Episodes
Monday May 13, 2013
Episode 106: Islamic Notebooks
Monday May 13, 2013
Monday May 13, 2013
Here's the thing: Islamic bindings have a flap that folds over the front of the book. In the right hands, they are exquisitely decorated. The flap serves at least two functions. First, it protects the fore edge of the book. Second, it can serve as a bookmark as your plow through the content, if any.
I made these two lined notebooks simultaneously for two reasons. First, if you're going to print out a bunch of pages for a notebook, you might as well do a couple. Second, the first book is a learning experience while the second book benefits from mistakes and insights of the first book.
The process for these books was:
1) Print out 40 sheets of lined and numbered pages, then fold them. Each book got 20 pages, for 80 numbered pages total. I printed them on a Epson printer, not a hand printer like Gutenberg did.
2) Fold, sew, and attach the mull and extra strip of paper to the spine.3) Measure and cut the book boards which, in this case was thick construction paper.
4) Measure and cut the book cloth. The cloth I chose has been hanging around my desk begging to be used for at least five years. It is slightly Arabic-looking if you don't know anything about Arabic writing. Upon closer research, it looks closer to Tamil. If anyone knows what it really is, let me know.
5) Measure and cut the endpapers. There are normally two endpapers per book but because this book has that extra flap, there are four endpapers~ two for the text block and two for that extra flap.
6) Glue everything together.
7) Sew the snaps to the front cover and the extra flap. The snaps keep the book closed.
From start (printing) to finish (sewing the snaps) probably took me 2.5 ~ 3 hours.These notebooks are pocket-sized A6, 80 numbered pages, five signatures of four sheets each, with a snap to keep it closed. If I were to do it again, and I'm think I will only in a larger size, I will sew the snaps before gluing the endpapers in to hide the sewing.
And, for no particular reason, on the front page is a picture of Claire Clairmont, the lover of Lord Byron and maybe the lover of Percy Shelly, too, while he was married to Mary Shelly, author of Frankenstein. Plus, she gave birth to Byron's daughter, Allegra, not Ada who went on to invent computer programming. On the back page is a picture of Kanazawa's main train station. Again, just because I could.
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