#vellum binding

Read the Call Me Menace here and Villains Never Retire starting here.

Materials used book case boards - museum board (white) counter pull layer on boards- museum paper (white) spine stiffener - photo cardboard (white) vellum (calf parchment) coloured with alcohol based stain - cover material

inner book textblock paper - Schleipen fly 05 115gsm endpapers - marbled paper by Renato Crepaldi endbands - buttonhole silk coloured top edge - chameleon acrylic ink

I was really thrilled to see once dry that the vellum had gone down well. I gave it a good extra rub down through silicone release paper just to level out the embroidery threads.

Once the vellum on the cover was dry it was time to work on the inside of the boards. First I infilled with a layer of card, the same thickness as that of the vellum turn-ins. On top of this I glued down a layer of Zerkall, cut just slightly smaller than the overall size of the boards.

Once this was glued down in place, I sanded the Zerkall completely flat, so that there were no lumps and bumps.

Finally, one this was totally flat, I was able to glue down the paper doublure. I chose a colour to match the text block and this was glued down in place with PVA and a roller.

During the process of trimming the pages at the beginning of the project, there were a few off-cuts of paper left over with a little of the pochoir on them. I kept these not knowing whether I would find a use for them. 

As the folded concertina wasn’t perfectly square on all four edges (it was seemingly impossible to get it so!), plus with this method of binding there was no need for sewn headbands, I decided to add some of my own. This would neaten up the look of the head and tail of the book and would add some more detail.

I began by cutting two small sections of square profile tulipwood to the width of the inner spine. 

These were then mitred at both ends and paired together with the pochoir offcuts.

I delaminated the paper so that it was thinner, and covered the tulip wood in the coloured paper. I am now referring to these as “end-caps”.

I drilled two holes in both the end-caps and glued two brass pins in place. Corresponding holes were also drilled at the top and bottom of the inside of the spine, and the end-caps were secured in place. 

At this point, I also glued the concertina into the case by tipping the tab that was left at the end of the folded concertina directly into the front board of the case, so that when positioned the pages were square.

So the book was complete! Now time to move onto the box. I commissioned a wonderful woodworker to make a tulipwood box for me to the following dimensions.

I wanted the title on the front of the box, and to carry the theme along I decided to embroider this onto the box lid. I used a bodkin to mark holes into the surface of the wood through a template, and then used a very fine drill bit in my Dremel to drill through the box lid.

I then used a fine needle and embroidered the title onto the lid in the same way i had done all of the words on the cover, first with a running stitch and then a whipping stitch. It was more difficult to do the whipping on the box top as there was no flexibility in the wood so I had a bit of trouble weaving the needle under the running stitch in places but I got there in the end.

To add a bit of extra colour to the title, I punched out some small circles from the leftover pochoir paper. I also cut a thin circle of wood out of the box top using my Japanese centre punch and then these paper circles were glued into them.

The thread tails were glued down on the inside of the lid. I then lined the inside of the lid and base of the box with felt which absorbed the threads underneath, the sides were lined with matching paper. A ribbon was attached into the bottom of the box to help lift the book out.

Materials used:

case board - museumsboard, white spine stiffener - cardboard gathering the case and laser printed cover decoration - white paper cover material - calf parchment

inner book text block paper - Schleipen fly 05, 115gsm endpapers - Chiyogami paper and Hahnemühle Ingres Bütten paper sewing material - linnen thread (flax) endbands - buttonhole silk (Gütermann) edge finish - head and foot edge polished Font's used Titel font - Boecklin's universe Chapter title, page count and drop caps - Amarante text body - Georgia

But what do the covers read? I took text from near the beginning of the poem for the back cover:

I was in my adolescence at the time Scarcely sixteen and already I no longer remembered my childhood I was 16,000 leagues from my birthplace I was in Moscow, in the city of a thousand and three belfries and seven railroad stations And they weren't enough for me, the seven railroad stations and the thousand and three towers For my adolescence was so blazing and so mad That my heart burned in turns as the temple of Epheseus, or as Red Square in Moscow When the sun sinks. And my eyes shone upon the ancient routes And I was already such a bad poet That I didn't know how to go all the way to the end. . The Kremlin was like an immense Tatar cake Crusted with gold, With great almonds of cathedrals all done in white And the honeyed gold of the bells… . An old monk was reading to me the legend of Novgorod I was thirsty And I was deciphering…

And for the front cover, a section towards the end. This was a rather apt section of text to choose given it included the words “rouge”, “vert”, “multicolores”, “jaune” and “d’or” - how appropriate for a colourful book!

O Paris Large glowing hearth with the crossed pokers of your streets and your old homes that hunch over warming themselves Like forefathers And here are the posters, red and green multicoloured as my brief yellow past Yellow the proud colour of French novels sold abroad. . I love to squeeze into moving buses in big cities Those of the Saint-Germain-Montmartre line bring me to the assault of the Hill The motors bellow like golden bulls The bovine twilight grazes the Sacre Cœur O Paris Central station last stop of desire crossroads of unrest Only the merchants of colour still have a little bit of light on their doors The “International Company of Sleeping Cars and Europeans Express Trains” has sent me their brochure It is the most beautiful church in the world

OPEN BOOK IN FRONT OF OPEN BOX (BELOW)

FRONT COVER AND TEXT BLOCK EDGE (BELOW)

Although in the original, due to how the text block was folded, neither the text or the imagery could be seen until the book was completely unfolded, this was not the case for my binding. I was really thrilled once it was finished to see how well the coloured stitching harmonised with the strips of colour on the folded edges of the pages.

DETAIL OF BOOK ON TOP OF BOX (BELOW)

BOX LID (BELOW)

I really liked the fact that the box remained so simple, with just the title added on the top. I didn’t want to take away from the intricate a coloured embroidery of the cover that popped out as you opened the lid.

BLAISE CENDRARS SIGNATURE INSIDE SPINE (BELOW)

Blaise Cendrar’s signature was placed so that it would be a little added extra surprise as the book was opened. With embroidering it inside the spine it is hidden behind the concertina when the book is closed.

DETAIL OF OPEN CONCERTINA

The wonderful colours of the pochoir spill out as the concertina is unfolded. I was really pleased with how well the pochoir-covered end-caps worked as an extra design element of the binding.

SPINE TITLE (BELOW)

The title was embroidered, thankfully without any spelling mistakes (see below for details of my near disaster!).

EMBROIDERY DETAIL (BELOW)

From pink, to yellow, to green, to red, to blue and on and on, this truly was a book of multicolour.

THE OUTER BOX (BELOW)

The wooden box I had made was further housed in an outer conservation box. This was partly to protect it, and also so that the small accompanying concertina pamphlet that Kitty Maryatt had produced explaining about the project could live with the binding. This little booklet had a section made for it in the outer box so it could sit below the wooden box.

THE SAMPLE BOARD/BOOK

I have made reference in previous parts of this blog post to the sample board/book that I worked on ahead of the actual binding, I finish with some photos of this. I chose a darker blue goatskin for this spine with gold thread to embroider the title, this changed on the actual binding as I felt the dark blue didn’t match the pochoir.

I didn’t have quite enough vellum to cover the back board entirely so I pieced two bits together and masked the joint with a strip of the leftover pochoir.

SAMPLE BOARD/BOOK COVER EMBROIDERY

I embroidered the sample with writing at and angle, however decided to change this on the actual binding working horizontally. Thankfully, I had asked in advance whether it was okay to post images of some of my work in progress online whilst working on this project, both Kitty Maryatt and Neale Albert agreed. I was very pleased that this was the case as a French friend of mine spotted a spelling error on the sample book! Rather than “La Prose de Transsbérien”, it should have been “La Prose du Transsbérien”, another good reason for doing sample boards I guess - phew!

THE OPEN CONCERTINA OF THE SAMPLE BOARD/BOOK

The book was made so that when closed, the width and height were the same dimensions as my sample boards. Although of course it is thicker than a sample board, it can still sit in the same box as them in a wider slot.

This mini book is also going to have a second purpose, I have been meaning for a long while to make an index for my sample boards. Given this book is a sample board, and will therefore be in the box with them, I intend to use it’s pages to index all the other boards.

SAMPLE BOARD CONCERTINA PAGES

The front and back doublures of the sample book are different colours, initially I thought I would go for red doublures but in the end opted for pale blue to match the first spread of the concertina when opened.

BLAISE CENDRARS SIGNATURE ON INNER SPINE

Blaise Cendrar’s signature also appears on the sample book in red thread. This is sample number 54 in my ever-growing series.

The completed binding is now safely in New York. It is due to be shipped on to San Francisco to take part in the following exhibition alongside some other absolutely wonderful bindings of La Prose by other binders.

EXHIBITION at the San Francisco Center for the Book TITLE: Drop Dead Gorgeous: Fine Bindings of La Prose du Transsibérien Re-creation DATES: September 6 to October 6, 2019 OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, September 6, 2019, 6:00–8:00 pm LOCATION: San Francisco Center for the Book, 375 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco, CA.

The remarkable book by poet Blaise Cendrars and artist Sonia Delaunay, La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France, was produced by letterpress and pochoir in 1913. It was a landmark achievement for its time with its unprecedented format, avant-garde typography and abstract imagery, and remains vibrant and modern today.

Kitty Maryatt of Two Hands Press has been researching the production of La Prose du Transsibérien since 2012. In 2018, she debuted a new edition of 150 copies, which faithfully incorporates techniques and methods used in the original. At the same time, Maryatt and her underwriters commissioned fine bindings by notable design binders from around the world. These bindings, along with Maryatt’s La Prose du Transsibérien Re-Creation, have resulted in a traveling exhibition titled Drop Dead Gorgeous: Fine Bindings of La Prose du Transsibérien Re-creation.

Debuting in San Francisco, the exhibition will feature the work of twenty-two design binders, including Don Glaister, Monique Lallier, Midori Kunikata-Cockram and Kathy Abbott. Tools, materials, and supplemental material used in the creation of Maryatt’s edition of La Prose will also be on display. Upon closing in San Francisco in October, the exhibition travels to additional venues in the United States, Canada and England.