Bookbinding Playtime
I took part in a course at Higham Hall called ‘Bookbinding Playtime’ run with retired restorer of books at the British Library, Doug Mitchell, where I was developing my bookbinding skills. (You can read about my learning curve with rounding and backing and working with leather here.) But there where other regular students in this course who brought their own books to work on.
Other Book Restoration
Whilst I was slaving over my little book, there were other monsters being painstakingly brought back to life.
We all spent quite a lot of time just watching each other work and every book had its own problems and it was fascinating hearing Doug’s advice and seeing how each where tackled and resolved. There was one book which particularly stood out and I have just a few notes about it’s progress I’d like to share with you here.
The Historie of the World
This book was a Historie of the World and its owner was an antiquarian who wanted to pick Doug’s brain as it had suffered quite a lot of damage. The spine was missing many of the ribbons and stitching was weak, some of the front pages had come loose and had frayed and the covering boards were disintegrating round the corners.
Doug suggested sewing and glueing ribbons over those that existed, not to replace the ribbons, which would have meant a lot more work and losing some of the original material. He also showed her how to build up the deteriorating front pages with Japanese paper and archival paper.
Below: The threads holding the spine had become very weak, so ribbons were used to wrap over them and then embedded into the boards.
Meticulous work went into slicing open the edges of the board’s corners and then carefully sliding and glueing card into these to rebuild and strengthen the corners.
Unfortunately, I will never know how this book looked in its final state as we ran out of time. This lady had worked so diligently on it over three days and made a massive difference to its condition and structural integrity. I know she was planning to cover it with leather so I’m sure it will look amazing.
I was mesmerised by the stunning work that was proceeding around me. There was so much to learn. I loved listening to the strategies and comments of other bookbinders discussing what had worked and what hadn’t. I loved watching how they manipulated the paper, what tools they used and how they used them. Everyone was so engrossed with their work that time slipped by without our noticing.
If you are interested in courses like this, then I encourage you to look at Higham Hall’s website. They do offer an amazingly wide range of courses ranging from yoga or creative embroidery to 18th century chamber music or philosophy and literature of Ibsen. And if you can’t make it up to the Lakes, it might just inspire you to find something like it more locally.
