pierced vellum by Pennsic?
I had given up on finishing this in time, but perhaps there is hope to have the new binding done by Pennsic after all. I had a massive spurt of productivity this afternoon and evening, but there are still many more hours to go on this. (Mostly many more hours of cutting itty bitty pieces out of the rawhide for the cover. Bookbinders call this kind of binding "pierced vellum," but "vellum" is being used fast and loose.
It's an interesting structure, one I've never done before. Basically, you sew the text block on thongs, and the thongs get laced through an inner cover made of several pasted thicknesses of paper. The fabric backer gets pasted onto the inner cover, and then the endbands only get laced through an outer rawhide/parchment cover that wraps around the inner cover with pasted turn-ins. It's "semi-limp," halfway between limp and in boards.
Here is my cut template for the cover design. It's reminiscent of a lot of things, but it not supposed to be a strict heraldic design. (So please don't tell me Atlantia's arms have only three waves per quadrant.) I've decided to ditch the diamond along the spine.
Here is the rawhide outer cover with some of the cutting done. The blue silk layer is underneath for optimum visual effect.
I will use blue silk ribbon for the laces (two on the fore edge, one each on the head and foot), so I decided to use the same ribbon as endband decoration, instead of the more common silk floss. I've got documentation for the ribbon, though, never fear. Here you can also get a good look at the sprinkling on the spine, which was done with woad and glair. Naastasia had brought me some woad in powdered form from Pennsic several years back, and I've finally gotten around to doing something with it.
The big question now is whether our intrepid heroine can wield her Xacto knife quickly enough to vanquish those itty bitty pieces from hell before her hand tendons rebel in the three weeks remaining.
It's an interesting structure, one I've never done before. Basically, you sew the text block on thongs, and the thongs get laced through an inner cover made of several pasted thicknesses of paper. The fabric backer gets pasted onto the inner cover, and then the endbands only get laced through an outer rawhide/parchment cover that wraps around the inner cover with pasted turn-ins. It's "semi-limp," halfway between limp and in boards.
Here is my cut template for the cover design. It's reminiscent of a lot of things, but it not supposed to be a strict heraldic design. (So please don't tell me Atlantia's arms have only three waves per quadrant.) I've decided to ditch the diamond along the spine.
Here is the rawhide outer cover with some of the cutting done. The blue silk layer is underneath for optimum visual effect.
I will use blue silk ribbon for the laces (two on the fore edge, one each on the head and foot), so I decided to use the same ribbon as endband decoration, instead of the more common silk floss. I've got documentation for the ribbon, though, never fear. Here you can also get a good look at the sprinkling on the spine, which was done with woad and glair. Naastasia had brought me some woad in powdered form from Pennsic several years back, and I've finally gotten around to doing something with it.
The big question now is whether our intrepid heroine can wield her Xacto knife quickly enough to vanquish those itty bitty pieces from hell before her hand tendons rebel in the three weeks remaining.