I've been thinking about re-covering a book lately - I'm reading Lieutenant Hornblower at the moment and the cover is hideous.
At home I have a possible first eddition of Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book. So when I saw this one in Oxfam today, I really wanted to cover it to make it that bit more special. I actually really like the cover on the original paperback:
The book, re-covered with a hard-back cover, burgandy ribbon and end papers, red headers.
I do want to incorporate a title onto the cover and spine, but I have no idea where I would start. I would want to somehow include the illustration from the paperback.
In the end I decided to use the paper I already had to finish the other notebook - here it is!
I have gathered over the past year quite a few papers for bookbinding. The plain stuff is what I'll use for end papers, and the patterned stuff I'll use for covers. I like to use red and blue a lot in bookbinding.
-->Here is a book I’m binding at the moment. I really like this material, I’ve used it before, and I just brought a load from the material shop in town. Annoyingly, I have the skeletons of the book, but not the right parts. In trimming of the end papers to size, I accidently trimmed the fold, cutting it in two. What’s more annoying is although I have more sheets of blue, it’s not quite the same blue, and I brought the nice blue from a shop on the Island. I don’t think I’ll be able to find the same blue in Bath.
Future books
I'm planning on making a sketchbook for my aunt's birthday (using the floral) and my brother's asked me to make a book for his dissertation notes (the green dotty one). I could use either the blue or red inside both of the books, what do people think?
I have joined the perpetual bandwagon and I have created a 'blog', something that I have been pondering about for some time.
Without having an account on any blog sites I have been more or less stalking several such blogs and thinking – ‘Why have a blog?’
We had a very interesting talk from some handsome young chaps at the plenary last night (When they asked for questions I refrained from putting up my hand and asking for their numbers) who both have blogs. Jake Tupman has a considerably interesting blog, basically an online portfolio of his work. He gave us the reasons why a blog can be a great outlet, and as he says on his homepage, ‘Competition for jobs is fiercer than ever. A CV might say a few things but a website can say so much more.’ Well, I thought, that’s a rather fabulous idea.
There’s also a challenge with blogs – it’s written for a purpose, to be read. Why not start getting my voice out there, getting those skills out, writing something for the purpose of being read by other people.
I have been slightly reluctant to write a blog. I have a friend of a friend who kept an online diary – it was basically a very personal diary. When my friend of the diarist asked me why on earth I would read such a personal thing, I replied that, ‘It was up on the internet for everyone to see.’ I keep a personal diary, but I’m reluctant to blog because a lot of what I would write up here is what I would include in my diaries, and therefore I would feel like I’ve abandoned my diaries.
But I’m going to go ahead with this anyway. It’ll give me a chance to brag about book-binding, for one.
Those who know me best, I hope, will get a laugh out of my description, because if the Isle of Wight is not mentioned in every single blog entry, get help for me.
