Category: How-to

Fishbone Fold Revealed

The other day I asked if anyone knew how to make a spine using the “fishbone folding technique.” It’s apparently a Hedi Kyle structure. Lily Hoy put a comment on that post explaining how to make the fold, and then sent me some illustrations. I’ve spent a happy morning trying it out and making several versions. Below is one of them, and following that is the instructions. To cut to the chase, a summary is in this downloadable PDF. There’s also an Excel spreadsheet to help calculate where to score the paper. Many many thanks to Lily for taking the time to post the instructions and send me illustrations. UPDATE: Most posts about this fold are here, with examples and alternate ways to make the fold.

Fishbone Folding Technique

Lily explains

This is a combination fold that combines the single sheet vertical 8-page book instruction (with the slit on the long fold) with half-inch increments between the “bone” sections. Each bone section is the measurement of the prior bone section plus the half-inch. So the bone sections are 1, 1-1/2, 2, 2-1/2, 3, 3-1/2 inches wide. The last section is only a half bone that is used with a double pamphlet stitch to join the two bone strips to the cover. I was able to get six “bones” in my “signature” from a 36 inch long strip, grain long, of Arches Text Wove paper.

Here’s the layout on a 35+” piece of paper, to make a 3-1/2″ wide book. I used a 38-1/2×10 piece of Arches Text Wove to get a 3-1/2×5″ book (later on in this post are measurements for a smaller piece of paper, as well as instructions for making a book of any size).

Fishbone Folding Technique

Starting from the left, you’ll need score lines at 1″, 2″, 3″, 3-1/2″, 5″, 6-1/2, 7″, 9″, 11″, 11-1/2″, 14″, 16-1/2″, 17″, 20″, 23″, 23-1/2″, 27″, 30-1/2″, 31″ and 35″. (The PDF has these in a nice table format.)

I scored my paper, then folded it, then unfolded and made the cuts. The cuts are in the center, so in my case at 5″ from the bottom.

Here is the paper scored and folded. Notice that the “bones” get larger from left to right.

Fishbone Folding Technique

Next I made the cuts, in the center of each “bone.” Then I folded the paper in half, along the cuts, long edge to long edge.

Fishbone Folding Technique

One at a time, push the larger bones toward the smaller ones, from left to right…

Fishbone Folding Technique

until you’ve made the entire spine. In this case there will be 6.

Fishbone Folding Technique

Now to attach a cover. There are probably many ways to do that; in what follows I’ll show 2 of them. The picture that my friend Sharon sent me has 2 fishbones. So I made a second one. Then I cut off the excess of each one (the extra panel on the right), leaving a 1/2″ tab.

Fishbone Folding Technique

I opened each one up, put glue on the 1/2″ tab, refolded and bonefolded the tabs together. This would help keep the tabs together when I sew them into the cover.

Fishbone Folding Technique

The I tacked the 2 fishbones together with a glue stick, again to make it easier to sew into the cover. The fishbones have a top and a bottom—the top has the cuts you made along the center. The bottom doesn’t look so much like a fishbone. Be sure to have both fishbones right-side up when you glue the tabs together (I did is wrong the first time!)

Fishbone Folding Technique

I made a very simple cover out of scrap cover stock that is 7-1/2″ x 5″. I folded a 1/2″ spine in the center, aligned it on the back of the tabs I had glued, poked a few holes and sewed them together with a pamphlet stitch.

Fishbone Folding Technique

Fishbone Folding Technique

The book doesn’t stay closed with this cover. However the picture Sharon sent has a wrap around cover with a flap and tie that would do a much better job.

You probably can’t tell from the photos, but the second fishbone is shorter than the first, because I goofed on my measuring. But when I was all done, I like that book isn’t symmetrical.

What about a book with a single fishbone spine?
Or if you don’t have gigantic sheets of paper?

If the piece between the bones is 1/4″ rather than 1/2″ and the first bone is 1/2″ rather than 1″, 5 bones can be made on a 11-3/4×4″ sheet, resulting in a 2×1-1/2″ book.

Starting at the left of the sheet, you’ll need to score at 1/2, 1, 1-1/2, 1-3/4, 2-1/2, 3-1/4, 3-1/2, 4-1/2, 5-1/2, 5-3/4, 7, 8-1/4, 8-1/2, 10, 11-1/2 (Use this Excel spreadsheet to figure this out for your spacing and initial bone size.)

Fishbone Folding Technique

I used a piece of paste paper for the bones. Here it is all folded. Then I cut the score on the little tab at the end

Fishbone Folding Technique

Then I glued the 2 tabs (A & B below) together

Fishbone Folding Technique

Fishbone Folding Technique

I used another piece of paster paper, 3-1/4×2″, for the cover. I folded a 1/4″ spine in the cover, aligned the spine with the tabs I glued in the previous step, and attached it with a pamphlet stitch to get this:

Fishbone Folding Technique

Some downloads to help make this book

Lily’s illustrations and score calculations are in this downloadable PDF. She also mentions adjusting the divisions to deal with heavier paper.

Use this Excel spreadsheet to figure out where to score—just fill in the space between the bones and the first bone width (the first 2 lines of the spreadsheet) and the rest is figured out for you.

In the Studio: Designing a tunnel book

In my bookmaking, I keep coming back to this poem by Emily Dickinson

Bee! I’m expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due—

The Frogs got Home last Week—
Are settled, and at work—
Birds, mostly back—
The Clover warm and thick—

You’ll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me—
Yours, Fly.

Last year I started to make a tunnel book based on the poem, but didn’t get very far. Recently I revisited the book. Here’s the first version. It’s constructed by placing 5 panels between 2 accordion-folded strips (instructions here). The strips make up the sides of the book. It’s a matchbox book, so it’s small—1-3/8″ wide by 2″ tall.
bee-tunnel_0009_01.jpg
I put the poem on the sides, in the accordion folds.
Bee tunnel book
Two problems with this version. First, the poem is hard to read. Second, I printed the side accordion on white paper, which cracked when I folded it, showing the white core. So I tried using blue paper.
Bee tunnel book
The blue is a lot darker, almost a gray blue, so the printing colors are dull (it’s printed on my Epson inkjet). There’s not as much light inside the tunnel because the paper is blue on both sides. For the poem, I tried turning it 90 degrees and made the type darker…
Bee tunnel book
But now only every other line of the poem is visible, with the odd lines hidden in the accordion fold, so that didn’t work! Next I looked for a brighter blue paper. I found one, and used it for the accordion sides. I printed the panels inside the tunnel on white paper, hoping the blues wouldn’t be too different. This would keep some white on the paper facing the inside of the tunnel, to provide more light. I also added slits in the accordion sides. I put just half the poem on the sides—on the folds facing the viewer.
Bee tunnel book
Here’s another shot of this test. The poem placement is better, if I used a different font it might really be readable (that’s an 19th century handwriting font in this test)
Bee tunnel book
But where to put the rest of the poem? Only half of it fits on the 2 sides. I tried putting it on the top of the matchbox sleeve. Then I showed the book to several people who all said the poem actually wasn’t readable on the sides. So I tried the back of the book
Bee tunnel book
That allowed me to put an envelope on the matchbox sleeve, since the poem is a letter. And I changed the sides to have clover. (I tried putting the the poem in the envelope, but it’s awfully tiny and hard to get the sheet out of the envelope.)
Bee tunnel book
Here’s the current state of the tunnel—the fly and bee need work (with prototypes, sloppy cutting is allowed!). And how will the viewer know the poem is on the back of the book? That’s when I realized that the poem can go in the bottom of the matchbox, so the viewer sees it when she removes the tunnel book. So that’s what I’m going to try next.Bee tunnel book

Single Sheet Dos-a-dos Book

Single Sheet Dos-a-dosMy friend Barb showed me how to make this dos-a-dos (2 sided) book from a single sheet of paper. It’s in Helen Hiebert’s book Playing with Paper. The dos-a-dos book is pretty skinny, but I think it’s a good structure to have in my arsenal. I’m going to try it with a few non-standard sized papers to see if I can make it a bit wider. Click here or the picture to the left for a large view of the instructions.

Prompt Challenge: Birds and em-dashes (part 4)

Model completed, front

After playing around with a folded double-sided accordion for a while, it dawned on me that the 2 poems were short enough to do the accordion with a single sheet (thus no bulky seams). While I liked the idea of the double folded accordion, Mohawk Superfine doesn’t fold very well in the non-grain direction (it cracks). The Mohawk sheets I have are 25″ long in the grain direction, and I laid out the pages and artwork so that it would all fit in that length. Here’s what I did for this model…
This is the sheet before cutting. It’s printed on my ink jet. The black areas are for the stained glass windows. The L-shaped registration marks on the ends are for the cutting plotter. For this model, the back of the sheet is unprinted, however if I editioned this book, I’d letterpress print the second poem on the back.

Sheet before cutting

Here’s the sheet after cutting.
Sheet after cutting

Cutouts for the back of the accordionThe next step is to print the windows on rice paper, and glue them to the back in the correct spots. Then cover the windows on the back with another cutout—made of thin black paper. I think of these cutouts as the lead in the stained glass–there they are to the right.

The picture below shows the back in progress. The left-most bird is covered by the tissue and the black cut out, the middle one just has the tissue, and the right-most has nothing.

Affixing the images to the back

Once the windows are finished, I trim the paper, fold the accordion and attach the cover. Here’s the finished front:

Model completed, front

the back

Model completed, back

Model coverTo make the book work in one 25″ long sheet, I sized it at 3-1/2″x5-1/4″. This is the cover. There’s a tab at the end of the accordion with the same detail as the cover decoration, but it’s loose & facilitates pulling the folds out. (You can see this tab in the photos above–it’s next to the red bird.)
Making models helps me in numerous ways. I’ve made 6 so far for this project and suspect there will be a few more. It can be tedious, but with each one I see something to improve or change as well as understand more about what it would take to edition the book.
I’m pleased with this model—it folds well and I quite like the way the light comes through the windows. Yet to be worked on: the cover paper I chose is too flimsy and something beefier is called for.