Archive for March, 2011

The Distaff Side

March 16th, 2011

Since I’ve been blogging about handmade books, esp. accordion books, I thought I’d show one I made several years ago for my Mom. Titled “The Distaff Side”, it lists known women in my mother’s family and the number of children they had. A distaff is a tool for spinning fiber and since this was historically women’s work, the female side of the family is called the distaff side. (click on image for larger view.)

© The Distaff Side

The Distaff Side

This structure is based on an accordion book with separate back and front covers, allowing it to be read front to back and then continued back to front on the other side. The first side features my mom, her mom, two grandmothers and a great grandmother. Each image opens out to reveal additional information about each women. The back side lists known women alternating with block prints of a distaff.

Accordion Books

March 14th, 2011

Here are some close ups of joining pages and of cover treatments.
Click on the images for larger views.

1. Here the pages are cut with extra paper at one end to over lap the next page on the back.

2. This uses medical paper tape available at drug stores to butt two pages.
These joins are done after the pages are prepared and cut to size.

3. The pages of this book are prepared and placed in a separate cover which has two folds giving three parts: back, front and an inside flap. You can glue your first page in place and glue the inside flap over it but sometimes it’s nice to leave it loose.

4. This shows the page glued to a separate front cover and covered with a textured endpaper.

© join with self flap © join with paper tape

© loose cover © textured endpaper inside cover

One and four are Canson paper, two and three are computer paper with a heavy paper for three’s cover.

Accordion Book

March 13th, 2011

My friend, Sally, asked me about accordion books and I think an image explains it better than lots of words. She asked about a 16 page book and this is a 6 page one but I think she’ll get it!

I made this years ago for another friend, Mary—we met when we were 13, and I was riding my bike trying to get up nerve to say HI to the new girl and found out later if I had gone past her one more time she was going to throw dirt balls at me! We’ve been best friend ever since!

© Bikes and Dirt Balls

Mary’s Book