Bookbinding This is the first book I’ve bound in a couple of three-four months; maybe more. It’s A5, five signatures of five folios each. It is unique in that it has two endpapers on the front and back. The second endpaper is not glued to the cover but it looks nice. When I first made this book (I made it twice), the thread got caught on the cover but I didn’t notice it until I was finished. I wondered why the stitching on the cover was loose until I opened the book and found a large thread rela...
Jul 07, 2025•6 min•Ep. 313
Life I have told you in the past that I had a relative who had a terminal disease and that I was taking care of her. That relative has died. That relative was my wife. We met when she was 23, and she passed away at 63. She passed away in May of this year. We were married for 31 years, but had a lively and romantic life together for almost 40 years. Fortunately, we also had two wonderful children who took care of me for the last month. I have a lot of memories (good and bad) to work through. And ...
Jun 01, 2025•4 min•Ep. 312
Bookbinding This week or last, can’t remember, I made a sunny yellow book called Solaris Libri. The original name was the Sun Book, to go along with the Snowbank Book and the Earth Book, but decided to jazz I it up a little bit by throwing in Google’s Latin translation for Sun Book. The idea was I would make the book and then put it in the sun. Originally, I would just drop it in the garden and let nature take its course. But that meant it wouldn’t be the Sun book but the weather book. So I tape...
May 01, 2025•8 min•Ep. 311
Bookbinding I did something I should have done when I first started making books, but was too naive (dumb?) to do. I recommend new bookbinders do this activity. I made three A6-sized blank notebooks with five signatures of five folios each for a total of 100 pages. They were made with two different hinge gaps and three different spine pieces. This was a mistake. They should have been made with three different hinge gaps instead of two. Why did I make three books like this? Again, just to see how...
Apr 15, 2025•12 min•Ep. 310
Bookbinding In the last week, I have made four or five books of varying skill levels. Mostly, I made three books to test out various hinge gap spacing. Some people recommend one size, others another size. I will talk about those books in a future Tedorigawa Bookmakers podcast, so be sure to subscribe to hear that one. Also on a future podcast will be Solaris Libri (The Sun Book) that will be left out in the sun, the moon, and the stars (plus weather) for a month (30 days). I’m currently making t...
Mar 30, 2025•7 min•Ep. 309
Bookbinding In Episode 306, I showed you a French Link Stitch I made in January of this year. Well, this week I cased it in with book cloth I made last year and chiyogami Japanese endpapers. It’s still seven signatures of five folios each for about 140 pages, but now it’s enclosed in a nice cover. After casing in that book, creatively called Notebook January 2025, I made a similar book with a different name: Earth Book. I’ll talk more about Earth Book in the video section. It is five signatures ...
Mar 15, 2025•7 min•Ep. 308
Bookbinding Two things happened last week. First, a family member fell sick. Second, I fell under the spell of norovirus, the stomach bug. Third, the family member physically fell and needed to be taken to the hospital; in the middle of the night. All of us are resting well. Needless to say, making a book was not my top priority. But, having said that, to relax, I made a small B7 not-blank notebook with five signatures of four folios each. Not-blank because the paper was leftover school handouts...
Mar 01, 2025•2 min•Ep. 307
Bookbinding Over the past few weeks, I’ve been binding quite a bit; not crazily, but more than usual. I made three A6 (pocketbook)-sized blank notebooks with between 140 and 160 pages. I’ve used kettle stitches and French link stitches; mostly to practice the French link stitch which I think looks nice on an open spine (similar to the Coptic stitch) but is more inspiring? creative inducing? artistic? Maybe all three at the same time. Let me know which you prefer when sewing a few signatures toge...
Feb 15, 2025•7 min•Ep. 306
Bookbinding In January 2025, I made my second attempt at a French link stitch on a 160-page, A6-size blank notebook called, appropriately enough, The 2025 Blank 160-page French Link Stitch Notebook. It has eight signatures of five folios each for a total of 160 pages; the title page and the Tedorigawa logo use two of the pages. The other 158 pages are blank. I used an interesting scrap of paper I found in my To Be Used Later pile. I glued this scrap to a thin upcycled envelope to make the front ...
Jan 31, 2025•9 min•Ep. 305
Bookbinding Playing around with DaVinci and Gemini I requested a nun with a smirk on her face in an abandoned village. And got this lady with an uncharacteristic moon hovering above her head, a detail a living artist would not have included. I turned her into a 50-page, A5-ish notebook. The recto page is 10x10mm graph paper. Verso is lined. I used Coptic binding with green thread. The cover has three or four papers from my To Use bin under my workbench. As you can see the cover includes: 1. A ve...
Jan 13, 2025•8 min•Ep. 304
Bookbinding I delved into prefect binding – the binding that uses glue instead of thread to keep the signatures together; the style of binding most common in ordinary store-bought, factory-produced books that sometimes results in pages falling to the floor on the 787 flying to London, if you were so lucky as to be heading to Europe while re-reading Gravity’s Rainbow. Or your classroom floor. I made three blank notebooks using the perfect binding. They are all in the landscape orientation to make...
Jan 01, 2025•7 min•Ep. 302
Bookbinding This week, we have a notebook called Blank Proust. I made it because I wanted to make a blank notebook with an interesting cover. Simultaneously, I’m reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. (I’m at the beginning of book three: The Guermantes Way). Combining the two, I landed on Blank Proust, if memory serves. This A6-sized Coptic-bound notebook has nine signatures of five folios for a total of 180 pages. All but two are blank. One has the title: Blank Proust with a snapshot o...
Nov 30, 2024•9 min•Ep. 303
Bookbinding Today we have two blank red notebooks. Both are A5 (pocketbook) in size, about 100 pages each, and with stylish endpapers. Useful for sketching, scheduling, taking notes, or practicing ransom notes or whatever you wish to do with it. Book one is entirely blank. Not even a Tedorigawa Bookmakers logo on the penultimate page. No page numbers, no title page. Freedom! It does have a bookmark to assist you in finding a page you find important. The bookmark is brown-purple (mostly brown) to...
Nov 16, 2024•4 min•Ep. 301
Bookbinding I took a plane flight the other month. As soon as I saw the vomit bag (waterproof disposal bag, according to the airline) I thought: Book Cover! As one does when one makes books. On the same flight, I was given three pieces of paper to prove my existence on the flight: a yellow flimsy paper with my flight gate, seat, destination, etc; a formal boarding pass with the same info; and a pink paper with, yet again, the same information. And I, of course, again, immediately, thought: Book ...
Nov 02, 2024•6 min•Ep. 300
Bookbinding Not much in the way of bookbinding this week, but I have an excuse: heat and laziness on my part. I did, however, purchase several tenugui that I will eventually turn into book covers. The latest (and second overall) book cloth I made came out very wrinkled. I attempted to iron it flat but I should've ironed it flat Before I added copious amounts of glue and backing (shoji paper, in my case.) Fiction Fiction‽ What can I say about fiction? I’ll tell you what I can say about Fiction! C...
Jun 28, 2024•6 min•Ep. 299
Bookbinding We (meaning I, i.e. the royal We), made an A6-sized (pocket book) Coptic-bound, blank notebook with seven signatures of four folios for about 112 pages. Pages are numbered for easy reference. Unremarkable really as I’ve made a few of these bunkobon (文庫本) books in the past. So, what makes this edition warrant special mention? First, 文庫本 is an A6 size book equivalent to what Americans refer to as a pocket book (but not a pocketbook which is an accessory for holding cash and credit card...
May 25, 2024•8 min•Ep. 298
Bookbinding We finished the renovation of a client’s well-used travel book. It got a new map, a new cover, and new endpapers. The client also requested a blank notebook so I sent two blank notebooks. Knowing that one book was going to an artist, I sent a coptic-bound book because coptic-bound books open flat and are much more useful for drawing and sketching than case-bound books. Case-bound books are your usual hardcover books. Secondly, I finished a creative outlet book that had two purposes. ...
May 10, 2024•7 min•Ep. 297
Bookbinding We found ourselves finishing up two blank notebooks this week. One yellow and one mostly red with a slightly floral motif. The Yellow One has a title on the front cover: Dibujo & Kaku (the Kaku being, in Japanese, 描く. Both carrying the meaning of Draw or Drawing. On the inside title page of the yellow one is a sketch of the front of a steam train, an umbrella, a cloud, and rain. The word Train is over the umbrella. T/Rain was the idea. There are 105 numbered pages in Dibujo/描く. E...
Apr 15, 2024•6 min•Ep. 296
Bookbinding A client sent me a book that needed to be rebuilt, repaired, and improved. I need to fix the covers, the spine, and a map is glued to the back cover. Because I have to fix the covers I was thinking of updating the map, too. This is an exciting proposition because I have to investigate maps! Also, the client wants a soft cover so he can cram it in his book bag without fear. Fiction I finished Molly Bright! I have included sub-plots concerning Molly (trouble with her boss), Merengue &a...
Mar 31, 2024•5 min•Ep. 295
Bookbinding In the last few days or weeks, I’ve created an A5 Blank Notebook with page numbers on slightly yellow paper with a bright yellow cover (red threads, though), and red headbands with a dark red (maroon?) bookmark for your viewing and using pleasure. This monstrosity has nine (9) signatures of four folios each for a grand total of 144 pages. It also has a William Morris-influenced pair of endpapers that set off the yellow of the covers quite nicely, I believe. You are more than allowed ...
Mar 15, 2024•6 min•Ep. 294
