San Francisco Center for the Book

Explore this fascinating style of limp binding, which offers many creative possibilities to today's book artist as well as presenting an interesting overview of historical sewing structures, both practical and decorative.

Limp bindings, held together with exposed sewing, have been made throughout Europe since the fifteenth century, and were used for both printed and blank books. It is interesting to note that because they are such simple structures, they were often not made by trained bookbinders, but could be put together by clerks in their offices with a few simple tools and, essentially, straightforward sewing techniques. They employ a range of sewing structures, including tackets, long and link stitches, decorative spine patterns and ingenious fastenings, using both simple and elaborate techniques.

In this workshop you will produce five bindings that are historically accurate but with a contemporary take. We will begin by making a simple binding held together with tackets — as old as the codex itself — then create a simple longstitch binding, a more complex linkstitch, and then combine the two. We will finish with a linkstitch binding, with a handsome wooden spine plate and additional decorative sewing.

You will create covers from a variety of materials, starting with handsome handmade case paper. You’ll then learn how to laminate two sheets of text paper together to make a stiffened card cover, and finally, how to create a very beautiful vellum cover by lining an old deed with thin Japanese paper. The books will be further embellished with spine plates of leather, vellum and wood. They will be given closures and ties (including hidden magnets!), and ornamented with buttons, bosses, secondary sewing and woven thread.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:
sharp bone folders, small hand drill and thin bits, Japanese screw punch if you have one, various buttons, clasps and threads.

About the Instructor:
Michael Burke (he/him) studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in England, where he teaches bookbinding as well at events across the UK. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings and received his Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London in 2011.

Michael is a co-founder of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.