A Book a Day? What's Up With That?


Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Book 243 - Another Hard Cover Journal w/ Hidden Long Stitch Binding

This pretty little hard cover journal uses the same kind of hidden long stitch binding as yesterday's book. This is a structure I can see myself doing a lot of when I'm in a "production-for-selling" mode. It looks neat and professional while still having the "hand-crafted" mojo to it. It's not terribly difficult to make. The key is in having lovely papers and paying attention to the neatness of the finishing.

For this one, I used a gorgeous piece of black-and-white Chinese character paper and a piece of acid green bookcloth for the spine. The three signatures are stitched to a separate piece of the green bookcloth which becomes a hinge to glue the book block onto the prepared cover. Then the end papers are glued down over the hinge. For the end papers here I used a card stock weight paper with a nice pearlized and textured finish.

I'm pretty sure this general structure will become a staple in my books-for-sale inventory.





5 comments:

  1. I like this one, too, with the oriental script paper. I wouldn't think you'd have any trouble selling these or all of your books. :)

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  2. You continue to amaze me! I'm experimenting with every binding I can read about...question on this one if that's okay. Does the stitching of sigs to the inside hinge not cause a lump in the spine? How to avoid?

    Please let us know how your mega sale of all these books goes and where we can get some. Very inspiring!

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  3. Hollis - Good question. As I think you can see from the last photo, there are no lumps in the spine from the stitching. That's because the spine itself is not glued to the book block's stitched spine. You only glue the hinge to the covers and then glue the end paper over it. The hinge sandwiched between the cover and end paper and firmly glued is what holds the book block in place. If you used very thin paper for the spine, it might show a bit, but that's probably not a great idea anyway. A thin spine could tear. Hope that helps.

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  4. Hello, this is really beautiful and I love it. I just wanted to let you know this language is Korean not Chinese. :)

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  5. Thanks for that info, Suri. I hate making those kinds of mistakes. Now I'll know.

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