last night i went to mcba’s coptic binding workshop. i have taken it before, but it was over 3 or 4 years ago, and the binding technique never really stuck. i remember trying to teach jenn after a few glasses of wine and it was a mess! but i have book ideas for my etsy shop that involve coptic binding, and i’m itching to make them. i have the paper and ideas ready to go!
sue, the instructor, was great. she shared her knowledge, was very friendly & funny, and patient. i’m pretty sure she taught the first coptic binding workshop that i attended. buuuttt…
while the plan was to bind 2 books: one with 2 needles, the second with 4, we barely made it through the 2 needle binding. i think the process of covering book boards for 2 books and then sew them together was a bit too ambitious for a full class, which consisted of a lot of course-mates that were new to book binding. it took us a little longer than i think was expected to get past covering boards/folding signatures, leaving us with less than an hour’s time to devote to sewing/binding. we didn’t have time to explore the 4 needle technique. however, we did take some awesome curved needles home to experiment with!
despite my disappointment with not being able to spend more time on binding/sewing, i will still take mcba’s workshops, as i always learn something new from the instructors. last night’s valuable tip: teflon “bone” folders do not burnish your paper as much as traditional bone folders do. that’s big for me — i was wondering how to avoid shiny areas on my paper when utilizing the bone folder. (and frankly, as a vegetarian, my bone folders freak me out a bit - where have they come from?! please don’t tell me. but then, what does the production of teflon do to our environment? arg!)
and despite the little sad book i produced (pictured above, on the guillotine, awaiting its execution), i do feel a little more confident about coptic binding. i just will need to do a few more practice runs before i jump into the etsy projects!
