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Time passes

24 Aug 2011

Cançoner per l'ukelele

I recently made a new friend and it seems that I’ve been in the possession of a letter, on the cover of which her name is emblazoned, a time just a hair longer than one year.  To remedy this  lamentable trespass into the realm of ignorance and malpractice I rendered her this sweet treat that is very much in line with a personal obsession for playing the ukelele.  I wonder if she’ll use it to scribe pretty little ditties and play them pluckily, wandering the narrow passages from now until tomorrow?

The nitty gritty: I recently found a postcard on the window ledge of a shop adorned with and devoted to ukeleles and their endless  accoutrements.  It was an instant association and understanding that the universe had willed me there on a magnificent day in the midst of a morose Berlin summer(weather-wise) and all I had to do thence was accept inertia’s creep and do the deed of manifesting its intent.

It’s perfect-bound with glue and I lined the postcard with kraft paper as it became the book´s interior; then I folded the card around the book block and glued it all together to set for a while.

I did have more problems with “lifting” so next time I´ll try folding the card before gluing in the lining to prevent too much distortion or crumpling.

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A first edition?

10 Aug 2011

Our very first book "collection"?

Some people toil for years obssessively on an idea, concrete, never managing to bear any fruit.  Others collect every piece of scrap-paper and stray postcard that they find and store them in a mysterious bag of goodies waiting patiently for the time when a spark will descend from the heavens and don them with the creative inspiration sufficient to produce a tiny wonder. The latter is what applies to this tale.

We decided to produce a small edition of these postcard booklets in commanding colours with a Japanese hand stab-stitch and a variety of threads. They turned out really well and for the interior covers, we used whatever we had around: scrap paper, namely. One even has a simple collage design which I think is quite funny, though you may never see it!

Overall, we learned a few clear lessons during the production of this edition:

  • Don´t break your tools
  • Don´t underestimate the importance of paper weight
  • Don´t obsess over the finest of details
  • If you care about what you´re doing your books will look good in the end
  • Keep making mistakes and keep learning from them, but don’t ever stop.

Of course, there are numerous others but I´ll save those for the future.  For now we´re going to bask in the glory of our fine achievement.

An other nice picturo of our edition of japanese stab-stitched books

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