Pictures from the PENULTIMATE DAY of bookbinding class!!

Sorry for the severe lack of bloggitude this week you guys; it has been a strange mix of being really busy but also not having anything to really show or talk about.  I think today is the first time I've taken pictures all week, because finally things have progressed to a stage of looking cool enough to make me think to take a picture!  Without further ado, here is my first ever original leather binding:

 

I still haven't finished all the shenanigans that go on on the inside with the endpapers and whatnot, but from the outside it is totally done! Woo!!

Below are SOME of the other books I've made this week.  The thing about this class is that since there are so many students, it takes a lot of time for everyone to be in the right place so that Don can teach us the next thing, so there's been a lot of time here and there in between actual steps on the official books for me to fill up with fun side projects, mostly pulled together with scraps of things and whatnot.  What's funny is that now I think about it, I'm probably more proud of my profusion of little scrappy books than I am of the official leather class books. 

Anyway. The instrument of torture appearing below is called a Scharf-Fix.  Are we surprised that it is German?  Not at all.  It is supposedly a quick fast easy nice way of paring leather in a jiffy.  In reality, it is the devil incarnate. 

 You feed your leather through the narrow slot in the front of it and the blade affixed on top shaves off your leather.  Theoretically. Usually it either does nothing or it rips your leather in half.  What a champ, right?  The only cool thing is that I rigged it up on my table with that bucket hanging down from it to catch all the shizzy leather shavings which usually litter the floor and every surface within a twelve mile radius, so I got to feel clever.  Woo! 

 

Here is Emilie, struggling mightily with the beast.  

 My table was so much messier than this for most of the day, but during our dinner break I managed to pack up a lot of stuff and clear and organize, and now it's liveable again.

So, what is the deal with me leaving here the day after tomorrow? Mostly I'm really happy--Mom is flying in tomorrow and then we are going to drive back to Utah over the weekend, taking the most scenic of routes available and having many exploratory adventures.  I'm REALLY excited!!  I'm excited to be in the real world again and around friends and family and not be all isolated and cut off from humanity.  Also I think it will be nice to have a break from 24 hour a day bookbinding, so I can get some perspective on life and remember that leather paring and hinge repair and double raised cords are not in fact the only things that exist in the world.  On the other hand, I have gotten really really used to 24/7 bookbinding, all books, all the time, and I'm worried I'll have something like culture shock when I return to normal life and spend most of my time driving around city streets and holding babies and things instead of sewing and gluing paper. 

But ok so I've tried to think of things I will actually miss from Telluride:
-Emilie
-access to gloooooorious equipment like board shears and finishing presses
-my sweet bedroom in this house

And the good thing is that two out of three of those are not going to be gone forever, and as Meatloaf so eloquently states, two outta three ain't bad. It's really only this house that I'm leaving forever, because assuming I come back here for later classes I'm going to try to find somewhere cheaper to stay, probably with Emilie.  Equipment-wise, I am going to be a)searching eBay and suchlike to try to find deals on smaller equipments like finishing presses and so forth, and for big heavy duty cast iron nonsense like floor presses and board shears, there are places all around that let you pay for access to things like that--places like the San Francisco Center for the Book, to name the only one I know for sure about, but use as proof that there must be more all around!  SO, to conclude, bookbinding tools and equipment we have always with us, and it's not like you never see your bookbinding friends ever again after bookbinding class is over.  So, I need no longer have even the least mixed of mixed feelings:  I can bask in undiluted happiness at soon getting to have Mom adventures and have a rest from workshopping.  Woo!