viernes, 25 de noviembre de 2016

A Book for a Baby

I know I said I would try to post every Friday... it is just I have so many projects!! Right now I am making my way through the restoration of a couple of books (volume 1 and volume 2) that will be turned into a dos à dos! That is two books joined in one. Plus the fact I am actually restoring them, not making them from scratch, and I get to repair pages and so... But I will show you that when it is more advanced, right now it is in the very beginning hehe.

Today I want to talk to you about another big book I made. Mike contacted me because he wanted a special book for his child, who was expected a couple of months later. They didn't know if it was a boy or a girl. He decided he wanted a Springback, something that looked very sturdy and long lasting, and they wanted a big size: they went for A4. Now, that is a big size to work with, specially for a complex binding as the springback. He wanted the book to open completely, so I used escartivanas. Then, he mentioned they had bought a photo printer, so they were likely to be putting many pictures. For that reason, I made the escartivanas wider, so they worked as compensators too. Anyway, some work in progress pics for you.

Here you can see the escartivanas and how they compensate the future thickness of the pictures.


It was quite a thick book. The paper was a white 150g Basik, very fountain pen friendly.


The book has been trimmed, the spine has been rounded and backed with some cloth. First thin cover has been applied.


Fully backed book on the press, headbands included.


In this picture the second thin cover is on and the layers of the spine are on.


All the thick covers are applied now. You can see the book is so big, that the press left marks on the cardboard. But those went unnoticed when the leather was on.


And pictures of the final book. The leather was black, I gilded an arabesque and tooled their family name. The endpapers are a Bomoart design.







Another look of the effect the escartivanas have.


I made a box to keep the book safe from dust and light. I used black cloth and the same paper design for the cover.




The baby was born safe and it was a girl. I am sure the book has been put to a great use since the birth :). 
I hope you enjoyed the post and have a nice day!



lunes, 10 de octubre de 2016

Three Springbacks to the Middle West

Today I want to share you one of the biggest orders I have had. Three springbacks for the same person! Well, not actually the same person: one for him, one for his wife and one for a friend. And, from the first time, my customer was from the Middle West; from Iraq.

I have already showed several times and I will show some more in future posts the work in progress of the springback, so, for this time, I will not show that many pics of that.







The first of the journals was for Ahmad himself. I used a burgundy leather and he chose the endpapers, which I printed. The decoration was his name and an arabesque blind tooled. His journal was Arabic style, meaning it opens from right to left.





Dhoha's journal was made with turquoise leather. The chosen endpaper was a Bomoart. The decoration was her name and a tree blind tooled. Her journal was also Arabic style.






Finally, Mohammad's journal was special: it was the first time I had used leather that I dyed myself. I used alcohol based aniline. The result was a nice blue with different tones, I hope they can be appreciated on the pictures. The endpapers were chosen by Ahmad and I prined them. His name and the arabesque were blind tooled on the cover. His journal was Occidental style.





I hope you enjoyed and have a nice day!


viernes, 30 de septiembre de 2016

The Biggest Book I Ever Made

Some months ago, I was contacted by Joe. He was looking for a big book. Well, not big, huge. Really huge and thick. He wanted something that had enough pages to last a few generations of his family. He told me his plan was to write in the book what he and his family were thankful for everyday.
I made an Ethiopian journal. I used a Fedrigoni paper of 90 g. Since the original sheet was 100 x 70 cm, we decided to make the journal about 33 x 25, so only a thin strip of about 20 cm was leftovers of the whole sheet (because I work in signatures, I cut each sheet at 33 x 50 cm). And now the number of pages... 500 sheets, 1000 pages counting both sides. That means I used more than 80 whole sheets of 100 x 70 cm. If you work with sheets that big, you will understand that is a lot. For a regular A6 journal I would use about 3 sheets. 
That also means the final book was heavy... quite heavy. Just the paper itself was already 3-4 kg. 
Anyway, once all the details were set with Joe, I put my hands to work. I sew the signatures. I had previously glued the endpaper on the first signature. Joe chose a chiyogami paper for the endpapers. He also asked for 5 bookmarks, that you can see on the left. Once sewn, the block was about 8.5 cm.


It was so thick that my trimming machine couldn't fit it. Fortunately, one of my teachers has an electric guillotine and it barely fit there. The top for that machine is 9 cm, so....
In any case, after trimming, I glued the covers. 


And then the leather. It was a huge piece of burgundy leather. 


I started applying the glue and I regreted it quite soon... the book was about 4 kg and very difficult to handle. I should have asked for help with my boyfriend to work properly, without risking damaging the leather... but I was fortunate enough that everything came out right!


I got into the habit of running tests before doing the actual gilding or stamping on the journal, just in case the customer changed idea on the position or the font used.


Joe approved... and so the gilding was made!! I actually had to ran tests before to make sure the book fit in the machine, because I wasn't even sure.
I glued the endpapers to the covers and it was finished! Those are the final pics.






I hope you enjoyed this post! I have been really busy for the last few months.... but I will try to post something every Friday.
Best wishes!

sábado, 21 de mayo de 2016

Small Photo Album

Hello everybody!
I am sorry for the lack of news. I will try to post more often again.
Yesterday I made a small photo album. These are the printed pages:


I sewn the signatures in a French stitch and put Canson Miteintes as endpapers. You can see how thin the whole book body was.


Then I backed the spine with some cloth.


I put black cloth on the spine and some other pictures on the front and back of the covers, as requested by the client.


These are the pictures of the final work. I am pretty happy with how it looked in the end.