Instructor: Bari Zaki

Saturdays, March 23 & 30, from 10am–2pm (Chicago time)

What you’ll make: A voluptuous buttonhole-stitch volume that we conceived as a beautiful way to organize your current-ish correspondence. An octet of hand-folded bound-in envelopes can be your “staging area” for assembling components of an outgoing communiqué or a place to keep recently received mail awaiting its reply.

The album can be more than exclusively epistolary. You can also use it to store your treasured ephemera, precious papers, documents, or photos. Each envelope is followed by a paper folio, ideal for recording details of received & sent missives: when you mailed, what you enclosed, and any other postal pertinences.

About the structure: The album measures 9½ x 11½ x 2½, with eight hand-folded envelopes and eight interleaving folios (a single sheet folded in half) of Stonehenge paper stitched in. To make your envelopes, I share my “paper sandwich” technique, which provides elegant sturdiness. The cover is made from a sheet of Cave handmade paper, which we will reinforce with two very thick pieces of Strathmore bristol board, swathed in a sheet of Stonehenge paper for continuity and elegance. The eight envelopes’ flaps will open to the right for easy access. Additionally, the book structure itself lies flat when open—It’s deluxe, it’s delightful, it’s dreamy! Both front and back covers have an envelope/pocket. 

About Cave handmade paper: Each sheet is unique. The paper is dipped into a big vat to create the blue & white overlapping wavy patterns. The fiber is Belgian flax, which makes an extremely strong & sturdy paper, superb for a book of this size.

Part #1: We begin by hand-folding an envelope without a template, using a piece of practice paper. Next you will learn how to make a “paper sandwich” with the Hahnemuhle Bugra + adhesive sheet + Cambridge Imprint paper. You will make seven more sandwiches, each from a different CI pattern. These will become your 8 hand-folded envelopes, which in turn become the “pages” of your album. We will also fold in half 8 pieces of Stonehenge sheets for the folios. We rejoice.

Part #2: We begin by measuring, scoring, folding & trimming the Cave paper to create our cover. Then we will reinforce the front & back cover with the Strathmore bristol board and prepare the envelopes and Stonehenge folios for stitching. After you finish stitching you will adhere the side flaps, securing & completing the envelopments—Happiness abounds!

Nota bene: As always, I will record both lessons as they are happening, and the recordings will be available for you, with no interruptions or delay, almost immediately after each session.

Your kit includes all the materials (but not the tools) you’ll need to make one Correspondence Album:

8 Cambridge parent sheets (19¾ x 27½)

8 Hahnemühle Bugra sheets (17 x 22)

8 adhesive sheets (18 x 24)

8 precut pieces of Stonehenge paper (18 x 11¼) 

1 Cave handmade paper (22 x 30)

2 precut pieces of bristol board (9 x 11)

1 spool 4-ply thread, Robins Egg Blue

Tools needed: bonefolder, triangle ruler, metal ruler, Xacto knife, lightweight awl, straight bookbinding needle (18 gauge). I offer a 20% discount on any tools ordered for the workshop (via refund after your workshop purchase). You can purchase these tools individually here.

Ancillary tools needed: pencil, glue-stick, cutting mat, scrap paper for glueing on.

The two envelope “menagerie” options shown here (left to right) are: Carousel and Rhapsody. If you’d like to purchase an additional set of materials, you certainly can. However, you cannot accomplish this in the dropdown menu (because one set of materials is included with the workshop fee). To order additional sets of materials, please e me and I will be in touch extremely promptly. It’s $185. per additional set, with no shipping fee if you order at the same time as your workshop registration.

Nexta bene: Making your album will generate many strips & scraps, none too small to be re-used.

I look forward to sharing my long-standing love of bookbinding, hand-folding envelopes, stitching— and my fascination with all things paper—with you in this two-part, eight hour workshop!