Dear Everyone ~
I’ve recently written about my “Zoom conversion,” and I’m booked to teach at least two private Zoom workshops every week until early December. And then I will take a break until January! My teaching schedule includes eight Serizawa Soft-cover Coptic-stitch workshops. I cannot resist making the same month as my student, so I will have quite a stack to show you in mid-December. My fondness for Serizawa calendar pages is not only undiminished, but overflowing.
Making a book, whether it’s for yourself or for someone else, is remarkably satisfying. Students frequently send emails, or the occasional piece of Real Mail, describing their sense of fulfillment, accomplishment, and joy—and, sometimes, surprise—that making a book by hand has inspired. I love it when students share with me their joie and their plans for independent bookbinding projects. Here are three of my recent heartwarming e-communiqués.
Zoe just completed the four-part Bookful of Art workshop I co-taught with Cat Bennett. She’s an envelope-folding enthusiast (armed with my Art of the Hand-folded Envelope kit), and has a plan to combine her new bookbinding expertise with her envelope zeal. Go, Zoe! She emailed me last week:
“ I'm very excited about the Cambridge Imprint papers and the companion notecards. I was already planning to make a book for a friend who is having a baby boy, and I want to make it a bookful of ‘envelope pages’ with fold-over flaps. I will tuck into each envelope a card for her to write a note for the baby. These will stay in their envelopes in the book and become a record of my friend’s thoughts and the baby’s milestones. I was hmmming over what paper to use for the envelopes, and these will be just perfect. The notecards that coordinate so neatly are like the cherry on top. ”
Beth is a designer and printmaker who appreciates paper products and bookish pursuits. She has been exercising her creative inclinations during the Shelter Season, and she has been holding onto a workshop gift certificate from her husband. When she read about the Serizawa (calendar page) bookbinding workshop, her resistance to the idea of a Zoom workshop just vanished. She emailed me:
“ I have always wanted to learn the Coptic stitch and was a big fan of Aiko’s. When I heard that these papers came from that wonderful Chicago store, now closed, I thought this was a perfect opportunity to use my gift certificate. ”
Beth has chosen the month of February for her pair of calendar pages. She’ll be making her book just before Thanksgiving, and will have plenty of time to enjoy it before passing it on as a gift for the holidays, if she decides to part with it!
Nancy is on a journal-making jag! She took my triple-hyphenated Long-Stitch-Link-Stitch bookbinding workshop via Zoom at the end of August, and she’s now in high gear. She emailed me:
“ Thank you for your help and kind responses. I have made one more journal, and prepared two more! I also made a cute little journal for a niece’s birthday. The process is getting easier with each journal. I am doing a variety of stitch patterns now, and adding or subtracting signatures depending on how many rows of stitches I have. ”
I may take my eight Serizawa books home with me to admire over the holidays. If I can bring myself to part with them, I will put them in my online shop in January! I’ll post them on Instagram as I make them.
2021 Workshops via Zoom
Heartful of bookful, Bari