Cartonera artists from Cartonera Mexico, Elsoisa Cartonera and YiYi Jambo visited to make work in out type lab on Friday, October 9, 2009. You can see a gallery of photographs of the Cartonera book artists during the energetic and chaotic event. These book artists and publishers were in town as part of the Cartonera Publishers Conference and the Wisconsin Book Festival.
One of the most common questions that I get is “What type of thread is best for binding my book?”
The two suppliers that I use most often for binding thread are Colophon Book Arts Supply and Talas. However, many many vendors sell thread for bookbinding. I have used silk button thread for a small book, since it was the only thread that I could find in the color that I wanted. The photo above shows types of thread most commonly used to sew books. The photo illustrates that binding thread is sold in different sizes. The second number 3, 5 and so on, indicates the number of strands that are wound together to form the thread. The first number indicates the thickness. Therefore thread that is labeled 25/3 is thinner than 18/3. Most often I use 16/3 or 18/3. But every project varies and I seldom ever say one size fits all. It is best to have a variety of size and colors on hand. I am not real sure how vendors determine the first number. My best guestimation is that it relates to the length of thread need to equal a set amount of weight. I am not sure where along the way I heard this. Perhaps you can let me know the best answer.
It is easy, just watch this very short animation. Set the type upside down or “wrong reading” Click here if you have trouble getting the video to play.
This is a test to distribute a handout for binding a simple pamphlet stitch book.
Pamphlet Binding Stitch
Dennis Michael Peterson drew a large arrow on frosted mylar. As an experiment, we thought it would be fun to take a digital photo of the drawing and scale it down to print it on our letterpress printing press. His original graphite drawing is about 2 x 3 feet. In Adobe Photoshop we converted the image to a greyscale, set the image size to 8.5 x 11 inches and set the resolution to 300 ppi. The kind folks at Smartset in Minneapolis, MN made the negative for us and quickly mailed it to us. These plates are actually smaller samples that we had made for printing on a post card. Once the larger version is done, we will add more images to this post.
Continue reading…
Information and photos from Sandra Anible’s paste paper demo will be posted soon. Write me if you did not pick up one of her handouts.
Danika Morphew-Tarbuck gave a demo to the class to teach us how to sew a leather wrapper around two signatures of drawing paper. Below is a photo of a sample that she created.
Danika used leather from a purse that she bought at a thrift store to use as the cover. Heavy weight drawing paper was used for the journal pages. She said sewing is easier if you use waxed linen thread. You will need two needles to sew this book.
Step by step photos can be seen by going to the Read more >. Continue reading…
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