Stitches and Sewings for Bookbinding Structures

One of the reasons I was attracted to the world of book arts was for all of the wonderful stitches that were possible. I remember something called a sewing card when I was a child...a card with connect-the-dots hole and a colorful string to weave in and out of the holes. Perhaps because I was successful with that card I felt emboldened to continue in that "field" as an adult. ;-)

I almost missed this on the book arts forum, but Betsy Palmer Eldridge and the Guild of Book Workers have generously published a wonderful document on their web site that collects sixty different techniques of sewing from the different bookbinding traditions. Originally a presentation at the GBW/CBBAG conference in Toronto in 2008, its history actually began at Paper Book Intensive in 1991 when I imagine a group of artists began to try and collect all of the ways that they knew to assemble a book using thread. (Being PBI, I also imagine that it was quite late at night and that there might have been drinking involved. They have a lot of fun at PBI!)

The diagrams are in color...each stitch is in a different color thread and there are helpful symbols for where to start and end. You can find the PDF here. There is also a version available to print out and sew together yourself, if you'd rather have a book than a handout. It's a very valuable and generous resource.

Bookarts workshop fever

Penland, 2006

After all the presents from the holidays are open (or your birthday, if you're a holiday baby like me), it's time to start browsing the internet to see what some of the book arts teaching organizations are cooking up for 2008. Here are four sites that I watch. Penland won't announce their schedule until mid-January. But the others offer some good hints while working on the details.

Garage Annex School, run by Daniel Kelm and his wife Greta Sibley in western Massachusetts, offers weekend workshops on specific techniques.
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts schedules 2 week sessions throughout the summer from the cliffs of Deer Isle, Maine. I never got over seeing the enormous bowls of cookies at lunch or looking at the ocean all day long.
Paper Book Intensive is a free-wheeling and fun 10-day session that finds itself in a different part of the country each year. This May you can find it at Arrowmont in Tennessee.
Penland School of Crafts, probably my favorite of them all. Located in a sunlit bowl of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the school has been in existence since 1923 when Miss Lucy Morgan formed a weavers guild to teach the skill to local women and develop a market for their work. The sense of history is palpable, but so is the fun. You'll find seed beads in the dirt paths, fun mottos stamped onto your soup spoon and llamas in the meadow.

Haystack at night.

An impromptu concert from PBI 2003.