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Much of a muchness
Things that make you go 'hmm'…
Another secret….
Posted by on April 9, 2008
Well, I said I would have another go at this Secret Belgian Binding and here it is. I tried the method that Rhonda at My Handbound Books recommended. The text block is sewn first in the usual way and then the covers and spine are attached. It’s a bit of a juggling act trying to hold all three bits of board and the book block together while you stitch them together and it’s especially difficult to keep the whole thing tight when you have to keep pulling it apart to get at the stitching in order to sew it all together but I eventually managed it. I’m actually quite pleased with it. I overcame the problems from my last effort by using a much longer length of thread, so no knots and also this method doesn’t need masking tape, so no tearing. This book is A5 size – much bigger than the last one which was a sweet little thing – here is a shot of the two of them together. 
I placed an order for some more supplies and paper from my favourite shop, Falkiners (incidentally, which is now known as Shepherds Bookbinders). You may remember I mentioned a while back, that I had an email from Falkiners thanking me for mentioning them so often on my blog! They had been googling themselves to check their ‘google-ability’ and I came up so often that they emailed to thank me and said that next time I placed an order, they would send me a gift to say thank you. Well, it arrived today – a whole black goatskin! I am so thrilled, it is so generous of them and I aim to put it to good use – it is gorgeous. I just wish that it didn’t look quite so much like a goat – little legs and all……
As you may or may not remember, it’s no secret that I am a sci fi fan and Number 1 son and I are closet Trekkies and we love Star Trek in all it’s incarnations. I seem to have come across a lot of Star Trek jokes recently so here they are. This follows on from a previous post, last year called ‘To Boldly Go….’ which included the best Star trek cartoon EVER and a great song about ‘Bald Headed Men’ by Christine Lavin. I only mention the song because Jean-Luc Picard is my favourite ‘Star Trek’ character…..
and finally, here is my favourite, Eddie Izzard talking about Star Trek, it’s a bit long (9 minutes) but is well worth watching (a little bit of strong language warning). Hilarious!
Much of a muchness 
That book is beautiful. Honestly. Very nice.
I love Star Trek also (only slightly less than Star Wars). I think I saw all of the original series movies in the movie theater.
I saw that the first episode (not special) of Series 4 of Doctor Who was on television in the UK already. How was it? There’s a thread about it at SciFi.com that I am so tempted to read, but I’m trying to hold out until April 18th when it plays on the SciFi channel in the US.
Yeah, those goat skins are too goat like for my liking. I bought two when I took a bookbinding class in San Francisco (California) in February. I haven’t used them yet, but I aim to soon.
Your second attempt Secret Belgian Binding is great! I love the different spine. The lines make it look like an exposed spine binding with different colored papers. I love the effect. I haven’t given it a try yet. I’ve been busy teaching a friend how to do a Coptic stitch, and with a fairly busy travel schedule, I probably won’t have time for any bookbinding for almost two weeks! I’ll just have to buy some new supplies during my travels.
Ah, Star Trek–I grew up on that. One of the first movies I remember seeing is The Wrath of Khan. It scared me to death! I remember my mom being able to start quoting the shows after watching for less than a minute. And don’t even get me going on Captain Picard!
Paul – glad you like the book, I lost a lot of blood making it – I had to use a curved needle and kept stabbing myself :-)
The new series was on on Saturday, the first episode was OK – very silly aliens (like the Tribbles were silly in Star Trek) but Catherine Tate wasn’t as irritating as I thought she would be (I can’t bear her TV show) and there was a BIG surprise about half way through which I will only tell you about if you really want to know as I don’t want to spoil it for you. All I will say is it was unexplained and very unexpected……
Amy – I liked the contrasting spine too! No bookbinding for two weeks! Eek! Buying new supplies might just make up for it!
The only reason I didn’t go on about Jean Luc Picard is I raved about him in a previous post – gorgeous or what? That voice!
‘Make it so , Number One’ – ooh, yes please :-)
I mentioned Christine Lavin singing ‘Bald Headed Men’ in that post – such a funny song and it also includes my very, very favourite Star Trek cartoon :-)
It’s now “Trekkers”, my dear…we’ve graduated! ;D
Isn’t there a book called “Everything I know I learned from Star Trek”? It certainly is true for me. Mr. Spock was my first huge crush (I was only 4 at the time ST:TOS first aired in Hong Kong in 1968, but I remember it like it was yesterday, setting eyes on him for the first time). Of course, it goes to follow that I had a huge crush on Data also. I go for the emotionless, scientific types. ;>
Patrick Stewart definitely has the sexiest voice and was the sexiest captain of all the ST shows (Avery Brooks is a close second…I like his voice too). And I love Stewart as Professor Xavier too…X-Men being one of my other all-time favorite characters/stories.
I’ll have to show dh and the kids your ST clip and card…they enjoy ST almost as much as I do.
What a fantastic job you did on the books! Do you always perfect things on the second try?! The leaves motif is so pretty.
Congrats on your new goat skin! It’s very cool! A friend once gave me a sheep pelt to try and tan, but it was too much for me to tackle so we buried it in the yard. :}
A fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek AND Eddie Izzard?
Quick, let us elope together right now!
*Insert crude joke about ‘beaming up’*
I’m fascinated with the binding of that book! Beautiful handiwork. So intricate and yet practical. I would love to try something like that sometime.
Got to tell you something funny or rather, I must allocute. Comment number 17 on Sylvie G’s dancing video … the one by realitychick 83 … that was actually ME who left that comment! See, realitychick83 is my daughter, and she was at my house for the weekend and wanted me to help her set up a blog, so on Monday before she had to leave for home we did that. I told her I thought she might like WordPress and so we set up her account from my computer. After I watched the Sylvie G video later that night and made the comment and posted it, I realized I was still logged on as realitychick 83 from earlier in the day when I set up her blog!
I’m so embarrassed. My daughter actually doesn’t know who you are! Sorry …
I feel ever so much better now!
My older sister and I were glued to Star Trek in its heyday … I never got into the movies all that much, but I DID meet Leonard Nimoy backstage in Atlanta in the mid ’70s … he played Tevye in a production of Fiddler on the Roof!
That is some beautiful binding. I have tried my hand at book binding- but it always turns out sloopy.
I entirely agree with most of what you say, Leonard Nimoy – gorgeous. Avery Brooks – gorgeous, Data? Hmm, I’ll give you that one :-)
I was excited to hear that Eric Bana is in the new Star Trek film (even though he is playing the villain) and that the guy who plays Sylar in ‘Heroes’ is playing young Spock (it’s a prequel sort of film) The guy who is playing young Capt Kirk is Chris Pine (who he?) Anyways, hope it’s a good movie!
As for perfecting things on the second attempt – I try to, I don’t mind making mistakes on the first one – just so long as I don’t make any on the second one. I then call the first one ‘a prototype’ and that makes it OK. :-)
Fanton – that’s the best offer I’ve had all day! Would I get to be Lady Likely or Mrs Sickbag? I presume the Carrotty Kid is too young to elope….
Jenny – and here’s me thinking I’d got a new fan :-) That is funny!
You met Leonard Nimoy? How cool is that! Was he lovely? That must mean he was singing and dancing – that must have been surreal! Mr Spock singing ‘If I were a Rich Man’ :-D (without the pointy ears of course)
Pam – glad you liked the book. It’s the most complicated one I’ve tried but I love the way it turned out….
My first books were pretty bad, practice makes perfect! You should have another go – perhaps not a Secret Belgian Binding though!
Oh is it a film, then? For some reason I thought it was going to be a new TV series.
Embarrassingly, I had to look up Eric Bana. We considered renting and watching The Incredible Hulk at one point and if we had done so, I would have known who he was. :>
I had to go Google Chris Pine too.
Well, I’m excited about the upcoming film!
I looked it up on the IMDB (internet movie database http://www.imdb.com)
They have so much info on every actor and every movie and TV series – even very obscure ones!
I like watching a film and then seeing what other people think of it in the discussion groups. It’s also great for checking out who the familiar face whose name you can’t remember is while you are watching a film…
Sad? Moi? :-)
Beautiful! I am enjoying your blog~~
Judy – (or should I call you Sugar Queen?!) So glad you are enjoying my blog – it’s very nice to hear that :-)
Do drop in again!
IMDB is a great resource! I’m starting to forget more and more of the faces. Used to be I could rattle off the actors and what roles they played in my favorite films and shows, but the old memory is slipping. Dh can name someone by their voice, but I don’t have that talent.
Oh, my sister and I used to play this silly game with ST:TOS. When it came on, we would watch the opening scene and see who could guess the title of it first. We would pretty much nail it within a minute. Bonus points for remember the guest stars. We are such nerds!
Teresa – you sound like my kind of girl!
Great job on the secret belgian binding – so glad you tried it that way and didn’t hate me for it afterwards.
I also find it very tedious to keep everything together, but i like being able to have that nice consolidated textblock. Does it seem more sollid that the other book? I have never actually tried doing it the other way.
(and I also love star trek! picard and data, my heroes!!)
Your way does make a much nicer book, the textblock is more solid. I think the other method would be very flimsy if the book were A5 size like this one. Having said that, I think the other way is slightly easier to manage though!
On balance, your way gets my vote :-)
I had some trouble with this binding – actually no matter what binding I use, it will never stay flat when I lay it down closed – the cover is always popping back up! I had sewn the covers/spine first, and they were fine to lay flat, but once I sewed the text block in, the cover keeps opening up – any ideas?
I can think of a couple of reasons why you might have this problem. First is – are you measuring the width of the spine properly? If the spine is too narrow then the book will gape open. I made this mistake at first too, now I measure using a strip of paper and mark off the width of the text block plus both covers. You can see how I do this if you read through the tutorial I did (link at the top of the page).
For the Secret Belgian binding, the problem might be that the stitching is too tight…not too loose, not too tight!
Hope this helps…. :-)