Artisan Bookbinding Workshop

Make your own book from scratch

Spend a Saturday afternoon learning the very satisfying art of bookbinding, and go home holding a book that didn’t exist three hours earlier.

Saturday 14 November · 12:30–3:30pm Richmond, Melbourne · Tickets from $95

Complete beginners welcome. No bookbinding experience needed and everything you need is provided.

From loose pages to a finished book

In this three-hour workshop, I’ll teach you how to make your own Coptic-bound commonplace book from scratch . We’ll start with loose pages and an empty cover. You’ll learn how to prepare and fold your pages, construct your cover and sew the exposed binding by hand. Slowly, everything comes together into a beautiful, completely usable book. There’s something a little magical about learning how an object you’ve used your entire life is actually made. By the end of the afternoon, you’ll be able to open your book, write in it, fill it with things you want to remember and say, quite legitimately: I made this book.

Your commonplace book

A commonplace book is essentially a home for all the things you don’t want to forget. Quotes from books. Recipes someone gives you. Ideas scribbled down at 11pm. Exhibition tickets. Poems. Recommendations. Plans. Strange things you overhear at the pub. People have kept versions of commonplace books for centuries. Yours will be bound using Coptic binding , a traditional technique with a beautiful exposed spine that allows the finished book to lie completely flat when opened. It will also be made with heavier 130gsm paper, making it suitable for journaling with less bleed-through.

What's Included Your ticket includes the full three-hour workshop, everything you need to make your book, use of bookbinding tools during the class and, of course, your finished handmade commonplace book to take home. You’ll also receive a little Commonplace Starter Pack , so you’re not faced with the existential horror of a pristine blank first page when you get home.