Welcome to the wonderful world of bookbinding!

Kendra Last currently offers five bookbinding classes: Soft Spine Journal, Coptic Binding, Paper Decorating and Oriental Stab Binding, Hard Cover Stab Binding, and Hollow Tube Leather Binding.

Soft Spine Journal

This class will be a basic introduction to some bookbinding techniques. Each student will work with a pre-sewn, lined text block. They will learn to “case-in” their very own journal. They will add an endband and book mark to the book. Students will be given choice in the paper for their cover and cloth for the spine of their journal. In one evening each student will leave with a completed lined journal ready for use.

Coptic Binding

The Coptic Binding is an exposed spine link stitch binding dating back many centuries. Students will have a choice in what paper to cover their books in and choose where to place the sewing holes. Then each student will learn the ancient sewing technique of the Coptic binding. Beginning or advanced students will find this binding style offers wonderful options for the possibilities of making Coptic books. In this two part workshop each student will leave class with a completed Coptic-bound book and a basic knowledge of many bookbinding techniques.

Paper Decorating / Oriental Stab Binding

Students in this class will learn to decorate paper using walnut ink and water colors. Walnut ink is made from the husks of the walnut tree, and makes a gorgeous brown dye perfect for decorating paper. They will learn to add water color, salt, vinegar, water, masking tape and countless other things to make truly one-of-a-kind gorgeous paper to be used as book covers or in scrap books or greeting cards. Students will also be making “cooked paper” that is made using the same materials, but done in a different way and makes wonderful book covers as well. They will then use the paper they decorated as the covers to an oriental stab bound book. Each student will leave with 1-5 bound books covered in paper they decorated.

Hard Cover Stab Binding

This book is great for using as photo albums, scrapbooks, brag books, notebooks, etc.  You will learn 4 ways to prepare the inside pages: 1) single sheets, 2) single sheets with stubs, 3) French fold, and 4) French fold with album.  You will learn to make 3 cover types: soft paper, semi-hard paper, and hard cover boards.  You will leave with two finished books.  One will be a “working model” to refer back to when making more books.  Fun and easy, this is the easiest book to continue making as gifts without any special tools or equipment.  The Hard Cover Stab Binding workshop is taught over two days of three and half hours each day.

Hollow Tube Leather Binding

This is a basic introduction to hand sewn text blocks and leather covers.  The text block sewing learned here can be used with many other binding styles, including the soft spine.  In this class we will work with real leather, but the case learned here can be done with handmade papers or other cloths.  You will also learn how to hand sew endbands.  This class is very versatile and easy to do on your own as you do not need to cut boards.  The Hollow Tube Leather Binding workshop is taught over two days of four hours each day, or could be taught in one day with a one hour break in the middle.