Milk for the Cat

The first product of the Invisible Bindery is Milk for the Cat, a poem by Harold Monro printed by the Incline Press.

The text block consists of a single fold of three sheets, with a delightful linocut by Bert Eastman tipped in. The paper is a chunky 200gsm Velin Arches, so it needed a binding material that would be man enough to compete with the paper but not so thick that the slim elegance of the book would be lost.
The answer was a cotton rag sheet made in the Himalayas and supplied by Khadi Papers (I am lucky enough to live ten minutes away from the warehouse in the South Downs where Khadi Papers lives).
The end papers are another Himalayan paper, in green.
The outer wrap was folded twice to form a spine, and the whole volume pre-punched for sewing using my birthday present - a wonderful pricking guide from Falkiners.
The sewing, in a red silk, is Keith Smith's 'pearl dash' where you miss out a hole, then return from the inside and take a loop round the thread. Unfortunately to create a real impact the thread needs to be a lot heavier than the one I had to hand, but the effect is still attractive.
The label is an attempt to illustrate a line in the poem: The white saucer like some full moon descends.
I did the drawing and my daughter, who is studying graphics at school, Photoshopped it and added the title.