Here are a series of photos that show the making of Elizabeth Cromwells Book of Hours for the BBC Wolf Hall production. The brief was to create a book that appeared to date to c.1500. The inside of the book was made of paper which was coated with Shellac to give the paper both substance and a vellum like colour and rattle and to blend with the illuminated insert that would be attached at a later date. The paper was folded into quires, sewing holes were pierced and then the quires were sewn onto hemp cords with Irish linen thread. The spine was glued, put in a press and rounded with a hammer before lining with reclaimed parchment. The Irish linen endbands were then sewn to top and bottom. The board were attached to the hemp cords, pasted in and set in place. Then the whole block was covered in an undyed calf, cut from a whole calf skin. The leather was pared by hand at the edges and then dyed with a traditional dye I make from Oak bark. Both front and back were decorated with a pattern of blind tooling typical of the period, which was applied using hot irons. Hand hand made clasps, attached to leather thongs, were added to finish the book off. In making the book I used only the methods and materials used in the sixteenth century and the book took about forty hours to make.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:43:49 +0000
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