Leonardo Sewn Up

          I decided to sew the book on vellum slips, strips of vellum, which are then laced into the cover giving a secure board attachment. In a previous blog entry I described how I dyed the vellum red, and when this was dry, cut it into strips about 3mm wide and 70 mm long (I use metric measurements because of the small scale).

          Before sewing the sections must be pricked up, that is, holes must be made along the folds of each section, through which the needle will pass. This is done using a needle mounted in a handle, or sharp awl or similar tool and a pricking guide. The pricking guide is a strip of paper indicating the exact position of the holes for sewing the slips, tapes or cords, and the kettle stitches which are used at head and tail of the book to secure each section to the previous one. 

I then taped two of the slips to my litho stone (a large piece of limestone originally used for lithography but often used by bookbinders for paring leather, as it is a soft stone that doesn't dull the paring knife). You could equally well tape it to the edge of a counter top, table etc. The slips must be exactly positioned according to the pricking guide that you used to make the sewing holes. The book was then sewn all-along, going over the slips as if they were tapes and including the 'made' endpapers. The spine was then lightly glued up and left to dry. 

Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine- the Binding. Ta da!

          As I'm in another time-crunch I decided to put some photos of the finished book up on the blog, and post the how-to steps when the opportunity presents. I just don't have the time to make a new web-page at the moment. Above is a view of the endpapers with two of Leonardo's sketches from his notebooks.
          I returned from the Miniature Book Conclave (highlight for me - James Reid-Cunningham's presentation) on Labor Day, having sold some books, and realized that I only have a couple of weeks to the Oak Knoll Book Fest, which I signed up for. So I'm making books for the next two weeks. I haven't attended this previously, it will be a new experience for me, which I'm looking forward to, - lots of Fine Press books, and maybe some artists' books. 
          Anyway, on to the book. I decided to sew it on vellum slips, as previously noted, dyed red to blend with the burgundy goatskin. The slips are laced into the cover giving a secure board attachment. I wanted to reference Leonardo's notebooks in the binding so extended the leather on the back board at the fore edge to form a flap, which folds over the text block and fastens with grosgrain ribbon ties. The flap is lined with a thin piece of leather and finished with a blind-tooled double line around the edge. 

         


 This design meant that there was really no need for a slipcase as the fore edge is protected by this extension. In turn this helps to keep the price of the book down, as boxes and slipcases are quite time-consuming to make. I used the same art-work for the title on the front cover as I had drawn for the title page, which gives the book a unity of design and the lettering is quite decorative in itself. This is a deceptively simple binding, as it involves quite a lot of work, which I shall describe at a later date.

Here are the details of the book:

Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine, 40 pages inclusive of blanks,almost 3 inches high by two and three eighths of an inch wide approx. It is a Limited Edition of 20 copies numbered, and signed by me, the poet Charles Anthony Silvestri and the composer Eric Whitacre, whose account of their collaboration also appears in the book.
          The book is printed on a special making of handmade paper from Griffen Mill in Ireland, using a Craftsman hand press and polymer plates, set digitally in Brioso Pro typeface designed by Robert Slimbach. The five full page illustrations were drawn especially for this book and transferred to polymer and printed on the press, onto handmade Japanese Bicchu Torinoko Gampi paper. Each illustration is individually hand-gilt and burnished using genuine gold leaf. There are five of Leonardo's studies of creatures that fly, from his notebooks, two as shown above, plus a bat, moth and flying fish. 
           This book is copyright Janet Kellett, and the words of the song are copyright Charles Anthony Silvestri, with the account of the collaboration being copyright Eric Whitacre. Please respect our copyrights.
           The price of this book is CD$450.00, which presently equates to US$425.00, plus shipping and insurance. Publication date was Sept 5th 2010, and the edition is half sold as of today. Please contact me through my website with your street address if you would like a hard-copy book announcement, or if you would like to purchase a copy of the book.
          I shall be attending the Oak Knoll Book Fest in Newcastle Delaware, on the first weekend in October, and you can see the book there, along with a few other titles of my books that are still in print.
I'll post at a later time with all the steps in making this binding. This book has been quite a journey and the discipline of writing this blog, trying to remember to take photos and explaining my thought processes has been also quite an experience. Thanks to all those who have followed along with me.  

In a (book) Bind

          I've been enjoying some fun family time and now I have to get down to serious work, if I am ever to finish this book before the Miniature Book Society Conclave in Lexington Kentucky. It takes place over the first weekend in September (Labour Day weekend) and I must have some books ready by then, less that four weeks to go! On the Sunday afternoon the Book Fair will be open to the public, at the Hyatt, Lexington. See the website for details. Hope to see you there!
          I finished off the last image, of the figure rising through the air towards the skies, using brass handle tools in the shape of a star and a dot. (They are really for gilding leather but also work well on paper.) The tools are heated to the right temperature to activate the adhesive on the foil carrier. This is a layer of real gold on a backing. The foil is placed on the surface to be gilded and the heated tool is impressed on to the foil, transferring the layer of gold to the substrate, in this case the paper. The shape of the tool appears in gold.

Here is the starry result. The next operation was to tip the five images into each book. This means that the image is adhered by a thin thread of glue or paste along one edge onto the page. I did this before trimming the pages, using the guillotine. In other types of binding (anything with a rounded and backed spine ) I would use a plough to trim the edges, but this is a thin book with a flat spine.
          After some consideration I have decided to bind this book by sewing on vellum slips. A vellum slip is a strip of vellum, and vellum is of course a piece of (usually) goat or calf skin that has gone through a special curing process to give it the particular qualities needed for writing or binding. It is very durable, and I adapted a traditional form of binding using the vellum slips when binding Old London Bridge. It enables the book to open well (which can be a problem with some forms of binding) and I like the appearance and the medieval reference to vellum bindings, which is probably what would have been on Leonardo Da Vinci's original notebooks if they were bound during his lifetime.
          I looked into my 'supplies store', well O.K., a drawer and found some vellum of a suitable thickness, that was dyed a tan brown colour, quite a good base to adapt to red, to tone with the leather of the cover. I used Fiebings Oil-based red dye, rubbing it into the surface with a pad of paper towel. It does not penetrate into the vellum, but rather sits on top, and takes a good few days for the dyestuff to oxidize and dry.Here's the before and after:

The vellum doesn't need to be an exact match for the leather as it will hardly show, it just needs to blend in. I have no idea why I originally bought this vellum, (twenty-five years ago at least) as it is much too thick for writing or binding a small book, but I was very pleased to find it, it's exactly what I needed for this job. The next process will be to sew the book, when the vellum is dry.
          I'm going to go 'underground' for the next few weeks as I'm really pushed for time to get some books finished, and also am preparing a presentation for the MBS Conclave, but I will be taking photos and will show all the stages in this binding when I return from Lexington.