After a bit of a hiatus from bookbinding instruction I was back at the Center for Book Arts over the weekend for Susan Mills' Coptic Binding class. For years I had wanted to take that class but it always seemed to coincide with a wedding or something. At last, secrets of stitch holders and micro-forging revealed. (I made my way through a modified Coptic binding in 2002 with some help from Keith Smith's book and Susan when I caught her at the Center.)

Above is one of four books I made over the two days of class. I was going to post a picture of all four of them together because they're all so different in terms of design but I want to work a little more with the other three books. This one is finished though. It's the only cover I've made using binder's board but no adhesive. The papers are folded and wrapped around the board, making for a nice hardcover non-adhesive binding. I'm partial to non-adhesive bindings. The structure (this manner of wrapping papers around the boards that is, not the ancient Coptic structure) is attributed to Betty Lou Chaika.

Below is another of the books, a softcover version in the works. Now finished save cover embellishment, I may take it to a Béatrice Coron class someday.