The Puccini Boheme Book

What we have here is a small yet fun to make blank notebook with a zillion pages. Or, really, B5 paper folded into quarters - about 30 of these little darlings - and sewed together and a Puccini 'La Boheme' flyer used as the cover.

Perhaps the pen gives you a sense of the size of this thing - a cute little number that was fun to make, after some difficulty with coming to terms with it.


Perfect binding was used and the one main problem is that the spine bit of the cover was just a tad too big. It doesn't exactly close properly but ripping it apart to fix it would be too much of a trauma - I'd have to destroy the cover - and I'm pleasantly pleased with it. Why? Well, one reason could be that it is the first book I've made in Three Full Months! Unbelievable.

By the way, not to change the subject, but La Boheme is the second most performed opera. The first-most performed opera is Madame Butterfly. Both were written by this Puccini fellow. I guess he had good fortune with operas starting with 'B.' Hence, the name of this little gem is The Puccini La Boheme Book (The Puccini The Bohemian Book?).

Tweet Me Baby Til the Juice Runs Down My Twitter

The title is, of course, not taken from a Led Zeppelin song or even an older Leadbelly song but the even younger Howling Wolf song "Killing Floor" retitled "Lemon Song" by the Brothers Zeppelin (James and Bobby). All this has nothing to do with the

Twitter

On which, if you go to Tedorigawa on Twitter (http://twitter.com/tedorigawa) you will find Tedorigawa Bookmakers tweeting like cheerful little birds hoping for regurgitated worms from mom. Boy, there's a delightful image.

Crapsey Update Part Two

I found some nice rough artistic hand-made paper for the Crapsey project. And where did I find this paper? In my pile of paper. I must've bought it a long time ago and today, while cleaning up around my paper pile, I found this rough, off-yellow/pale white paper that, when ink is applied to it, blotches quite nicely. And I was quite surprised. So, I'm going to use it for the Crapsey poem project.

Crapsey Quintain Poetry Coptic Binding Book Project

With a name like Adelaide Crapsey, isn't it any wonder she created a new poetry style called quintain? Quintains have 22 syllables in five lines with, at best, each line being slightly longer than the previous. This is not a hard and fast rule, however. Ms Crapsey, who died of TB at 36, didn't even follow the rule 100% of the time.

I am creating a hand-written coptic binding book of a few - about 25 - of her quintains. I hope to finish soon and get onto my Circular Book. Both have great expectations.

Meanwhile, if you like undead horror, check out Humanagers: Where the Undead Live it Up.

An English (?) Bookbinder

It has been a month since the opening and running of the fat loss podcast Goya2Goya and in that month I have lost and gained 1 kilogram (2.2 lbs) and lost it again. A mini-yoyo if you will.

I have also toyed with link and/or long stitch. This can be seen here. It is a blank notebook with a fanciful cover and closed by three stands of industrial twine. My first long stitch and it went, uh, reasonably well. For my first time. I shall be practicing it more as the weeks go on.

Also, an English, I assume, bookbinder shows some of his leathers and tools in this two-minute video. Enjoy.

Chester bookbinder Andrew Brown from TONY CLIXBY on Vimeo.

Goya2Goya: The Weight Loss Podcast

New Podcast at Podomatic.com called Goya2Goya. This is a podcast I've thought about for awhile. Just me talking, sometimes with a guest inquisitor, while I walk around my town and discuss losing weight.

How I hope to lose weight, how much I used to weigh and how much I weigh now, how what you eat is as important as how much you eat (those empty calories in alcohol tend to cause weights to balloon upwards), how much I hope to lose, and general observations as I walk around.

My current weight is 67 kg (148 lbs) and according to US standards, I'm not fat. But I have a beer belly (or, more politely, a 'paunch') that I'd like to get rid off. My goal is 57 kg (125 lbs). Good luck with that, eh?

Goya2Goya stands for Get Off Your Ass To Get (it) Off Your Ass. The (it), of course, is fat. Fat. Big Fat. But in my case, and in most men's cases, it's not so much the ass as the stomach:

The Beer Belly is Evil.

And here's why: those with beer bellies tend to suffer more heart attacks. And more fatal heart attacks. And they are ... uuuuuuugly.

If you're trying to lose weight and want some support, download Goya2Goya and listen to it on your mp3 player as You walk around losing weight. Then send me your tips and tricks for losing weight - I really need them.

Thanks. Our email is goya2goya@gmail.com

Art and the Word on Wordle.net

This just in from Wordle, a fun way to play with words.

Having a Little Fun

During the recent New Year's vacation I dabbled in a miniture book. Well, maybe not so miniture. It measures 6.5 cm by 10 cm and its theme is Halloween. Why Halloween which is either 10 months in the future or two months in the past? Because I used a box as a cover and the box originally housed a plastic jack-o-lantern and, as such, had a carved pumpkin on one face and a bat on the other.

The interior of the book - perfect binding, by the way, meaning not 'perfect' but like a 'real' book - continued the Halloween theme with a short essay on why certain folks don't like Halloween, a variety of Halloween-themed drawings (bats, pumpkins, a ghost or two), and Trick or Treat. The main difference between this book and others is that each 'signature' is actually a folded single piece of paper using what seems to be called the 'Hot Dog' folding method. This is actually a quite common fold here - lots of elementary school kids do it when they should be listening to the teacher - but handy.

Most of the 'art' in this book was done before the paper was folded so it's a surprise to see what pops up on what page. The essay, for example, starts on one page but doesn't conclude until several pages later and the middle is hidden. Fun. A pleasant way to spend a little snowy afternoon.

New Year's New Resolutions

Odds and ends of Bookmaking Resolutions for 2009.

• Starting tomorrow I will make a series of 2010 diaries so that by this time next year I won't have to work my tail off trying to finish one. 

• I will have several books in several stages of production constantly.

1. In design

2. In preparation

3. In construction

4. In marketing and sales

• I will promote Tedorigawa Bookmakers (the company) constantly. Until people get sick of hearing about it. For this I need a few things that I will put together before January 31:

1. Business cards

2. Pamphlet of books available

3. Handouts of books available

• Finally, with all due respect to the economic turmoil of the times, I will work my hinny off to make Tedorigawa Bookmakers profitable!

Yes!

Who's with me in this?! Everybody? Good! Let's hit the bricks, people and make our dreams our reality!

Whew, what a pep talk. Sorry, gotta go. Work to be done and all. (Got to design a killer diary for 2010.)

Okay, I'm slow...

Maybe everyone and his or her grandparents have seen this bookbinding video but it took me a long time to find it and I want it somewhere I can find it quickly and easily, so, here it is on my blog. Thank you very much If'n and Youtube.

Sometime soon in the future (as opposed to the past), more updates on my books will be forth coming. Meanwhile, check out Tedorigawa Bookmakers and DinoSoarPix and Tedorigawa. I'm working on a bilingual mystery suitable for Chinese stab binding, burning a CD, and photos. All wrapped into one book. Exciting. Maybe even with a slip case.

Thanks for looking at my blogs and hope to see you again.

The Rough Book

Rough pages from the Rough Book. This paper is thick and full of things like leaves and stems. It was fun to make and it's great fun to hold. And very light - not heavy - because the pages and the covers have tons of holes in them.

I must give it to an artist to use as a creative exposure of their work as it is too good to keep around the house being impressive. (Not my work. My work is average but the paper and the covers are great.

Here we have a view of the pages wherein you can see the leaves and stems and other things that make this book very, very touchy feelly. Very tactile. I don't remember where I bought the paper for the pages or the cover but they came together quickly when I decided they needed to be together. Or, rather, they told me they had to be together.

Finally, we come to the cover which is red and holey. Here you can see the yellow paper behind the cover. I used the yellow paper as end papers, too so when you look at the book in a bookstore you'll see the yellow and red mixed nicely together.

By they way, go to Tedorigawa to read my dilemma. Which should I do: rent it or not?

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

Triangle Book

This is a wood covered book using coptic binding and an inlay on the back with a carved triangle on the front. Thread the same color as the binding hangs down from the triangle toward the bottom of the book. It has about 168 pages of white blank paper. It is narrower than A4 paper but the same height.

It took quite a bit to get the inlay inlaid correctly; lots of mistakes but eventually we learned a lot about carving, measuring, and adjusting. Even though the book took a lot of time to get right and was quite frustrating, it was worth the effort because of lessons learned. 

Listen to Episode Eleven on the player at right to hear someone complaining about the effort put into this book. Also, check out Tedorigawa Bookmakers , another site related to books.

June 6th Book

The June 6th Book was completed sometime in July - but that's okay because the July 7th Book might be completed sometime in August. I'm hoping the August 8th Book will be completed sometime in August, too, but I'm not taking any bets on it.

The July 6th Book has six signatures of six folios each, yellow lined paper, wooden covers with a strip of mahogany running down the right-ish side. I used green waxed linen thread.

I think it came out quite well. Probably a B+ on my scale. The sewing is good but the lines on the lined paper are not up to par. (I printed them all out double sided and some are crooked.)

The whole idea of making one 'serious' book a month (July 7th, August 8th et cetera) is to explore and expand my bookbinding repertoire. Next up: photos and better cover design. And hand-sewn headbands. (but not Armenian headbands, ooh, no.)

Cereal Series Part II

The Premium Corn Flake with beet sugar Book. (It says so on the front cover.) This is a book from my Cereal Series. It has coptic binding, cereal box covers, seven signatures of six folios each for about 168 unlined pages. It's a blank notebook suitable for gift giving.

It's not so big (B6) and fits nicely into a jacket pocket. The one problem is the back cover is on upside down. Or not. Maybe it's art. 

To your right, the Kellogg's Genmai Book (Brown Rice Flake Book) - on the left; and the orange Premium Corn Flake with Beet Sugar Book - on the right. The Premium Corn Flake is B6 size while the Genmai Book is B5, if that makes any sense.

Five Yellow Notebooks

Five yellow notebooks all with coptic stitching (one almost done well), book board covered in yellow, red inserts for a touch of flair and endpapers made of photos I took from around the neighborhood. A very big neighborhood. Pictures of cherry blossoms on the inside front cover. And a temple in sepia on the inside back cover. Unless you turn the notebook over, in which case they are the opposite.

What did we learn from all of this? I learned how to do coptic binding better and tighter. The whole purpose behind making five (five green notebooks below and five yellow ones now) is Practice. Practice. And more practice. Each one seems to be getting a little better each time (except the one where I ripped the hole too wide near the edge and screwed it entirely. Oh, well, we learn and live.)

Ready for one more picture?

Here is in the inside of the back cover. This is a temple in Kanazawa at dusk, although this is a sepia and slightly Photoshopped for color adjustment. A famous writer lived here as a child and it's half a temple and half a museum of his life.

Good fun in making all five notebooks. The last one is the one with the funky cover which you can barely see in the top photo. All the others have nothing on the cover except yellow.