About

Birch & Bound is one person, one bench and a slowly growing shelf of books.

I started binding after trying to repair a paperback that had split in half. The repair was not very good, but the process was absorbing enough that I went looking for a class, then for books, and eventually for better paper than I could find locally.

This site is a notebook more than a shop. I do not take commissions at the moment. What I do instead is write down what I learn, as plainly as I can, in the hope that it saves someone else an afternoon of unpicking stitches.

What you will find here

• Notes on techniques and materials, written after actually trying them.
• A description of the workshop and the tools I rely on.

A note on the name

The first cover board I ever cut came from a sheet that had been stored next to a stack of birch plywood in a shed. It smelled of the wood for months. The name stuck before I had thought of anything better.