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The old bookbinder in Portland who taught me more in 10 minutes than a year of tutorials
Last month I was at a book arts fair in Portland and this older guy named Hank had a booth. He was maybe 70, and his hands looked like they'd been through a few wars. I was looking at a coptic stitch journal he made, and he asked if I sewed books. I said yes, but that my signatures always came out uneven. He didn't say anything, he just picked up a signature, a needle, and some linen thread and did three stitches right there in front of me. Then he said the problem wasn't my hands, it was that I was pulling the thread too tight on the first stitch. He had me try it, and my second attempt was already better. It was such a small thing, but it stuck with me because he didn't act like it was a big secret. He just showed me and moved on. Has anyone else had a moment like that with a craftsperson that totally shifted how you approach a step?
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mason_flores2121d ago
That thing about the thread tension is real. I had a leather worker show me once that I was burnishing way too hard and it was actually squashing the edges instead of smoothing them. Ten seconds of watching her do it changed everything for me.
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