Booking it!*

I took a bookmaking class this July, and while it's not like I needed more crafts (or more blank books!), I might be hooked. Sewing! Papercrafting! Books! A potentially useful product! That's basically catnip for me.The class included several simple books and one more complicated one. Here's my complicated one (a Coptic-stitched book):

It's wobbly, and I can see where I messed up my stitching pattern, and I'm not sure whether I'll ever use it, but oh was it fun to make. Our instructor pre-drilled the holes in the art boards we used for covers, so I hadn't punched/drilled holes in covers or learned how to cover them when I decided to try some more on my own.

I didn't just want to replicate my first experience, so I decided to get more complicated: the Secret Belgian Binding, which includes a spine held in place by the tension in the binding thread. "Some binding experience is required"; well, I've done one, so let's do this! (Fact: I have read way too many fantasy books to be able to say "I tried a new binding" without thinking of magic. It cracks me up every time.)

I went to an art store to look for supplies, got completely overwhelmed, and left without getting anything at all. My second try was The Shop at MCBA where I also got completely overwhelmed in the best way possible. There's so many types of books in the world! There's so many things to make! There are so many books about paper cutting that I haven't read yet! I am so small in my skills, but I want to try all the things! (To which a friend said: "You're exactly the right size to make things." Oh, what a relief, and a new sentence to tuck into my self-talk.)

The result: I followed these three tutorials, which mostly didn't contradict each other, and helped when I needed a different image/description of a step to understand it.

The covers I made turned out okay, with only one minor tear in the paper when I too aggressively tried to smooth out a bubble. If this book was a gift, I'd redo it, but since it's just an I'm-learning-a-thing book for myself, I'm choosing to find it charming.

I don’t have a single picture of the rest of the process, because I was concentrating so hard!

But the final product is something I'm proud of, even while I can see its weaknesses and what I'll improve next time, and how I'll make it easier on myself. What a good learning experience.

So I've succeeded in making a book! And I've also succeeded in making something I'm terrified of writing in because I might ruin it, a problem I have with all blank books.And I've succeeded in getting hooked on yet another craft, though at least this one mostly uses tools and supplies I already have.

On to the next! 

*I just realized why Book It! was called Book It! I always got annoyed with the name because I couldn't figure out what it was we were booking, or what booking meant as a verb. Oooooh to set aside time for or to go quickly. Right. I was never a good Book It! participant; my family ate pizza a lot, and I read a lot, and I just didn't get why you needed pizza to get you to read.