Creative Bookbinding for Writers

About the session

In an age of mass-produced books, this course will introduce you to the craft and process of creating books by hand. Using simple, non-adhesive structures that you can recreate at home, learn how to produce simple block-stitched books suited for a wide range of projects. Materials included.

In the first half of the session, participants will explore and make Chinese and Japanese stitched books using traditional stitching patterns. In the afternoon, participants will make a hardcover variant using one of the stitching designs covered in the morning. You are invited to bring along and bind your own short story, poem or piece of work, or simply use blank paper to create lovely notebooks for your writing ideas! If you wish to bind your own printout, please get in touch with Hilke at contact@kurzke.co.uk for printing instructions.

You'll learn...

The basics about Chinese and Japanese stab-stitched books and their history, and gain hands-on experience in making simple, non-adhesive notebooks and/or text-filled books.

You’ll take home at least two beautifully made examples. These techniques are ideal to bind home-printed small publications as well as longer books and can be used to make your own journals and bind your work for gifting and presenting.
 

About Hilke 

Hilke is a book artist and has been a member of the Writers’ Studio since 2015. She creates books where the binding, materials, visual impression and text all play together to form a piece of art. In the past few years she has been focusing on innovative, non-adhesive bindings with a keen interest in historic structures, and how they can be translated into our time

Book your place

The price of this course is £45 + £10 materials for NWS members and £55 + £10 materials for general admission. Book your place, or to find out about joining NWS, head to our membership page.