Linette Withers is a bookbinder based in Leeds.
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00:00The process is different for, let's say, medieval books than it would be for more modern books,
00:06but about 50 percent of my time is sourcing and folding paper. I spend a lot of time like
00:15checking that the grain direction is in the right direction for what I want to do for the books.
00:20There's a lot of folding, folding and pricking and preparing for sewing,
00:26supported or unsupported, which basically means, so unsupported is your most common sort of modern
00:34books or a lot of machine-made books you buy from publishers. They tend to be, if they are sewn,
00:41it will be unsupported sewing, whereas your higher-end historical books are sewn on supports,
00:47which is like a cord or a tape that adds more strength to the spine. If I'm sewing those,
00:52I will have to put, I'll have a sewing frame which holds the cords while I'm sewing,
00:58and if I'm not, I'm just sewing it mid-air. I have some habits that are unusual for bookbinders,
01:03and one of them is that I tend to sew with holding the book in the air rather than on the table,
01:08but that's because I work in miniatures a lot, so if I was actually holding them on the table
01:13makes it harder. If you're working on books that are like A5 or bigger, you can't sew in the air,