First Use of Sewing Frame

In his retirement my husband has taken to making fine furniture. I’ve been the gleeful recipient of a wall cabinet and standing cabinet especially made to hold my books and the books of other artists. So, I couldn’t ask for more, but I usually do. This has resulted in some custom bookbinding equipment: book presses, drawers for sheets of paper, jigs for woodworking, and most recently my sewing frame. I’ve never set up a sewing frame and after making substitutes for brass keys and fiddling around with cords, I managed to complete a book of my own as I followed my scattered notes from a 5 day workshop with Tim Ely taken last summer. I love the frame and was able to avoid pulling the cords into the interior of the book this time. I am also a convert to his technique for making book cloth—but I get ahead of myself—more on that in a later post. Hopefully next time it won’t take longer to set up the frame than to sew the book.