Took a break mid-sewing but piled the unseen signatures and top board onto the stack to protect the book-in-progress from feline incursion. Image has a gray cutting mat with a steel anvil shaped like the Greek letter pi on top of it (this is just to make an elevated work surface). On the anvil face there is a half-sewn book with wooden boards, ivory paper, and green linen thread. The sewing is a Byzantine-inspired pattern with four columns of link stitches forming a braided pattern. Each of the four stations has a thread with a curved needle attached.
A close view of the sewn and unseen halves of the book. The punched holes in the top nine signatures are visible in the unseen half, as are grooves in the wood for the upper board. The sewn half of the book has a green braided chain of link stitches.
A spine view of the nearly-finished book standing on the gray cutting mat. The covers are highly figured quarter-sawn sycamore wood.
A view of the back cover (the head is at the bottom of the picture) of the book showing the sycamore grain. The book is resting on coppery-orange oilskin paper that is destined to become tipped-in end sheets.
Punched and sewed the exposed-spine wooden board retirement gift journal today, after many evenings of working on shaping and smoothing the sycamore boards. #bookbinding #handmadebooks
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