My Bookbinding Experience

I began book binding in 1994 when I read an article in Tournaments Illuminated on how to make a book. The instructions were for a simple cord bound book with Victorian stitching, but they were simple enough that I felt sure I could do it. That year I made a hardback songbook for everyone in House Merlion and House Mallard. We sat around the fireplace and sang songs out of them during our Christmas dinner.

After making books for several years, I wanted to upscale, and began adding sewn endcaps to my books, following the instructions in Aldren A. Watson's Hand Bookbinding. It was around this time that I first found THE book of medieval bookbinding, J.A. Szirmai's The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding and began working on reproducing the Epistole held by OSU Special Collections.

For the past several years, I've been binding books in the style of the Epistole. Copying the stitching style, the linen reinforcement, the parchment strips of reinforcement within the book, and using homespun linen line for thread. I hope to add decorations to the leather in my future books.

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Some of the Books I've Made