Recent book finds

I like to go to fleamarkets and every now and then I make nice book finds. I have been wanting to purchase The Forsyte Saga in some form or other, so naturally I just stumbled upon it earlier this week. This set of four books in pristine condition cost me a couple of euros, it's a Finnish translation but that doesn't bother me. Finds like these make perfect practice pieces for leather bindings, but because the books are so neat and surprisingly nice looking I might even leave them the way they are now. All right, let's admit it - I did immediately have this brilliant vision of turning them into a set of four quarter bindings which, when shelved together, would form a gigantic hand tooled head of Soames or something. I struggle to prevent myself from doing it.

I also found a copy of Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer. I find myself fascinated by all the sartorialism and tea drinking this book seems to advocate. However, in a couple of months or so it will probably turn in to several little book necklaces, or dismantle itself for random collage pieces that will travel to all the corners of the world. So.. so, that's all!

WWJLD

Slowly getting back to the books. I know I haven't been much of a blogger or even a binder lately, but I'm still alive. During the last two months I have been mostly just organising things (also dismantling some, it seems) and now that everything's organised, I'm ready to start working on something. I have a reason to believe that this autumn and winter will both provide more than enough time for just about every project I have been intending to do. I kind of like the idea. We'll see what comes out of this all.

Hand tooling with gold

I have spent an interesting summer week with Gianfranco Mombelli, who came from Switzerland to teach us hand tooling and gilding. I have never really done gilding with gold leaf so I learnt lots - even if I wasn't always around. My dear white enamel stove from the 60's ended his earthly life in the middle of the week with a loud crack and some smoke and soot, so I had to take one day off looking for a new one. To be honest I learnt so much on Monday that I just spent the rest of the week digesting all the information and pondering about different ideas and approaches. I did find a new stove too.


During the week I also bought a couple of pallets and punches which are pictured above. I don't own a great many tools so I'm always happy when I have the chance to buy some. Hand tooling with pallets and leaf gold was my favourite part of the week because it was easy enough for me to handle and I've always liked polishing my skills detail by detail. I have previously tooled with foil and found tooling with gold leaf much more delightful and rewarding. I created my first title with brass type and typeholder, tooled a bit of this and that, and practised some basic edge gilding with Franco.


This is my very first gilt edge, which was done with paste, Aurofix and gold leaf. It was surprisingly difficult to take a decent picture.. then again, now no-one can see how crappy the edge really is. Some parts of the edge dried so fast that the gold flaked off, some parts were just fine, and some parts still showed marks from the scraper. Ha! Always do your best with the prepping. I'm happy with it anyway, because I finally understand the process and am ready to practice on my own. Always do your best with the prepping, and always make sure your scraper has been sharpened the right way.

Sketchbook

Some of you wished to see more of the handdyed bookcloth, so here it is again in a bit more "processed" form. This book belongs in my line of A6 (approximately postcard) sized sketchbooks that I make for my Etsy bookshop and the PikkuPutiikit shop in Tampere, Finland. I like to think these books as small everyday luxuries, something you can either give as a gift or keep yourself; The world is full of ordinary blank books so I kind of thought I might as well make something slightly different then. Because all these books are covered with the handdyed cloth none of them are exactly identical.




These books don't have separate glued-on endpapers, which in fact makes them a bit sturdier, as the 160g/m² paper of the book block is pasted straight to the inner covers and the hinge area is reinforced with mull. Through personal experience, I have come to the conclusion that since visual journals and sketchbooks are often carried around and altered with different kinds of media, they have to be compact and hard-wearing - even if they were rather small in size like these ones.



The book pictured is at the moment for sale on my Etsy bookshop, so in case you're interested you can find it here. I will be adding more books in the following weeks now that I have sold most of my old work and the shop looks quite empty. I'm still open for commissioned work too, but my turnaround times might be a bit longer than usual, being the summer and all.

I also want to take this opportunity to say hi to all the new people reading my blog - I appreciate it and it's nice to meet you, so thanks for following!