Everything is completed except for drilling five holes and sewing the Japanese style binding. My page layout was done in Adobe InDesign. I copied all of the posts, comments and pertinent emails, along with the photos I originally posted and some additional materials. Here is a sample page with comments on the side:

This page has emails in the sidebar:

Page with additional material. Most of these materials were linked in the blog.

The book has 144 pages, printed on both sides. I am trying to maintain a Japanese spirit in it. Here I have used binder clamps to hold the pages together, then created paper clamps at the top and bottom of the left hand side of the stack. The piece of white paper is shielding the pages from the binder clamps. The paper clamps, which are decorative only, are made of Japanese paper I bought years ago at Aiko’s Art Materials in Chicago.

Using more of this paper, I created endpapers that will go under the covers.

I cut boards for the covers about one-half inch larger than the inside papers. I then cut one-half inch off of what would become the left, binding side, of the boards, and glued this piece about a quarter inch away from the board. Holes will be drilled in that space, allowing the pages to open more easily. I’m sorry I forgot to photograph the boards so you could see the placement of the extra space. This type of binding is usually finished with soft covers that would not require the extra space.

Here is the finished cover, a truly global effort. The picture is actually a quilt (3 layers) made of fabrics I brought back from Japan with the addition of a few bits of silk I had from others sources. I sewed it down to the handmade paper from Japan, using thread I bought in Paris, many years ago. The little beads are probably from India and merit a post of their own; someday I’ll write it.