A recently completed design binding of William Morris's News from Nowhere. I took inspiration from Sol Rebora's decorative technique of slicing and weaving layers of the cover to achieve patterns on the front and back – and applied that to a Kelmscott style limp vellum binding.

Opening up this design binding of News from Nowhere reveals the other side of the design on the covers and twill tapes. The green flyleaf leads into decorated endpapers, and then the faithful facsimile of the original Kelmscott Press printing and the green sewing threads.

A good design binding deserves a good box. News from Nowhere got a fancy version with compartments for the owner's annotated study copy of the book and the guide book for Kelmscott Manor. Hard to photograph, but the cover has debossed elements pulled from Morris' designs too.

I tidied up the bindery a few weeks ago for a visiting film crew, and as it's so rare to see it without projects on every available surface I took the opportunity to take some photos. It's a converted room in our home. Not big enough, but the commute is easy and the view is🙌

A very exciting stack of Cambridge Imprint papers arrived yesterday. Soon to become endpapers in the bookbinding workshop I'm teaching at Mackintosh at the Willow in a few weeks. If I can manage to resist using them in the meantime...

A well-worn two volume Bible with Cambridge panel covers, from 1754, that I've been given to repair. I love the utility and honesty of these two books. No time 'wasted' on fine binding here! The challenge will be to repair them without losing any of that character.

Super chuffed that my binding of Naomi Klein's 'This Changes Everything' has been awarded Best Creative Binding in the 2023 Elizabeth Soutar Bookbinding Competition. The theme of the competition was climate action, and for me this book was the clear choice for binding. 1/2

I've done as close to a fine binding given the limitations... which were many, because it's bound entirely in trash washed up on the beaches around our home. I'll share more about the book soon, but there's a full post about it on my website for the impatient and curious. 2/2

Clearly a book bound in trash needed a box covered in black bin liner. And the trays lined with sand from the beach my bindery looks out over. They're now a part of National Library of Scotland's collection, and I can only apologise for the little bits of sand that will plague them forevermore.

The use beach rubbish continues inside my binding of This Changes Everything. The flyleaf is a washed up carrier bag, which had a red drawstring that also became part of the endbands. And the inset doublures are the interior of a crisp packet, which acts as a bit of a mirror.

How do you make endbands out of washed up fishing net? With difficulty. The endbands on my binding of This Changes Everything, which just won the Elizabeth Soutar Award for Best Creative Binding, are made from a plastic drawstring, fishing net, and an agricultural tag. 1/2

All of those were found on the beaches around my home. The tag was cut down to use for an end band core, the drawstring was used as is, and the fishing net was taken apart into plies and then strands before re-twisting a few strands to the thickness of thread I needed. 2/2

Been awhile since I've shared some book repair photos. So here's a two volume set of the works of Robert Burns that needed a bit of TLC. The family who owns them were delighted to have them back. "Very sentimental... didn't expect to see them look so good again!"

I was in London last week, carrying on my fine binding training with Kathy Abbott. We carried on where we had left off: applied linings, sanded, put on a hollow, and then spent approximately forever paring and preparing the leather, before finally covering the book.

I have such a huge fondness for limp and paper bindings. Here's four I made last month with Karen Hanmer – another great online class with an excellent teacher. Two of the structures were new to me and I've already got a few thoughts on where I might use one of them...

Last posting date to get your bookish treats from my website before Christmas is 15 December. Orders placed after that will be sent asap but given the vagaries of weather, ferries, and an overloaded postal system... they may become New Year gifts! bailemor.co.uk

Detail of a design binding I from earlier this year. It's been on a little holiday to London without me... I'll post a couple more images of it once it's back home. . . . #designbinding #finebinding #leatherbook #goldtoolingwithleaf #purplebook #iona #isleofiona #scottishartist

This is the annual creelmas tree at the Village Hall, a seasonal highlight here on Iona. And that's the bindery closed for the holidays – back on 8 January. Happy Christmas everybody.

Well hello denizens of Twitter / X! I'm afraid I've gone off this site, literally and figuratively. You can find me with the same user name on FB and IG if you're looking to connect or for more regular updates.

A lot of plastic washes up on our island beaches. We ran a creative event over on Mull this week to turn some of it into art. Thank you Baile Mor Books #trashtransformed #rubbishreused #ForTheLoveOfScotland Full story here: mullionarangerservice.com/2024/09/06/bea…