8.27.2007

Cookin' the books

This past weekend Albertine Press hosted a two-day letterpress/bookbinding extravaganza.

On Saturday, five lovely ladies typeset and printed a small edition of bookplates. It was such a great group - writers, teachers, designers, illustrators, crafters and an engineer - very patient, hardworking, quick to pick up the craft, and creative to boot!

Everyone really blew me away with their designs: elegant illuminated letters, great overlays, free-form clustering, retro woodcut play, and a snappy end-plate.



Yun and Angela working the Kelsey's.



Andrea mastering the block form.



And the finished goods (pre-crop).

After a quick table shuffle and the addition of two new students (plus me!) we were ready for Sunday. Angela Liguori of Carta, Inc. took over and taught us all a binding technique called "sewing on tapes". It's a really beautiful, exposed binding, and Angela brought only the best supplies to make everything even more beautiful (if possible) - German laid paper for the text block, hand-dyed asian stock for the covers, plus her specially imported cotton ribbons in a variety of colors.



Here she demonstrates how to sew together the signatures:



And everyone with their finished books (bookplates and all)



For more pictures and perspectives of the event click here and here.

Such a successful weekend, and I loved the collaboration of printing and binding. It was the first of what I hope will be many such collective classes. Thank you to Angela for bringing such a calm and easy way of teaching (and all of the gorgeous samples). And thank you especially to Roxanne, Angela, Andrea, Yun, Susy, Pat and Ylenia for being such willing and able students - it was a pleasure working with all of you!

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