There are about 30 sheets/signatures so there are about 120 pages in this book - small enough to be cute but not large enough to actually be used as a notebook - at least not by anyone who writes in cursive. As you can perhaps see, the pen shows a bit about how big this notebook is.

However, this is an enjoyable book. I have no idea why but it makes me chuckle when I hold it, look at it, view it from afar. Perhaps because it is small and - perhaps - useless. Perhaps it is not so useless. It is a book to cheer and encourage the mirth of one’s heart. (From La Boheme?)

Tedorigawa Tweeterville

And now: The Further Adventures of

Tedorigawa: The Experimental Bookmaker

Adelaide Crapsey created a type of poem she called the quintain - a 5-line poem of 22 syllables total. Eacy line should get progressively longer but that doesn’t always hold water, not even for Ms Adelaide. I don’t know why I got interested in her, her quintains, or her biography. Could it have been because of her surname? Am I that shallow?

Here’s an example of one of her quintains called Night Winds

Night Winds

The old

Old winds that blew

When Chaos was, what do

They tell the clattered trees that I

Should weep?

On a business note, I am planning to sell my books and will be setting up an online shop for a variety of finished books shortly. As an added bonus to early visitors, I will be throwing in - free - other stationery items such as pens, notebooks, simple notepads, and a 1959 250 GT Berlinetta Ferrari. Oh, wait. I made a mistake. Sorry, no notepads. Or the Ferrari, gosh darn it!

Not open yet, watch this space for future developments and the opening day.

_______________________

music from Sonnyboo.com and composed by Peter John Ross. Check out his movies! Especially Relationship Card - it’s hilarious.

But what of the old-fashioned paper-bound book? Are we buying more or fewer books? I think the generation that turned 18 this year will buy fewer paper books. They are the generation that is used to looking up everything in wikipedia (and believing what they read), reading from a computer monitor, cell phone, or game console, and not buying books.

Therefore, will those involved in bookbinding and the book arts perserve the book much as monks did with scrolls in the Middle Ages? A beautifully bound book is more than the words inside it. A beautifully bound book is something people will want to show off, to put on their coffee tables, to brag about. And, perhaps, read. The next 25 to 50 years will be interesting to watch; I hope I’m around that long.

Included are three cords that keep the notebook closed - two cords circumnavigate the tome while one just leaps over the front edge and wraps itself around the pink button.

What’s the purpose? Keep it closed? I think I need one for my mouth. Actually, my last book was quite plane: green cover and nothing else. This is a reaction to minimalism. Clutterism, I think I’ll call it. The endpapers are rough and torn which gives the book a bit of character.

On the back are the Japanese words: 手取川. This is pronounced: Tedorigawa. This is a sake manufacturer near here. It is also a river and the site of a major battle in a major war about 400 years ago. It is also the kanji for Tedorigawa Bookmakers.

What did we learn from this book: I like long stitch and will attempt it again. I also learned I need to much more careful whilst sewing it together; the long stitch is nice but the link stitch at the top and bottom are not very pretty. Downright ugly, if you ask me. But still, a cute little book with a lot of cheerful smiles about it.

There are eight signatures of four pages each for 16 pages per signature. I’m going to beeswax some colored thread, in the foreground, there, and use a long stitch (exposed) binding.

Next, details from the front. Here we see a fish-like creature with a fishline-like object jutting out of its southern mouth area. With ‘Premium roast coffee’ and a couple of buttons. This book has three cords - two wrap around the whole book while one is content with just flipping over the front edge. These two buttons are what the cords will wrap around once they circumnavigate the book. Both the coffee boast and the ‘ECO’ (Enron Company Officer?) are from a McDonald’s takeout bag, hence the existence of half the easily if not readily identifiable ‘M’.

Besides the insides, I need to put on the endpapers and drill the holes for the exposed binding. Hopefully, someday soon this will no longer be a “Work in Progress.”

Some sounds (some? Most!) from FreeSound.

The new book will have a linkstitch exposed binding, a cool cover, eight signatures of four sheets each for a total of 128 pages, and about B6 in size. And a cool cover, I hope. The cover will incorporate found objects, at least two different kinds of paper, and an odd doodle or two.

Content will include stories, drawings, receipts and other stuff I haven’t decided yet. Blank notebooks are good and I get a lot of practice from them but most people don’t pick up a blank notebook and think, cool binding. They pick up a blank notebook and think, uhn, nice?

Anyway, hopefully next week. What should this book be called? I’m partial to “The Invisible Rhinos of Tokyo.”

Thanks for reading. I hope to get some audio up soon. Enjoy your week, too!

Actually, one is 100 pages and the other is 120 pages but I don’t remember which is which. I suppose I could look it up….

The covers are from two cereal boxes. The book on the left says, “Genmai” (brown rice) “Flakes.” Like corn flakes except made out of genmai. The book on the right has, in small letters at the top, “Salad Cereal.” And then a series of pictures to show you how to make a salad on top of your cereal in three easy steps: put the cereal in a bowl, put salad fixings on the cereal, add dressing. Viola! Salad in a bowl!

On this pair of Cereal Series Blank Notebooks, I tried a different way to sewing the coptic binding: more precise and complex on the tail and head pieces (bottom and top). I liked the head and tail sewings but not the middle three. Usually I like the middle three sewings but not the end ones.

Things we learned on this project? Measuring and cutting straight are important. Also, just because I have black waxed thread, doesn’t mean I have to use it. i.e. Another color thread might have been better. Finally we learned that measuring, folding, and sewing is best done while not simultaneously watching a movie on cable.

Here you can see the basic size of the Cereal Series Blank Notebook. It fits quite nicely into an overcoat pocket and opens out flat for full use of the entire page. (200 grams of this cereal will get you 50% of your daily requirements of seven essential vitamins, iron, and calcium, according to the front.)

By the way, this cereal is made by Kellogg’s.

Thanks for reading and we hope to hear from you soon.

First, I folded the signatures in what has been called a Hot Dog fold. If you click the link and then look to the right, you can click on a YouTube video that explains it all. But let me back up. First, I drew a bunch of Halloween-related pictures and wrote a short essay about Halloween on some very thin Chinese-style paper. THEN I folded them in the hot dog fold. This meant that some of the pictures and some of the essay were not visible - they were buried in the folds. This made it a surprise book, even for me.

I used what is called the perfect binding, not because it was perfect but because it looks like a ‘real’ book, with back, spine, and front. All of those were taken from the jack-o-lantern box

Then everything was hastily and sloppily glued together so that I could get back to my holiday wine. It dried overnight and then I showed it around and people (okay,one person) was suitably impressed but it really was sloppily glued together. It’s…. cute, though.

What did we learn from this little excursion into miniture-ness? Folding is fun. Writing and then folding is more fun. Making small things is fun. Sometimes, but I prefer to make more useful things such as calendar or diaries (I’m actually working on one for 2010 as you read this. If you’re not reading this in the dead of the night.)

This was supposed to have been finished as a Christmas present but all sorts of delays ensued, not the least of which was me spending four hours handwriting the dates only to discover while writing November that I skipped a day back in March or April. Usually I don’t mind skipping days but when they are in a permanent document that will be used over and over again as the year progresses, well, I felt I had to do something. So I started over and my, wasn’t that fun.

Here, if you turn your computer sideways (here’s hoping you have a laptop), you can see the handy (pun alert!) size: fits well into a jacket pocket or the pocket on some briefcases. Also, in a purse, if you carry one.

What did I learn from this escapade?

Well, first, start your yearly diaries and calendars early. Well before December 24th, I’d say - just as a rule of thumb anyway. In fact, I just finished the weekly calendar for a calendar for 2010. Thinking ahead, I am. Also, be very, very careful of dates and days. For some reason these are important in calendary/diaries. I don’t know why.

I like the hand-written monthly calendar but I didn’t like the hand-written weekly calendar, so I xeroxed a page and used that. Not the best solution but workable. Overall, I’d say this rates 3.5 stars out of five.

Resolution 1: Update and post more often. (Hahahahahahahahahaha. Even I couldn’t keep a straight face on that. How many millions of Google hits do you get when you google ‘update more often’? - Only about 88,000 so far.)

Resolution 2: More bookmaking more often. I really, really want to end up at the end of 2009 with a whole stack of books that reflect any improvement I may make in this glorious of arts. I’ve even definitely decided on carving myself out a nick of time to bookbind (early evening).

Resolution 3: Sales. Yes, a perfect time to start a SOHO business now that the global economy has imploded and could well continue imploding through the coming few years. But look on the bright side, if I sell anything at the pit of the empty well that is personal discretionary funds, imagine what I could sell once people had too much money burning holes in their pockets? Cool, eh?

Resolution 4: Spreading the joy. In the past I have given - released to the wild - books I have made; sometimes to strangers by putting a little sign on it saying: Feel free to take one. This I haven’t done much of in the past 6 to 9 months and I would like to do it more. It’s fun and feels great (but it also depends on production - see resolution 2)

Resolution 5: Explain how it happened that we went from Episode 15 to Episode 18 without the anguish and turmoil of slogging through the marshlands that would have been episodes 16 through 17.

Enjoy your year end activities whatever they may be and I’ll see you on the flip side of December 31.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-0a2742ed32f8d76cdb72d1b59deacddc}

Prliminaries: getting a 2009 calendar, making a rough draft of the year’s diary/calendar, folding the paper. I did the first one. This week, as part of my 14 in 14 fiasco, I did the second two parts. Last night I finished three 2009 calendar/diaries, one each in purple, white, and green. The green one was okay but not exceptional. It has a green cover made of a recycled folder, green waxed thread and is A5 size, slightly bigger than these two.

This purple one is my favorite. It has 84 pages in three signatures (8, 8, 5), B6 size, purple waxed thread, and yellow end papers. It’s small enough on the outside but the calendar is big enough on the inside to be useful. The cover is Japanese washi so it it has a nice feel to it and fun to hold. The purple washi covers book board and I didn’t do such a good job of the corners but it is still … charming.

What did I learn from this book: I need to practice folding over the corners of the cover.

This is, obviously, white with a yellow accent.

The shadow is from the sun, it is not on the book itself, although it looks nice. This calendar is made of recycled material - the cover is from a box which had the accent already cut into it. The calendar has black waxed thread, 84 pages in three signatures, yellow Japanese washi endpapers, and is B5 sized.

And the calendar itself is hand-drawn using a black calligraphy pen and eyeballing the size of the days and weeks. Not all days are the same size. In fact, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, being on the right page, are bigger than Monday through Thursday, being on the left page. This is for those of us who are busier on the weekends than the weekdays - or who at least have more to write down in our diaries from the weekends than the weekdays. All-in-all, not a bad night’s work (following several weeks of delay.)Thanks for reading and listening.

Special sound effects by suonho at freesound.org. Thanks for reading and listening.

It is a Chinese stab binding, B5 size, 11-page book with Japanese and English words for animals and insects (Fox, cat, dog, cow, snail, cicada, etc). The Animal is 動 and the insect is 虫. It is part of my September Sweeps Fortnight wherein I attempt to make 14 books in 14 days.

This one was surprisingly frustrating - I miss-sewed the binding three times and had to remove it twice but saved it on the third attempt. A 20-minute sewing job turned into an hour of frustration.

But all’s well that ends. Eventually. I assume. Here is an interior shot of the same book with two words in the language of Japan and the language of the faded British empire. Fox and Cat. Kitsune and Neko. 狐 and 猫.

As you can see, the Fox should have been a bit lower (or the Cat a bit higher). This is also on my list of:

“Things I have learned from making this book”

In other words, things I should’ve done differently. Along with thicker paper.

Sound effects from FreeSound.org Thanks for reading and listening.

These are a few words that describe this book. As you can see, the cover threads are bare; you can see through them to the rough yellow paper I used as endpapers.

I bought the red cover paper a long time ago and have been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since. Then I bought the paper recently that has become the pages.

And here you can see the stems and leaves stuck in the pages themselves. The phrase “stems and leaves” might remind some of our older readers of the sixties when the exact phrase was “stems and seeds” but the idea is similar.

To continue, this paper is rough, has the stems and leaves in it and is one folio. One page folded over once. There are seven of these pages so the whole book is 28 pages.

Here is a closer look at how the pages are more torn than cut nicely. The look and feel of this book just screams out for someone to touch it.

Now I need a poet and a calligrapher to add some content. Or maybe an artist with a calligrapher’s pen that will draw some worthy portraits or pictures. Or some phone numbers and turn it into an address book.

Noooooo!

It also has five strings the same color as the binding hanging down from the edge of the triangle to near the bottom. This is ‘artsy’ with a capital F, verdad?

But it only took lots of sanding, two or three varnishings and more sanding to get it to look right. For some reason I couldn’t get a handle on it. The inlay on the back, for example, took a week to get right and it’s still not completely what I wanted.

Practice, I suppose, is next on my agenda. In fact, next week we will have three books from my Chinese - or is it Japanese - Stab Binding Series.

Now it’s August and I can’t get the inlay to lay right. What a life. I mean, straight line. We shall see what becomes of it. Meanwhile, I made a bookshelf to house my…. cooking utensils. Okay, it’s a counter more than a bookshelf. But it Looks like a bookshelf.

Photos of the July Book to come. (Before the August book is finished, one would hope, wouldn’t one?)