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.

I haven’t made any books since November. I have a few photo albums that are waiting to be finished but I just haven’t felt like it. When I do so much of something under a deadline, it starts to feel like work and I burn out. Also, I’ve noticed that in winter I’m more inclined to sew or knit than make books. And it’s definitely winter in San Francisco—it’s been raining all week. Bleah.

So I haven’t made any books lately, but I do have books I haven’t posted pictures of yet, and since the rain let up yesterday just long enough to give me some good lighting, I now have photos. So I now declare this week Case Bound Book Week, and I’ll be posting books all week long. Just in case you thought this was going to turn into a sewing blog or knitting blog or something!

But before I get started, I want to talk about endbands. You may recall that back in October I posted a series small books with hand-sewn endbands. I’m still so jazzed about this that I’m going to show off some more.

These simple headbands from Headbands : How to Work Them by Jane Greenfield and Jenny Hille were really easy to make. The illustrations are clear and I only had to back things out a couple of times, and I made about 20 books. I like this look better than the bands I bought from Talas—the Talas ones are nice and they’re convenient, but limited in colors. By purchasing an assortment of silk thread I matched most of the books with complementary colors.

A couple of close-ups:

OK, enough of being pleased with myself. (They really were starting to get better by this point though. I’m happier with this set than the smaller books.) Stay tuned for the book parade, coming this week!

Last Christmas, lovely Jane gave me a desk calendar where each month was a hand-printed card by a different Houston artist. I liked some of them so much that they got stuck up on my bulletin board for several months after the month on the card! So at the end of the year I couldn’t bear to toss them all, and I came up with this idea to give them a new life.

From each of the cards I liked, I cut a 2-1/4″ by 3-1/2″ rectangle from the artwork and rounded the corners. The ties are linen thread leftovers from all the bookbinding I did last year. (The card above is January: it’s a letterpress piece, and the tracks in the snow are recessed in the paper – beautiful!)

I got multiple gift cards from some of the months, like December, where the design allowed for two cuts.

(I also got two copies of December and a couple of other months, so I got to make two sets!)

I think the card above is March (march hare?) – it reminds me of the creepy bunny in Donnie Darko…

July? (Edmond thought this was Jabba the Hutt, but I think it’s just a toad.)

I’ll have to save this one for next time I have a gift for my sister-in-law, April.

Boo! I think this one was letterpress too. I love letterpress.

All year long when I’m making books I put the leftover bits and pieces of paper in a bin, and at the end of the year I sort it all into scrap paper packets. Most of the pieces are Japanese Chiyogami or Yuzen papers; most of the remainder are papers from India or the US; and a few are cardstock.

I have six of these packets to give away this month. The papers range in size from narrow strips to about 5″ by 7″, and as you can see in the picture there’s a nice assortment of different papers in each. I wrote a post a while back about things I’ve done with similar scraps, and here are a few more things you could do with them:

• Marble magnets
• Jewelry using pendant trays or Scrabble tiles or dominoes or glass tiles or microscope slides (you can easily find small quantities of glass tiles, Scrabble tiles, bails, chains, cords, etc. on Etsy—search in Supplies)
• Cover the lid of an Altoids tin and make a travel candle—or cover tins for lip balm or bath salts or jewelry or tea (again, try Etsy for tins)
• Make stickers (if you have a Xyron machine)
• Make place cards
• Make matchboxes (here’s some beautiful inspiration)
• Turn a pad of small sticky notes into a book
• Make a small version of this ornament accordion book
• Make a Washi fan card or a kimono card
• Make a string of pennants

So now that you’ve had a chance to think about it, leave a comment by midnight PST on November 30th and tell me what you could do with a packet of pretty papers. I’ll draw up to six winners at random on December 1st and contact them by email, and then mail out the booty later in the week. (Obviously you’ll have to trust me with your mailing address if you win, but I promise I’m not creepy or anything and I won’t sell it to anybody.)

UPDATE: Entries are now closed, and the winner is Anne! Thanks, Anne, for entering. I’ll be sending your paper packet off to you tomorrow!

This is the last of the small journals. I really like the size of these (4-5/8″ wide by 5-7/8″ ), they have a nice weight and feel good in the hand.

Another paper I wouldn’t normally have picked, but I’m trying to expand my horizons a bit.

I would never have picked out this paper, except that Jane chose the green colorway for me to make her wedding guest book, and now I can’t get enough of it.

Monkey paper!

Orange endsheets add to the fun!

And a close up of the endbands. I would have gone for orange here too, except that when I bought my spools of silk thread I only bought a half-dozen colors that I thought I’d use, and oddly enough orange wasn’t among them. So I went for the safe colors here.

I’ve been slowly working through all the paper and boards I’ve prepped over the last few months, and the stack of completed Coptics and accordion photo albums has grown and grown. But I also made some case-bound journals that I was pretty happy with, in two sizes, and I thought I’d post pics of those, because I don’t do them often and because I hand-sewed the endbands on them and I’m kind of proud of myself.

I did two sizes, and this is one of the smaller ones at 4-5/8″ wide by 5-7/8″ high, with 192 pages of soft white 24lb Mohawk Superfine paper (8 sections of 6 folios, sewn onto tapes).

Here’s a close-up of the headband: it’s a simple beaded headband from Headbands : How to Work Them by Jane Greenfield and Jenny Hille. I took a class at the San Francisco Center for the Book a few months ago where they taught the same method, but I’d forgotten how to do it by the time I actually got around to sewing one, so I was happy to have this book. The drawings are pretty clear.

Still playing with the long stitch book structure. This one is similar to the flapped closure I did in May, but with a ribbon tie instead of the button-and-string closure.

I can’t remember where I bought this ribbon, but I’ve wanted to do something like this with it for a while. It’s a matte cotton ribbon with a loose weave, so it has a bit of a rough texture to it.

I like the black cotton paired with the very smooth, blue-gray card stock. But I think I like the button tie closure more: maybe because the closure doesn’t extrude beyond the edges of the book on the button tie closure, or because the closure thread on that version echoes the thread used in the spine sewing.

I like simple things.