Last weekend my friend Cecilia and I took a 4-hour class in the Japanese bookbinding technique Yotsume Toji. The teacher was Miro Burman, a bookbinder with long experience in traditional Japanese bookbinding in both Japan and Sweden.
I consume lots of notebooks in my daily writing practice, and when I stumbled upon a class in Japanese bookbinding I called Cecilia. We like to take crafting classes together, and I knew she would love this one. I was right. The course took place in the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, since the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, which usually hosts this sort of course, is closed for renovation.
Yotsume Toji – four holes
Yotsume Toju literally means four holes, and that is how the binding is constructed. The pages are bound together at the back with thread going through four holes. Contrary to western binding techniques, the pages are open at the binding and folded at the opening of the book.
Miro showed us samples of books she had bound with the four-hole technique and some antique books bound the same way. She told us that a book bound in this technique is a lot easier to renovate if it falls apart than books bound in traditional western ways. She even showed us the anatomy of the construction by unbinding a book she had found in a Japanese antiquary.
Preparing the pages
We used Japanese paper for the books, in a mix between mulberry, bamboo, hemp and other fibers that are much longer than the fibers used in western paper. Therefore the sheeths can be a lot thinner without breaking. They are also more flexible and quite fascinating to browse through. Contrary to western bookbinding techniques, the fold of each sheet is where you open the book. In the picture below, the binding will be to the right.
Miro had pre-cut the pages for us, so we started by neatly folding page by page corner to corner and securing them in a bundle with a strip of brown paper. We learned how to calculate where the binding and the holes would go and marked them on a template. But before we could make the four holes, we needed to make another two, invisible ones. These were for securing the pages behind the four visible holes, just as we had seen in the antique book Miro had disassembled.
Paper nails
As we had learned, Japanese paper has longer fibers than western paper. The paper with 100 per cent mulberry, kozo, has the longest fibers. We used this capacity to make strong paper nails. By folding the mulberry paper and rolling it we could make a tip to push through the two holes. By pulling tight, the tips were secured like wedges. We cut most of the excess and flattened the stumps, and – voila – we had made the most exquisite paper nails.
Cover, corners and care
Once we had secured the corners with little squares of coloured scraps, we folded the cover around support paper and added to our thin pages. You can see corners on the thick antique book above. We marked the four holes with the templates and bound the book with waxed linen thread.
The whole course was so beautifully prepared and Miro had organized it all in a very structured way. Every tool and material was carefully passed around and respectfully handled. The only waste I produced was a couple of inches of thread and four corner triangles of the cover.
Paper love
And the paper, oh the paper. I can’t stop touching it. The structure and the flexibility is like pure happiness in my fingers. It’s as fascinating as the fascination itself. I take it out of its pocket and look at all the beginner’s wonkiness, proud as a peacock.
Holding the sweet little book in my hands filled my heart with tingles, but also fear of writing in such a precious item. What words would be worthy of the honour, what pen would fit such exquisite paper? After I had rolled home on my bike I knew the answer: I will write the book binding instructions in my newborn notebook.
Another book dream
As many of you know, I am in the last few weeks before the deadline of my first book, Listen to the wool. But this course has made want to make more books, notebooks, for more words to flow. Yes, it has happened again, an idea has poked me in the head and won’t stop until it has my full attention. There are a few ideas standing in line already, though.
I have found a way to work when my ideas come knocking. You need to know yourself well enough to know how you can fool yourself. One example: I had a sashiko idea that I wanted to start now, preferably yesterday. But if I start making the template before I even have the fabric, and writing down instructions, I won’t rush through one step to get faster to the next. The template is now carefully planned and the instructions clear, and I’m waiting for the fabrics. And I won’t start the bookbinding project until the sashiko project is finished. Then I will buy a book about Japanese bookbinding before I rush into buying paper.
What do you do when ideas come and knock you over?
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