Join Connie in using the long stitch to create an 8 x 4 ¼", hard bound book whose spine carries the decorative emphasis.  This binding allows the spine to make the statement through the use of patterned and plain papers, seen through its 2-3 'windows'---yet it supports a strong, functional structure with blank pages for writing and drawing. Covering book board with paper, and using a selection of handmade and commercially printed papers, we'll explore this structure.  There'll be a choice of fine papers for covers and guards used to embellish the spines---making each person's book truly their own.

We are excited to report that we are in the final binding and casement-making phases of IMPRINTS, a thirty-five book edition of original poems and prints by NBG writers and artists. This has been a long but rewarding journey that began almost 2 years ago when the writers and artists began working on the poems and block prints that grace the pages of IMPRINTS, the first publication from our letterpress, The Northwoods Press.

 

For the past 5 months, Guild members have been meeting twice a week at IMPRINTS Work Sessions. Each session provided new opportunities to learn the wide variety of skills needed to assemble the printed pages of poems and prints into the text blocks and to create the casements. When it's complete, each hand-bound book will be nested in a clamshell casement ready for presentation to the Letterpress Patrons who made generous donations to get The Northwoods Press up and running.

 

The collaborative nature of this project has provided an array of opportunities for Guild members to learn skills that have included: letterpress printing, woodblock carving and printing, assembling pages into  text blocks for drum-leaf binding, constructing book board covers with inset labels, and then all the complicated, exacting steps to build clamshell casements. As we begin the final steps to bring IMPRINTS to completion, we want to express our gratitude to all the members of our truly unique book-making community who have made IMPRINTS possible...poets and writers, printmakers, letterpress setters and printers, bookbinders, casement makers, and, last but not least, benefactors and patrons...such a wide, dedicated, generous, and beautiful community working together! Thank you, thank you!