The first book up this week is a new paper (for me), a geometric Chiyogami paper from The Paper Place in blues and teals and white that somehow I don’t think came from the Edo period. This one is totally my style, and that’s good, because I had a heckuva time pasting down the end papers and it looks like crap. I used a lighter paper than usual for the end papers and it’s all wrinkled and I actually tore it at the fold. So this will probably be my next journal or work notebook.

When I sewed the text blocks I didn’t yet know what I was going to do for covers, and so I didn’t attach the end papers to the first and last sections as I normally do (folding the folio around the back of the section and gluing it down on the inside, and then punching and sewing through it with the rest of the pages in the section). Instead, I tried this technique, attaching matching end papers to each completed book block once I’d chosen the cover papers. Structurally it is sturdy, as the block is attached to the boards via the tapes and the mull as well as the end sheet. But the opening action isn’t quite the same: because the end sheet is attached to the first page of the block, the page turns with it when the book is opened. It bugs me a bit.

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.