Two years ago I managed to make it to the Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose, a printing festival at an independent printing press an hour outside of Halifax. I participating in a paper marbling workshop, and had a grand time.
This year I mentioned the annual event to two friends who were keen to go for the bookbinding workshop, and we were lucky enough to snag a couple of spots. So early Saturday morning we were up and in the car with our coffee mugs and we arrived in Kentville NS just in time to select the papers we wanted to use for the covers of our journals.
There was careful stitching of blocks of carefully folded paper:
I documented parts of the process on a new hand-me-down iphone I’d just hooked up with a monthly plan the day before. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to bring my camera but this worked great!
We glued spine bits together, covering up all that lovely careful stitching.
We built the actual hardback, piece by piece:
Lots of steps, eventually the books were all stacked in a press to give the final squeeze. It was such a cool process.
We saw demos of several different printing presses, tried out a couple, and talked to the people who were working them. I got a few really awesome posters from Amos Kennedy Jr, who is apparently famous though we didn’t know it at the time! I’m looking forward to getting these into simple frames so they won’t get damaged. They make a fab set.
The three I got are all about coffee, which was a big theme.
Also, the Press blogged some photos of the event, and if you know what the back of my head looks like you might see me in one or two of them ;)
We had a lovely lunch in the middle of things, then a lovely coffee at an independent cafe/coffee roaster on our way home. We left before 8 am and didn’t get back until 5! I was zonked. But it was great. And I have the loveliest handmade journal to show for it.
This year I mentioned the annual event to two friends who were keen to go for the bookbinding workshop, and we were lucky enough to snag a couple of spots. So early Saturday morning we were up and in the car with our coffee mugs and we arrived in Kentville NS just in time to select the papers we wanted to use for the covers of our journals.
There was careful stitching of blocks of carefully folded paper:
I documented parts of the process on a new hand-me-down iphone I’d just hooked up with a monthly plan the day before. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to bring my camera but this worked great!
We glued spine bits together, covering up all that lovely careful stitching.
We built the actual hardback, piece by piece:
Lots of steps, eventually the books were all stacked in a press to give the final squeeze. It was such a cool process.
We saw demos of several different printing presses, tried out a couple, and talked to the people who were working them. I got a few really awesome posters from Amos Kennedy Jr, who is apparently famous though we didn’t know it at the time! I’m looking forward to getting these into simple frames so they won’t get damaged. They make a fab set.
The three I got are all about coffee, which was a big theme.
Also, the Press blogged some photos of the event, and if you know what the back of my head looks like you might see me in one or two of them ;)
We had a lovely lunch in the middle of things, then a lovely coffee at an independent cafe/coffee roaster on our way home. We left before 8 am and didn’t get back until 5! I was zonked. But it was great. And I have the loveliest handmade journal to show for it.
how beautiful and how cool!
ReplyDelete