Iron Craft 2013--Challenge 1

This is the back of the book showing both covers and pages for two photos

I decided to participate in the Iron Craft 2013 Challenge. The challenge for the first week was Cotton. As soon as I read the challenge, I knew immediately what I wanted to do. As many of you know, I collect Japanese paper and have hundreds of sheets of different papers that I have had the pleasure to collect on my trips to Japan.  What people might not realize is that I also have an affinity for Japanese textiles. I do have collections of Japanese cloth that my friends have sent to me primarily for the purpose of making book cloth.

When making books, you need some material to cover the front and back boards of the book. Depending on the type of book, you can use paper. Usually, though, artists use a paper backed fabric for the durability the fabric provides during the constant handling of the book.

One option for those who desire a particular look, color, or theme is to make your own book cloth by taking your own fabric and backing it with a fibrous paper (I tend to use Japanese mending paper for its strength). The purpose of the paper backing is that you do not want the glue to soak the front of the fabric during the pasting process. If the glue saturates the front of the cloth, your book is ruined.

For this project, I wanted to make a mini photo album. This album holds six 4" by 6" mounted photos. It is the perfect size to throw into a suitcase or briefcase when you have to be away from home. These types of photo albums were very popular during Victorian times when people traveled with traveling photos of their family.

The fabric chosen for this album was a Japanese children's cotton fabric. It comes in three different color palettes--brown, white with pink bears, and sky blue with blue bears.

Here is the first step of the assembly: pasting the boards to the book cloth

Here is the second step: Turning the corners of the cloth around the boards.

Here is the third step: Pasting the text block onto the front cover

Here is the final step: Pasting the text block onto the back cover.