Hard back bookbinding workshop

Don't you just love it when things fall into place.

Yesterday was like that for me. Up uncharacteristically early for a Sunday and driving through heavy rain to Bristol to attend a one day 'Introduction to adhesive hard back bookbinding' workshop at the Bristol Drawing School.

http://www.drawingschool.org.uk/

For so long now I've deliberately chosen book styles that do not require more than some folding and a dab of glue, I imagined it would be a) difficult and b) time consuming to make hard back books - how wrong! 

Of course it goes without saying a good teacher helps, and Tortie Rye was that person. http://pinterest.com/tortierye/ In six hours she helped us pack in so much, with each of us participants taking home four finished hard bound books - not bad eh. 

I was reminded once again, not to put something off just because I think it may be a little tricky - get on with it and find out what it's really like, after all I may be in for a very pleasant surprise.

Here are my very first hard back books, simple I know, but now I've breached the hurdles of uncertainty and procrastination - well who knows what's next.

Plantago major

Plants for which we've forgotten the uses . . . . 

Plantain - Plantago major

In a report from Virginia, in 1687, it stated that the Indians called the plant Englishman’s Foot, due to the plant’s habit of growing wherever the White Man created a settlement, giving the plant two of its common names. Longfellow noted in his “Hiawatha” that wherever the English have taken possession of the soil, the Plantain springs up. It is believed to be one of the first plants to reach North America after European colonisation.

There is just so much plantain growing in the grass of my garden, and my gardening friend Terry thinks I'm completely mad not to try and eradicate it. He's an old school gardener and is quite ruthless in his destruction of anything that he considers a weed.

Anyhow, these plants are currently my inspiration and keep me busily making books, of which this is a result. It seems appropriate somehow, to show plantain in a map, after all it's created its own map while colonising the globe.