done in white
And the honeyed gold of the bells…
.
An old monk was reading to me the legend of Novgorod
I was thirsty
And I was deciphering…

And for the front cover, a section towards the end. This was a rather apt section of text to choose given it included the words “rouge”, “vert”, “multicolores”, “jaune” and “d’or” - how appropriate for a colourful book!

O Paris
Large glowing hearth with the crossed pokers of your streets and your old homes that hunch over warming themselves
Like forefathers
And here are the posters, red and green multicoloured as my brief yellow past
Yellow the proud colour of French novels sold abroad.
.
I love to squeeze into moving buses in big cities
Those of the Saint-Germain-Montmartre line bring me to the assault of the Hill
The motors bellow like golden bulls
The bovine twilight grazes the Sacre Cœur
O Paris
Central station last stop of desire crossroads of unrest
Only the merchants of colour still have a little bit of light on their doors
The “International Company of Sleeping Cars and Europeans Express Trains” has sent me their brochure
It is the most beautiful church in the world

OPEN BOOK IN FRONT OF OPEN BOX (BELOW)

FRONT COVER AND TEXT BLOCK EDGE (BELOW)

Although in the original, due to how the text block was folded, neither the text or the imagery could be seen until the book was completely unfolded, this was not the case for my binding. I was really thrilled once it was finished to see how well the coloured stitching harmonised with the strips of colour on the folded edges of the pages.

DETAIL OF BOOK ON TOP OF BOX (BELOW)

BOX LID (BELOW)

I really liked the fact that the box remained so simple, with just the title added on the top. I didn’t want to take away from the intricate a coloured embroidery of the cover that popped out as you opened the lid.

BLAISE CENDRARS SIGNATURE INSIDE SPINE (BELOW)

Blaise Cendrar’s signature was placed so that it would be a little added extra surprise as the book was opened. With embroidering it inside the spine it is hidden behind the concertina when the book is closed.

DETAIL OF OPEN CONCERTINA

The wonderful colours of the pochoir spill out as the concertina is unfolded. I was really pleased with how well the pochoir-covered end-caps worked as an extra design element of the binding.

SPINE TITLE (BELOW)

The title was embroidered, thankfully without any spelling mistakes (see below for details of my near disaster!).

EMBROIDERY DETAIL (BELOW)

From pink, to yellow, to green, to red, to blue and on and on, this truly was a book of multicolour.

THE OUTER BOX (BELOW)

The wooden box I had made was further housed in an outer conservation box. This was partly to protect it, and also so that the small accompanying concertina pamphlet that Kitty Maryatt had produced explaining about the project could live with the binding. This little booklet had a section made for it in the outer box so it could sit below the wooden box.

THE SAMPLE BOARD/BOOK

I have made reference in previous parts of this blog post to the sample board/book that I worked on ahead of the actual binding, I finish with some photos of this. I chose a darker blue goatskin for this spine with gold thread to embroider the title, this changed on the actual binding as I felt the dark blue didn’t match the pochoir.

I didn’t have quite enough vellum to cover the back board entirely so I pieced two bits together and masked the joint with a strip of the leftover pochoir.

SAMPLE BOARD/BOOK COVER EMBROIDERY

I embroidered the sample with writing at and angle, however decided to change this on the actual binding working horizontally. Thankfully, I had asked in advance whether it was okay to post images of some of my work in progress online whilst working on this project, both Kitty Maryatt and Neale Albert agreed. I was very pleased that this was the case as a French friend of mine spotted a spelling error on the sample book! Rather than “La Prose de Transsbérien”, it should have been “La Prose du Transsbérien”, another good reason for doing sample boards I guess - phew!

THE OPEN CONCERTINA OF THE SAMPLE BOARD/BOOK

The book was made so that when closed, the width and height were the same dimensions as my sample boards. Although of course it is thicker than a sample board, it can still sit in the same box as them in a wider slot.

This mini book is also going to have a second purpose, I have been meaning for a long while to make an index for my sample boards. Given this bookis a sample board, and will therefore be in the box with them, I intend to use it’s pages to index all the other boards.

SAMPLE BOARD CONCERTINA PAGES

The front and back doublures of the sample book are different colours, initially I thought I would go for red doublures but in the end opted for pale blue to match the first spread of the concertina when opened.

BLAISE CENDRARS SIGNATURE ON INNER SPINE

Blaise Cendrar’s signature also appears on the sample book in red thread. This is sample number 54 in my ever-growing series.

The completed binding is now safely in New York. It is due to be shipped on to San Francisco to take part in the following exhibition alongside some other absolutely wonderful bindings of La Prose by other binders.

EXHIBITION at the San Francisco Center for the Book
TITLE: Drop Dead Gorgeous: Fine Bindings of La Prose du Transsibérien Re-creation
DATES: September 6 to October 6, 2019
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, September 6, 2019, 6:00–8:00 pm
LOCATION: San Francisco Center for the Book, 375 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco, CA.

The remarkable book by poet Blaise Cendrars and artist Sonia Delaunay, La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France, was produced by letterpress and pochoir in 1913. It was a landmark achievement for its time with its unprecedented format, avant-garde typography and abstract imagery, and remains vibrant and modern today.

Kitty Maryatt of Two Hands Press has been researching the production of La Prose du Transsibérien since 2012. In 2018, she debuted a new edition of 150 copies, which faithfully incorporates techniques and methods used in the original. At the same time, Maryatt and her underwriters commissioned fine bindings by notable design binders from around the world. These bindings, along with Maryatt’s La Prose du Transsibérien Re-Creation, have resulted in a traveling exhibition titled Drop Dead Gorgeous: Fine Bindings of La Prose du Transsibérien Re-creation.

Debuting in San Francisco, the exhibition will feature the work of twenty-two design binders, including Don Glaister, Monique Lallier, Midori Kunikata-Cockram and Kathy Abbott. Tools, materials, and supplemental material used in the creation of Maryatt’s edition of La Prose will also be on display. Upon closing in San Francisco in October, the exhibition travels to additional venues in the United States, Canada and England.

DOCUMENTARY SHOWING
TITLE: The Re-creation of a Masterpiece: La Prose du Transsibérien. Documentary by Rosylyn Rhee. Los Angeles, 2019.
DATE: Friday, October 4, 2019, 6:00–8:00 pm
LOCATION: San Francisco Center for the Book, 375 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco, CA.

The day I completed the embroidery was a great feeling, but the next stage was getting the vellum stuck down onto the boards which was rather daunting. I always like to capture a photo of the reverse of the covering material before I stick it down, as it tells a story of how the front came to be, in some ways it is more interesting than what is on the surface!

I had experimented with gluing the vellum to stick to the sample book so I knew that the best adhesive was going to be a mixture of PVA glue and paste. I mixed this up in my roller tray and used a roller to apply it (I would usually use a paste brush for pasting out leather, but I found that it was best to use a roller for the vellum). The turn-ins were given a bit more PVA before turning them around the edges of the boards. The whole thing was lightly pressed under a weight and left to dry - I regularly changed the blotting papers to draw the moisture out.

I was really thrilled to see once dry that the vellum had gone down well. I gave it a good extra rub down through silicone release paper just to level out the embroidery threads.

Once the vellum on the cover was dry it was time to work on the inside of the boards. First I infilled with a layer of card, the same thickness as that of the vellum turn-ins. On top of this I glued down a layer of Zerkall, cut just slightly smaller than the overall size of the boards.

Once this was glued down in place, I sanded the Zerkall completely flat, so that there were no lumps and bumps.

Finally, one this was totally flat, I was able to glue down the paper doublure. I chose a colour to match the text block and this was glued down in place with PVA and a roller.

During the process of trimming the pages at the beginning of the project, there were a few off-cuts of paper left over with a little of the pochoir on them. I kept these not knowing whether I would find a use for them. 

As the folded concertina wasn’t perfectly square on all four edges (it was seemingly impossible to get it so!), plus with this method of binding there was no need for sewn headbands, I decided to add some of my own. This would neaten up the look of the head and tail of the book and would add some more detail.

I began by cutting two small sections of square profile tulipwood to the width of the inner spine. 

These were then mitred at both ends and paired together with the pochoir offcuts.

I delaminated the paper so that it was thinner, and covered the tulip wood in the coloured paper. I am now referring to these as “end-caps”.

I drilled two holes in both the end-caps and glued two brass pins in place. Corresponding holes were also drilled at the top and bottom of the inside of the spine, and the end-caps were secured in place. 

At this point, I also glued the concertina into the case by tipping the tab that was left at the end of the folded concertina directly into the front board of the case, so that when positioned the pages were square.

So the book was complete! Now time to move onto the box. I commissioned a wonderful woodworker to make a tulipwood box for me to the following dimensions.

I wanted the title on the front of the box, and to carry the theme along I decided to embroider this onto the box lid. I used a bodkin to mark holes into the surface of the wood through a template, and then used a very fine drill bit in my Dremel to drill through the box lid.

I then used a fine needle and embroidered the title onto the lid in the same way i had done all of the words on the cover, first with a running stitch and then a whipping stitch. It was more difficult to do the whipping on the box top as there was no flexibility in the wood so I had a bit of trouble weaving the needle under the running stitch in places but I got there in the end.

To add a bit of extra colour to the title, I punched out some small circles from the leftover pochoir paper. I also cut a thin circle of wood out of the box top using my Japanese centre punch and then these paper circles were glued into them.

The thread tails were glued down on the inside of the lid. I then lined the inside of the lid and base of the box with felt which absorbed the threads underneath, the sides were lined with matching paper. A ribbon was attached into the bottom of the box to help lift the book out.

The final blog post shows the completed binding, plus images of the sample board/book I made up to test the process out on, “La Prose Part Five: Finished Binding”.

I marked out the size of the boards on to the back of the vellum. As I didn’t want a cut edge to be visible on the edge of the vellum that would be overlapping the spine leather on the cover, I folded an edge over by about 5mm and glued it down. The plan was to butt this folded edge up with the top paper lamination that was glued to the outside of each of the cover so once glued down this would be flush.

Initially I secured the vellum, face-down, onto a piece of Plaztazote foam, I then pinned the tracing paper template down on top of it in the correct place and pricked through hundreds and hundreds of holes at regular small intervals along the flow of the writing.

The great thing about using the vellum was as it was a lot thinner and stiffer than leather, the pricked holes were really visible once I had made them. 

The next arduous task was to remove the tracing paper template and join together the dots making up the the words in reverse (obviously working back to front as this was on the back of the leather - very confusing!) so I knew which direction my embroidered threads needed to go.

The plan from the beginning with the embroidery was to use threads that matched the colours of the pochoir as closely as possible. Having matched these and made a chart on a photocopy the time had come to start the the embroidery process.

Didn’t however just want to use a random selection of the colours for each of the words. I therefore laid down the tracing paper template on top of the actual pochoir, with a layer of glass on top, and worked directly from the colours on this.

I chose different parts of the pochoir the front and back to get the best mix of colours possible.

And so the embroidery could begin! I got comfy and spent the best part of two weeks sewing all of the words in place. I must admit, I did start to wonder why I had set myself such a mammoth task as the hours clocked up…

I made a paper sheath to hold the vellum is as I was working on it. As the pieces were so long and thin I didn’t want the end I wasn’t working on to get dirty or marked in any way. This was held in place using a small bulldog clip.

With lots of stitches on the front, of course this results in lots of loose threads on the back. I periodically went along and trimmed these tails and glued them down to the reverse with PVA.

I worked in a few sentences at a time, having the correct colour threads available to me to quickly interchange colours.

I even stole away some time on a weekend away to do some more sewing: embroidery on tour! Obviously I wasn’t actually driving at the time of taking this photograph…

Each word was initially built up by joining the holes with a running stitch, using one strand of embroidery thread. Once the outline of the word was complete I then went around each of the running stitches with a whipping stitch, two strands in thickness. 

So eventually all of the words were made up with a whipped running stitch. The needle creating the whipped running stitch did not enter the vellum at all, apart from where it started and finished at the beginning of a word.

Some sections of the text were more complicated than others, requiring numerous colour thread changes. Whereas some I had quite a bit to do just on one colour. It was more time consuming having the change the threads regularly.

I mentioned previously that I had turned over the cut edge of the vellum. On both the front and back covers, some of the words were placed that they were to be sewn on top of this double thickness. To avoid bulk on the back, I carefully cut away some small channels in the turned over vellum, where the stitches were going to fall on the back, in order to absorb the threads so that this would lie flush once glued to the text block.

I employed a couple of different methods of securing the loose threads down to the reverse of the vellum. Once I had finished with a colour, if there were suitable threads to go through on the reverse, I pushed a needle through behind them, thus securing the tail of the thread and I could cut it off.

This image shows the completed back embroidery, but with all of the front still to go…!

I mainly used Gutermann 100% polyester threads as they gave me the best colour matches. I am really lucky that in the town I live in (Shepton Mallet in Somerset, UK), there is still a haberdashery shop - they are so few and far between these days. It was absolutely key with this project to be able to see the threads in person before buying, matching the colours and buying threads online would have been much more difficult. I carefully packaged up my folded La Prose concertina at the start of the project and walked the ten minutes into town with it, into the haberdashery shop, to see first hand what colours I needed.

When it came to “dotting all the i’s”, I used two strands of thread. I pushed the needle through from the back and tied it into a loop.

Using the end of my needle pricker, with the very point of the needle placed in the centre of the loop thread against the hole in the vellum, I pulled the knot tight. In doing it like this, the knot tightens down the length of the needle pricker tight to the surface of the vellum creating a neat knot.

The needle was then pushed back though the vellum, through the same hole that it came out of. As the knot had been tied and there was extra bulk in the thread it wouldn’t pull back through.

The second method I employed for securing down the thread ends is pictured here. I cut the tail of the threads short and then frayed out the end using my needle pricker. This was then glued down with PVA and rubbed with a teflon folder. The whole way through the process I was aware that I wanted to create as little bulk of thread on the back as possible. As the vellum was so thin in comparison to standard leather I would use for a fine binding, any threads on the back were going to be partly visible and not as absorbed as much into the covering material.

After two weeks of embroidery, the end was nigh!

And then I was down to just one word, made up of 43 holes, 42 running stitches, and 21 whipped stitches…I could se the light at the end of this very long embroidery tunnel.

I didn’t count the number of words on the front and back cover, or try and calculate the number of stitches I made, but it would most certainly be in the hundreds of thousands!

The next part of the blog is “La Prose Part Four: Book Covering” and it details how I got the vellum onto the boards.

With this binding came a number of challenges. Having overcome the gluing and folding of the beautifully printed sheets, how was I actually gong to bind them? I had never bound a concertina book before so this was going to be a first.

From the very beginning my thought was to create a false round spine which I would attach the boards to and the concertina would be attached inside it somehow. I wasn’t able to tell how the Paul Bonet version had been bound from the image I had seen but guessed this would have been done using a similar approach. 

For each of the fine bindings I do I work on a sample board beforehand to test out ideas, colours, threads etc. For this binding, given I was unsure of the binding structure too I decided I make a mini version of the binding, the size of my usual sample boards. Photos of that will appear at the end of the run of these blog posts but that is what I used to test out the binding method of the full-size book.

I started off with a half-round wooden dowel, the dowel was 15mm across but I needed to build this up to 20mm across to allow for the thickness of all the folded pages, plus a bit extra. I stuck the flat edge of the wooden dowel to the edge of a pressing board with double sided tape (so I could remove it again!) and put the board into a laying press. I cut a piece of 300gsm watercolour paper to size, glued it up and then positioned it on the round of the wooden dowel. I held it in place by covering it in a layer of silicone release paper and holding this down using a series of bulldog clips (pictured above).

This was repeated five times, and then I glued a layer of Aerolinen on top (slightly shorter than the length of the spine) followed by a piece of Zerkall.

Once dry I sanded the spine to get rid of any lumps and bumps. I had already laminated up the boards using two layers of 1mm Gemini board, with a layer of archival Kraft on the inside. Further laminations were to be glued on the outside of the boards once I had joined the spine piece to them.

I glued the Aerolinen to the boards with an equal space at the front and back to allow for the leather joints to be stuck in at a later stage. The boards were then lined on the outside with a layer of card to the same thickness as the Aerolinen.

The end of the false spine was “capped” with a piece of Zerkall cut to the same shape.

Once the book cover had reached this stage I was able to work on covering the spine with leather. I pared some blue Harmatan goatskin to about 0.4mm in thickness and thinned the leather more along where the board joints were going to be. 

As I knew the covers were going to be entirely embroidered, I wanted to also embroider the title on the spine too. I made a pricking template of the book title and laid this down in reverse on the back of the spine leather centrally. I pricked through with a needle pricker and then joined the dots so I had lines to work from with the embroidery.

I laid the title writing down over one section of the pochoir colours and worked my way along changing the thread colour at the point where the pochoir colour also changed.

It resulted in a multicoloured title on the spine. The stitches were each done using a running stitch. Once the word was complete I ran around each of the individual stitches with a whipping stitch to make them cleaner and sharper.

Once this embroidery was complete it was time to stick the leather to the spine. I thinned out the very ends of the leather that were going to be turned over the spine ends, applied a mix of paste and PVA and then stuck the leather down. I had scrap boards of the right thickness held in between the front and back boards to keep them perpendicular to one another during the covering process.

The leather was then turned down onto the spine ends (I cut out some wedges of the leather first to rid some of the bulk) and inside the boards. Once dry I filled in the semi-circular void with a small piece of leather of the same thickness and sanded the whole lot flat. This was then capped with a thinly pared piece of the same blue leather.

The inside of the spine received similar treatment. I wanted to incorporate a left-handed signature I had found of Blaise Cendrar’s so decided to embroider this on the piece of leather that was going to cover the inside of the spine - a little surprise to find when opening up the final binding! This was embroidered in metallic gold thread. This was pricked through the leather in the same way as the spine title.

The edges of this strip of leather were pared very thin so that when the piece was stuck down the edges formed a thin layer of leather over the inside board joints.

A piece of watercolour paper was butted up to the edge of the spine leather and a piece stuck to the front and back boards. The watercolour paper and the leather were the same thickness resulting in a uniform thickness across the joint that they met.

Some thinner layers of card were then stuck on top of this, overlapping the joint of the leather and the watercolour paper underneath by about 5mm. 

As layers started to get stuck together I thought it was important to make a diagram of what was going on within the laminations, in order to remember in case I wanted to repeat the process again!

I had left the width of the boards over-long just to be on the safe side. Once the spine was covered in leather it was possible to put the folded concertina in place to find out where I needed to trim the boards to to get an even square.

Finally, the boards were bevelled using a palm sander and then some sandpaper around a wooden block. The below image shows the difference in the thickness of the edges of the boards before and after the bevelling process. The thinner sanded edges on the left look more refined than the chunky ones on the right.

I wasn’t sure what material to use for covering the boards at first. Initially I thought I would like to use suede, however when I tried to embroider the words onto this it wasn’t very clear to see as the texture of the surface was too fluffy.

I had a lovely small vellum skin that I bought at the Society of Bookbinders Conference about 10 years ago that had been sat in my plan chest since then. It turned out to be the perfect size for this binding, plus it was very clear to see the embroidered writing and the prick-holes I made through the template were clearly visible on the surface. My only reservation was I had never used vellum before, I had no idea how it was going to react when glued but there is a first time for everything and that is what the sample board/book was for - to test unknowns like this out!

Once I had identified the covering material, I took a photocopy of part of the pochoir and cut small lengths of the appropriate coloured threads I had found/bought to make sure I had a corresponding one for each colour. I cut a little off the end of each reel and stuck to the photocopy.

The next blog post will explain how I got the below writing templates onto the vellum covering material and I will take you through the colourful embroidery process. The next post is titled “La Prose Part Three: Embroidery”.

What an exciting project I have been involved in through my most recent bookbinding commission: the recreation of La Prose du Transsbérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France -the remarkable book by poet Blaise Cendrars and artist Sonia Delaunay. Sonia and Blaise first met in January of 1913 and formed an instant friendship, producing this book by letterpress and pochoir in 1913. The original book was a landmark achievement for its time and remains vibrant and modern today. 

The recreation project was conceived by Kitty Maryatt, the proprietor of Two Hands Press in Playa Vista, California since 1974. In 2017 she decided to publish the recreation with the help of underwriters. Kitty has created a blog of her own documenting her journey through the process of recreating 150 editions as closely as possible to the original book by using letterpress and pochoir. Her blog is totally fascinating can be found here. It is thanks to this blog, plus some additional information that was printed to be housed with the completed book, that I am able to pass on so much information about this latest binding of mine.

The image above shows the binding made by Paul Bonet between 1963-64, sold by Christie’s in Paris on April 29, 2004 for 350,000 Euros. Sonia and Blaise had planned on making 150 copies however this was not completed.

“Was the primary reason for the incomplete edition the excessive length of time it might take to complete the pochoir process, assuming that the pochoir was the final procedure before binding? Did World War I intervene? Were there exhibits of the book, any reviews, any publicity at all? Were the sales disappointing? Did they run out of money?”

The actual number remains unknown, 74 have been identified but the list of these has never been published.

“The edition numbering system Blaise Cendrars used is somewhat random, indicating that the edition numbers were not written on the copies when they were first made. For example, there are two copies numbered 47, two numbered 111, and two numbered 139. Many copies do not have an edition number. There is a copy numbered 1 and one numbered 150.”

The La Prose of 1913 was printed on three materials: vellum, Japon and simile Japon, they stuck to the typical formula of publishing a deluxe edition and regular edition. Japon in one of many Japanese papers sold by the Japan Paper Company; simili Japon is made with Western fibres, also sold by the Japan Paper Company. The Paul Bonet binding is one of the vellum editions.

The below image shows Kitty’s recreation (right) alongside an original copy at The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA (left). This is #124, glued and folded into 21 panels, inscribed to Archipenko, the vellum cover is not attached.

“The book itself is captivating with its colorful and painterly pochoir (French-style stencil), so unlike stenciled copies of artwork at the time. The colors seep from the painted side into the poem on the other side.”

Kitty wanted to recreate the pochoir methods as closely as possible to the original using pommes (short, wide brushes) and metal stencil plates. Pochoir is a refined stencil-based technique employed to create prints or to add colour to pre-existing prints. It was most popular from the late 19th century through the 1930’s with its center of activity in Paris. Numerous stencils were designed as a means of reproducing an image. (Photo courtesy of Kitty Maryatt)

My copy was one of two that Neale Albert (New York) had underwritten and commissioned. When I received my copy of the sheets in the post (#58 0f 150) they came with three different instruction sheets of how the pages could be folded - it was rather daunting! 

The long vertical format of the book was an unprecedented choice for a book of the period: 

“The Trans-Siberian Railroad was begun in 1890 when Blaise Cendrars was only three years old, but it was highlighted at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris that he attended with his family. The entire series of railroad lines weren’t actually completed until three years after La Prose du Transsbérien was published. In the book, Blaise included a map of the journey from Moscow to Vlasivostok, which gives us a clue as to the distinctive folding scheme of the book. I’ve found tourist maps of Paris for the period similarly folded, in half first, and then in accordion – folded flat and glued to the cover. In the case of La Prose, as you open the book, you can’t actually see anything in the book, neither the text nor the imagery, until the book is completely unfolded.”

It was up to me to choose which format I wished to use having been instructed that there was no set way of binding the book, so total creative freedom! Along with the written instructions, Kitty also sent all binders images of the folding and gluing process - crucial information to have before proceeding. There were three ways of folding the concertina, either like the original (left hand format), long and thin like the Paul Bonet binding (middle format) or double width (right hand format). (Photo courtesy of Kitty Maryatt)

The 1913 edition book covers were painted in oils by Sonia Delaunay, some covers had a snap, which made the book resemble a purse. Kitty’s version of La Prose is bound with vellum covers however she used acrylic paint to decorate the cover as she found that the oils yellowed the vellum. The book is housed in an acrylic slipcase and is pictured below. (Photo courtesy of Kitty Maryatt)

So, the time had come to trim and stick all of my sheets together! 

The first step was to cut all four pages to size. I am used to working in cm, I have almost never used inches, so the fact that all of the instructions were in imperial took extra brain power - I never even glance at the other side of the ruler!

The first step was to measure 7 1/18 inches from the centre fold mark at the top and bottom and to cut off one vertical side. 

The next was to cut off the other vertical side so that the width of the page was 14 1/14 inches and the two sides were parallel.

Next I had to cut off one inch at the top of page one, and to trim the top of pages 2 to 4 at the printed mark on the right side just above the first line of type. The bottoms of each page then had to be cut to meet the following lengths: Page 1 - 21.75 inches, Page 2 - 20.25 inches, Page 3 - 19.875 inches and Page 4 - 19.5 inches.

I was then able to proceed with gluing all four sheets together. I soon found I didn’t have a long enough table to work on but managed to get around that by moving two next to each other! The cut edges of the sheet were not thinned or pared in any way, they were stuck together at full thickness (the same as with the original binding).

Pages one and two were lined up along their edges, overlapping by ¾ inch. Each page was glued to about ½ inch in, so that when overlapped all of the paper overlap was covered in glue. The reverse of the upper page was glued, then the front of the lower page before being combined.

A weight was applied to the glued joint afterwards and I waited for it to dry before moving on to gluing the next joints. The instructions stated:

“Note that the images don’t line up completely at the joints. I copied the original exactly. Why did they do that? It’s odd from our perspective. The outside lines should line up pretty well if you cut to size carefully.”

Once all four sheets were glued together is was time to start folding. Her the instructions did actually switch to being in centimetres!

“Folding: I use a jig of board cut to 197mm. I place the board on to the paper at the bottom edge, blank side up, place the ruler next to the left side of the board, remove the board, and score the paper 197mm from the bottom edge, and fold up. The next fold is 197mm from the first fold, I score on the blank side and reverse the fold (or you can flip the book if you wish). Continue until you get to the top, where you will have a tab left for attaching to your binding, if you wish.”

These folding instructions left me with a text block to the largest format possible. I deliberated for a long while whether to keep it at this size, but in the end took the plunge and did an additional fold in each section to give me a text block that was half the width, so the same format as that of the Paul Bonet binding.

Once I had the text block size it was time to start designing the cover. I knew that I wanted to use embroidery, as I always do, so set about making sure I had threads to match all of the wonderful pochoir colours.

I decided to do some research into Blaise Cendrars. Blaise Cendrars was the pen-name for Fréderic Louis Sauser - a play on Braise (ember) and Cendres (ash). He was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalised French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European modernist movement.

His writing career was interrupted by World War I, he was sent to the front line in the Somme from mid-December 1914 until February 1915. It was during the attacks in Champagne in September 1915 that Cendrars lost his right arm and was discharged from the army.

As he was right-handed, he had to learn how to write with his left hand following the war. I decided to try and find handwriting examples of his from before and after he lost his right arm which was possible online. It would have been wishful thinking to find a handwritten transcript of La Prose, however I did find some good examples of both his left and right handwriting on other documents.

What I decided to do was to transcribe parts of the poem in each of these handwriting styles to use on the front and back of the book. I used a typed print out of the poem to refer to and found example of whole words (if possible), or individual letters, from the documents I had found, and pieced these together to try and reflect the writing style of before and after the loss of his arm - the left hand writing was more haphazard and scribbly-looking. What I couldn’t work out at first though was which should go on which cover! 

I put the question to some family and friends and got some great feedback. What I hadn’t thought about before was that if I did the “before” handwriting on the front and the “after” handwriting on the back, when the book was opened up or laid flat I would have the writing on the sides which naturally correspond to the hands which were used - the decision was made.

So the “after” left handwriting became the design for the back board, and I took wording from the beginning of the poem.

And the “before” right handwriting became the design for the back board, and I took wording from towards the end of the poem.

It took a few attempts to get it to the right width for the boards, and to get enough words on so that the front and back covers started and ended at the same heights. For each of the covers I photocopied the writing onto tracing paper templates so I had a master copy to work from.

During the period of time I was working on this binding I made a trip to London to see the British Library’s exhibition entitled, Writing: Making Your Mark. 

“Writing: Making Your Mark is a landmark British Library exhibition, which spans 5,000 years across the globe, exploring one of humankind’s greatest achievements – the act of writing. From carved stone inscriptions, medieval manuscripts and early printed works to beautiful calligraphy, iconic fonts and emojis, Writing: Making Your Mark (26 April – 27 August 2019) will deconstruct the act of writing and consider its future in the digital age.”

What a timely exhibition to be on whilst I was making my own mark with the handwriting of Blaise Cendrars. 

“People first created writing 5000 years ago, its invention revolutionised society. Writing began in a number of locations around the world, at different times and for different reasons. People developed it to communicate across time and space, carrying it with them as they traded, migrated and conquered.”

It is amazing to think that writing and technology have often developed hand in hand. What began as inscribed patterns on bones thousands of years ago has somehow led to me sitting at my computer typing away at this blog on a keyboard. I hope I have done Blaise Cendrar’s two versions of handwriting justice in my binding! 

In August 2015 Kitty identified thirty-eight distinct typefaces used in La Prose. 

“Blaise Cendrars printed La Prose at Imprimerie Crété in Corbeil, France because he was already in the process of printing his second book, Séquences, at Crété in early 1913. The poem is four hundred and forty-five lines long. In a brilliant and groundbreaking master stroke, Blaise decided to select dozens of typefaces for the poem.” 

She was convinced that Blaise did not walk along the hundreds of type cabinets at Crété impulsively selecting type: Crété certainly would have had an in-house type catalogue to view the available typefaces.

The next blog post will go through the choices I made when it came to binding such a book, “La Prose Part Two: Structure”.

Not only do you have to be a bookbinder when you are a bookbinder, but also a graphic designer, craftsperson, leatherworker, printmaker, carpenter, jeweller, photographer and of course a miracle-maker!! My latest commission is finished and one more book has left the studio and is now happily with its new owner. Fortunately I didn’t have to trust the postal service for this one and was able to hand deliver it.

“Bridges on the Backs” was completed at the end of March. The book was printed in 1961 and formed part of a series of more than 34 books that were published by Brooke Crutchley at The University of Cambridge in between 1930 and 1958 as part of “A Printer’s Christmas Books” - the printing of these was the University Printer’s continued custom of giving a book to friends of the press at Christmas. The series was started by Walter Lewis and Stanley Morison in 1930. Brooke Crutchley was the University printer at Cambridge and oversaw the production of the Christmas Book series from its inception 1930 until its discontinuation in 1973. He gave a talk at St. Bride Printing Library in December 1975 at the opening of an exhibition of the Christmas books which ran from 10 December 1975 to 30 January 1976.

The book is a first edition, one of 500 copies printed in Monotype Times Wide on Spicer’s cartridge paper. Illustrated with 9 drawings, touched with colour, by David Gentleman, with another on the front endpaper and title-page. The original binding was a green canvas portfolio binding, lettered in gilt.

In the words of Brooke Crutchley, `”Bridges on the Backs is unique - it opens like a lady’s handbag; unique in other ways too and, I think, my favourite of the larger books, perhaps of them all. David Gentleman’s drawings are delightfully reminiscent of youthful Cambridge in summertime. Peter Eden in his text and captions carries his erudition with consummate grace, and the overlapping illustrations, a la Humphrey Repton, never fail to surprise.”

The nine illustrated drawings depict all the nine Bridges on The Backs, a picturesque area to the east of Queen’s Road in the city of Cambridge, England where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back onto the River Cam. The name “The Backs” refers to the backs of the colleges. Historically, much of the land was used by the colleges for grazing livestock or growing fruit. Cattle can still be found grazing behind King’s College. The river was also an important commercial thoroughfare to the mill at Silver Street.

I wanted all of the bridges to appear in the binding and box in some way. I began by looking at images of each of the bridges online (unfortunately time didn’t permit me to visit Cambridge in person as I would have liked to do). The bridges are as follows: 

Great Bridge (now known as “Magdalene Bridge”)

St Johns New Bridge (otherwise known as The Bridge of Sighs)

St Johns Old Bridge 

Trinity College Bridge

The beautiful bridge which crosses the River Cam at Trinity College dates from 1764 and was built by James Essex, a builder and architect who worked at many of the Cambridge colleges. It replaced a stone bridge built in 1651.

Garret Hostel Bridge

Clare Bridge

Kings College Bridge

Queens Bridge (otherwise known at the “Mathematical Bridge)

Silver Street Bridge

The Silver Street bridge, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1932 built in 1958-9, it is an arch bridge that carries both vehicular and pedestrian traffic across the River Cam in Cambridge. It is a site of bridges dating back to the 14th century.

I had never bound a book in this format before, with the spine edge at the top of the text block - this led to some interesting design challenges. Because the book was an unusual structure, and the illustrated pages had additional flaps revealing how the bridges looked in previous incarnations behind each one, I wanted to make sure that the pages would open well to facilitate the opening of these flaps.  I therefore chose to bind this as a stub binding.

I chose papers to match the colours and tones of the illustrated drawings: grey and mustard yellow. As there was more bulk at the front edge of the book due to the tipped in flaps I had to compensate for this at the spine. I folded up stubs for each of the sections but also had extras in between these to make up for the difference in thickness. Initially the stubs were sewn to their relevant sections using linen thread.

These stubs were then sewn together onto four tapes to create the text block. 

Once the text block was sewn up I started to work on my ideas for the cover design, endpapers and doublures. For each of my bindings I make a small sample board to test out ideas ahead of making the actual binding.

I looked at images of all the bridges, for the endpapers and doublures I wanted to “mirror” two bridges on each, so I paired up the bridges that best matched each other - for example Clare Bridge and St John’s Old Bridge each had three arches, and Silver Street Bridge and Kings College Bridge had one each so they were natural choices to go with one another.

I drew line drawings of these bridges and then cut the silhouette of each out of paper that I had textured using a roller with black ink on top of a textured surface.

Further detail was added to these papers through the application of suede onlays, black paper cut-outs (for the pillars) and gold leaf that had been adhered to Japanese paper. In the below picture you see part of the doublure for the sample board being made. 

Lines were also embroidered through the paper. These holes were pre-pricked with a needle pricker through the front and then carefully embroidered using a running stitch. Care must always be taken when embroidering paper as it is prone to tearing. The thread was then whipped around with an additional thread on the front face of the doublure.

Once I had worked out which bridges to put on the endpapers and doublures I was able to choose which to have on the front and back covers of the binding. This was a binding of two halves, more so than any other I have ever done. The different format of this text block meant that the front and the back cover played different parts in the design, therefore I chose the two most contrasting bridges for on the front and back covers: St John’s New Bridge (The Bridge of Sighs) and The Great Bridge.

I thought that the Great Brdge would work well with the gold on black against the more ornate look The Bridge of Sighs. I started by using my light box to help draw the outline of the bridges.

I then pieced these together into a full cover design. At the time of drawing this design I wasn’t sure if I might want to join up the front and back covers across the spine in some way. With this in mind I scaled up the front and back images so that the lines of each, if carried across the spine, would meet with each other. 

For the sample board I chose to trial the Bridge of Sighs part of the design. This particular bridge was built in 1831 and it named after the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. The design was built up using a variety of leather onlays, machine embroidery, hand embroidery and also onlays made by sticking gold leaf to Japanese paper.

This sample board is number 52 in my series.

Back to the text block, the endpapers were made up by laminating the illustrated bridge paper sheet to a plain bi-folded sheet, capturing a long, thinly pared, piece of leather (0.4mm) between the sheets at the edge - this would later get stuck down and become the leather joint. 

A waste sheet and compensation guard were also added this endpaper unit to protect the endpapers during the rest of the forwarding and covering process. This endpaper could then be sewn to the text block.

The book block was then rounded with a backing hammer. I drew the thickness of the boards onto the outer waste sheet, plus a little extra (as seen below indicated by the thin black pen line). I then placed the book block into my backing boards to this line in order to make sure the shoulders were made at the correct place to allow the boards to sit perfectly within them. 

The top and bottom text block edges were then sanded flat, and the foredge sanded into a round by wrapping some sandpaper around a piece of dowel of the correct diameter. Double-core end bands were sewn, the boards attached and bevelled at the edges. I was then ready to proceed with the leather work!

Given my choice of using two contrasting bridges on the cover design, this meant that I needed to scarf-joint two contrasting leathers together: black goat skin for The Great Bridge and fair calf for The Bridge of Sighs.

Onlays, and plenty of them! I don’t like to throw anything away so even the edge parings that come off the back of the leather after running it through my Brockman paring machine get kept. I back them into lens tissue and use them as onlays - it gives a whole new colour palette in addition to conventional onlays.

This book mainly used greens and greys, I adapted the colours I had used on the sample board (one reason i do the sample boards - to test colours out in advance!). I cut all of the shapes out using a scalpel and fine scissors.

The onlays were glued down in place using PVA through a tracing paper template, using a ruler for extra accuracy.

I find my fine-pointed tweezers one of the most useful pieces of kit I own, perfect for picking up small pieces and getting then stuck down exactly where you need them to go!

After the onlays and backparing came the embroidery, the bit I enjoy the most! For this binding I machine-stitched the multiple linear border lines to speed up the process and then whipped over the top of them with cotton threads.

Tiny flecks of different green threads were hand-sewn to break up the colour of the green onlays beneath. 

When embroidering a large piece of leather, it is not possible to use an embroidery hoop as the leather is too thick so I coil up the leather and hold it in place with bulldog clips at the top and bottom. This makes it much easier to handle.

As well as using cotton threads I also used slightly thicker skeins for the larger patches of detail.

Plus you can’t beat a bit of metallic thread! This was embroidered over the onlays that were made from gold leaf stuck to Japanese paper.

I always love to capture what the back of the leather looks like post-embroidery, after all this won’t be seen ever again!

The same process applied to the Great Bridge side of the cover. The onlays were stuck down, back-pared and embroidered. I used a tracing paper template to prick where I needed to sew the metallic thread lines that would lie alongside the gold onlays - I was going to wait to glue these down once the book was covered (I will cover the reason for this later).

The actual Great Bridge has gold elements on a painted black behind so I naturally chose to depict these gold elements using gold leaf. The gold leaf was stuck to Japanese paper squares using PVA glue. I then cut out the required onlays and put them to one side until the book had been covered.

Because it is necessary to dampen the leather when covering the book, I decided to stick on the gold onlays after the book had been covered, to avoid damaging the gold.

So, with all of the embroidery complete it was time for covering!

The text block had been bevelled and back-cornered in preparation. The text block was capped up with paper and cling film to avoid moisture getting to the text block during the covering process.

The leather was dampened with a water atomiser ahead of pasting the back out with home made paste. The dampening was done to prevent any marks on the front of the leather due to the paste being drawn through unevenly.

The book was left to dry between blotters overnight, changing the blotters regularly to draw out the moisture. The following day I was able to open the book up and lay down the leather joints. Once these were down the back of the boards was infilled with watercolour paper, then a layer of Zerkall paper. This was then sanded flush. The surface was then ready to have the decorated paper doublures stuck down onto it. 

I then added some blind tooling detail in between the sewn lines using a hand-made finishing tools.

Plus I also added more detail using carbon tooling within the window spaces of The Bridge of Sighs.

Once the binding was dry it was also time to add the gold detail onto the Great Bridge section of the book. I first gold-tooled some circles directly onto the leather. The decorative gold onlays were then stuck down within the metallic thread lines I had sewn previously before the book was covered.

Here shows the sample board on top of the covered book - the differences in the colour of the leather onlays and sewing threads are apparent.

The final part of the tooling process was to tool each of the bridges names on a coloured leather to correspond with the appropriate part of the book or box.

A title was also carbon tooled to go onto the lid of the oak box the book was to be housed in. This was then embroidered with small flecks of different green threads, like on the book cover.

It was then time for photography! I take all of my own photos now in the conservatory of our house as the light is by far the best there than anywhere else in the house.

With a “standard” binding I would take a photo of the book with both covers open, however it doesn’t really work for this book as the orientation is wrong!

FRONT OF BOOK: St John’s New Bridge

BACK OF BOOK ALONGSIDE OAK BOX: The railings of the Great Bridge were carried over onto the spine of the book, with the ends feathered out using little carbon-tooled lines. the box was made from oak with the title strip stuck to the front.

THE HEADBANDS:

THE BOX: The box was made so that the book could sit open for display within grooves in the box lid. There are six of the nine bridges illustrated on the binding. Images of the three bridges I couldn’t fit in sit in the box creating the grooves for the book to stand upright in!

DETAIL OF THE FRONT ENDPAPERS AND DOUBURES: With rather unexpected luck, this commission was being gifted as a wedding present. The couple met at Cambridge University and so happened to be at Clare College and St John’s College respectively - the two bridges I had mirrored inside the front cover!!

To see these photos and more please visit my website here.

Spot the difference in the above! As explained in the previous post, the reason for me doing my sample boards is they are a test run ahead of working on the actual binding. In this case, I finessed the lapwing on the book by using a wider colour palette overall and also added feather outlines to the back of the bird which I felt made a huge improvement.

So, onto the covering stage of the binding process. I spritzed the front of the leather using a water spray in order to prevent stains appearing as a result of the pasting out of the reverse after covering.

The back of the leather was pasted out three times and left for the paste to soak in each time.

Thankfully the leather went on to the book well and I was able to turn in the edges and form the headcaps before leaving the book to dry for 24 hours. I regularly changed the blotting papers in order to draw out the moisture over this time.

Once completely dry I was able to open up the book boards and work on sticking the leather joints down. The leather joints had been glued into the endpaper before the book was forwarded so I took off the waste sheets that had been protecting the text block to free them.

I laid the book down on my bench with both boards open. I then cut bevels at the corners of the turns-ins and the leather joints so they would lie flush when the leather joints were glued down. I applied PVA glue to the leather joint and rubbed it down using my fingers before closing the board and letting it dry. Once dry the same was done to the other board, then the boards were infilled, sanded and the printed paper doublures were glued down.

Once the book was complete it was time to work on the wooden container I had planned to house it in. I wanted the title to appear on the lid of the box so carefully cut the letters out of the same colour leather.

Once they were cut out I backed the voids with gold leaf that I had stuck to Japanese paper (the same as I had done for the ‘highlight’ leaves on the paper doublures).

It was important to cut the letters out especially carefully as I wanted to use them to make a label for an outer conservation box I had ordered for the wooden box to live in.

The box itself was machined from tulipwood with a routed channel in the lid and base in which a decorated panel was fixed. It was lined with felt and spacers added on all four sides.

Finally, I will end with some pictures of the end result! More pictures of this binding and box can also be found on my website.

FRONT OF BOOK AND BOX:

DOUBLURES AND ENDPAPERS:

OPEN BOX, LID AND BASE:

BOX TITLE DETAIL:

SKYLARK DETAIL:

ENDBAND DETAIL:

Part three of this blog post details the embroidery I did on the British Birds binding, the bit I always enjoy the most! As described in the pervious installment, I chose to keep the background detail behind the birds to simple lines embroidered in green to match the covering leather. This was to stay in keeping with the illustrations within the book.

The drystone wall ran across the design, changing in size for perspective. The larger part of the wall was detailed with outlines of individual stones and as the wall went into the distance this changed and each stone was represented by a small French knot. 

Behind the lapwing, as shown in the previous post through the work I did on the sample board, I added sprigs of heather. 

And behind the curlew I depicted the bird walking amongst some long grasses.

Once the background detail was complete it was time to work on the birds. Firstly, the large standing curlew got the embroidery treatment. I started by building up the colour with some small stem stitches with threads in colours to match the onlay behind. 

Once these patches were blocked out with small stitches, I added some speckled detail on the head of the bird using a double length of machine cotton.

Once all of the colour block was done on the main body of the bird, I added feather outlines using a darker thread.

Within each of these outlined feathers I added further detail in the centre of each using a lazy daisy stitch.

More detail was added to the beak and legs, plus a small white French knot was sewn into the black of the bird’s eye to bring it to life!

The back of the leather showed the number of stitches that went into creating his feathery look.

The same method was applied to the flying curlew, using smaller stitches on the base and building up detail on top.

I had company in the form of a newborn baby throughout this process - thankfully at her early age she slept a lot and embroidering the leather was a pleasant task to do with a dozy baby on my lap!

As with the curlews, the lapwing had his feathers built up in the same way. Having worked on a lapwing for the sample board, and therefore having had a “test-run”, I thought of improvements to the way I should embroider the second one. I was able to add finer detail and adapt the way I used the threads a bit on the actual book leather. For example, I used a larger variety of colours and added outlines for some of the feathers on the lapwing’s back.

Metallic threads were also woven into each of the birds before completion to add a little sparkle to their feathers!

A little white thread was also added to the clouds to add a bit of textural detail to them too. And with this done the embroidery stage was complete!

COMPLETED FRONT OF LEATHER:

COMPLETED BACK OF LEATHER:

The next, and final, installment sees the leather going onto the book and the end result…

The curlews, skylark and lapwing were each broken down into block colours in order to plan out their onlays. I chose a lovely shade of green to have as the covering leather to compliment the birds and to achieve a background colour I was happy with.

For the sample board I chose to illustrate just the lapwing, so worked on two lapwing onlays simultaneously (one of the sample board and one for the book). The onlays were each cut out with a scalpel, giving each one a slight border so that it could be stuck to the next in a patchwork off the book.

The small onlays were stuck together off of the book using a tracing paper template as a guide.

Finally producing two lapwings!

One of the birds was stuck down onto the sample board leather using PVA glue. The colours were then muted down using a very thin wash of white acrylic paint. Once this had been done I was able to back-pare and then embroider the leather. 

I first worked on the background detail, in a green thread to match the colour of the leather. In the book all the full-colour illustrations of the birds were shown against a muted grey, line-drawn background so I wanted to compliment this on the cover design.

Stitches were gradually built up over the whole surface of the sample board leather including coloured stitches all over the bird to give it a more feathery look and feel.

‘Heather’ detail was also added around the lapwing.

A drystone wall was included in the design drawing (including a four-bar gate) using French knots to give the impressions of the stones. Once the embroidery was complete the leather was stuck onto the sample board with paste and the edges turned in.

A section of the printed feather paper was selected to use on the sample board. In addition to the printed feathers, a single feather made from gold leaf was also added as a highlight. This was done by cutting out the feather shape from the endpaper and then backing the void with some gold leaf that had been adhered to Japanese paper. The shaft of the feather was embroidered with thread.

Once stuck down this board became number 47 in my sample board series!

And so once I was happy with the sample board I was able to move onto working on the book itself. In the way I had laid down the lapwing onto the sample board using my tracing paper guide, I did the same for on the covering leather, rubbing it down with a Teflon folder to ensure even adhesion.

The two curlews and the skylark were also glued down in the correct positions. 

I painted some strips of suede with white acrylic paint in a mottled pattern to use for clouds. These were also cut out and laid down in place.

The whole of the leather was then back-pared on the reverse in preparation for the next stage, the embroidery. This is detailed in the next blog post, part three.