Medieval and Early Modern Stationer's Binding

This is the stationer's binding I made during my workshop with Chela Metzger at Syracuse University, as part of the Brodsky Lecture Series. We were given a blank, pre-punched text block, a piece of parchment, and leather scraps and strips. First we had to sew the text block on leather tapes. Next we folded the parchment (with white paper inside to make the parchment less see through, and to bring out the natural colors of the parchment. Then we attached leather shapes over the spine and punched holes for the overband designs and the star(s) on the flap. We were given notes on Italian and Spanish style stationer's bindings, including different templates for traditional overbands and stars, and were able to design our own from there. The designs were created by lacing leather strips through the punched holes. Once all the lacing was done, we attached the text block to the cover using parchment strips for tackets and constructed the leather button (Fall 2008).