Weaving and book binding

The Braid Society has an annual swap. The challenge has a theme and members of the Braid Society send in six samples mounted on a card to the organiser. This means that you receive 5 samples from other members which is always a thrill.  Different techniques and different colour combinations make the package seem like a miniature Aladdin's cave when it arrives. All full members can join in so some samples travel a long way.

This year the challenge was to make a 'Tie for a treasured Book'. The idea came about when members were chatting about lovely handmade books and felt that they would have been even better had they been tied with a nice braid rather than something that looked like 'string'.

When the challenge was announced I was busy preparing a display of my work for the exhibition at Braids 2019.  I was making my own hand made book which was to be tied with a handwoven silk band.

Here is a description of my woven band.

Warp: 2/60 red silk used double;  2/60 dark red silk used quadruple.
Weft:   2/60 red silk used double.
Madeira gold:  4 threads together.
Weave structure: Warp faced plain weave
Total number of warp ends: 39

Weave chart

Warp 

red 2/60 silk                4       7         1                       1                     1          7            4
(used doubled)
dark red 2/60 silk            3                                                                                 3
(used quadrupled)

Madiera gold thread                  1         2 doubled       2 doubled          1

The band is 0.7 cm in width.

The Book of Samples: All the World in One Craft

I made a book of samples for my exhibition at the Fourth International braids conference in Iga Japan in October 2019.

Here is the book with the woven band.

All the World in One Craft with woven tie band

The problem with having a book as one of my exhibits is that it cannot be handled which means that visitors cannot see the contents.  I made another copy of the book but without the woven samples.  I photographed all the samples and  bound them into a small book which everyone could read.


As the conference is in Japan, I thought that it would be fitting if I used a Japanese binding.

This is one of the books that I bought when I took a series of classes about book-binding.  It is published by Wetherall originally in 1986 and my edition is 2003. Of course nowadays there is so much information on the internet and lots of YouTube videos.

The binding that I chose is called Kangxi binding.  It has a pattern of stitching over the corner pieces of the book cover. This gives extra support to the corners and gives it a more elegant finish than a simpler binding.

This is the front of the book. It has a hard cover and the inside pages are printed examples of the actual samples in the display book.  I made an additional loop at the top left hand side so that the book can be fastened to the display table for people to read it.

Book with photographs of the samples and drawdowns

One page of the boooklet

Workshop Booklets.

I made two workshop booklets for participants. The first booklet was longer so I thought that I would use the binding you can see pictured on the Japanese Book Binding book cover.  Yes, it was time consuming to do but I thought that the end result was lovely and very appropriate.

I used red cottolin for the thread to match the border that I put on the cover. The pages were printed on one side of A4 and then folded. I put them in my bookpress to ensure that they were flat. There were six pages in all. Once flattened, I carefully stacked them in the correct order. I made a template for the holes which you can see on the yellow card.

I have a Japanese spiral hole punch which has various attachments for different size holes. Four holes are needed for this binding.

Once the four holes are punched, the sewing can begin. The booklet is placed so that the inside edge is over the edge of the table so that I can take the needle through easily.

Here is the finished result.  Thirteen booklets bound and ready for use.  By the time that you read this the booklets will have been used.

Booklets bound for the workshop

Happy weaving

Susan J Foulkes October 2019