The four little Japanese style books pictured above are the results of a very enjoyable workshop that I attended last weekend. The teacher was excellent and I met a lovely, friendly bunch of people from near and far.
We made the books in a traditional manner using hand made paper string to secure the pages prior to sewing. The covers were made using beautiful Chiyogami papers, which are silk-screened using Japanese kimono patterns as their inspiration. Some of these papers have gold and silver details, all are sumptuous and a delight to work with and gave the notebooks an elegant feel.
Each book was sewn with a different decorative Japanese stitch pattern: four-hole, kang-xi, hemp leaf and tortoise shell using silk thread. We also made the cloth covered traditional Japanese Maru-Chitsu case in which to keep them, which is held closed at the foredge with a pair of Japanese bone fasteners.
I learnt much from this weekend workshop and feel that I could adapt this simple structure to bind my own books in the future and feel very inspired to make some more!