{"id":6582,"date":"2013-10-08T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T05:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/?p=6582"},"modified":"2025-09-15T16:20:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T20:20:36","slug":"my-hand-field-book-of-western-wild-flowers-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/08\/my-hand-field-book-of-western-wild-flowers-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"My Hand \/\/ Field Book of Western Wild Flowers: Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

During my first year at North Bennet Street School, I stumbled upon this underrepresented category of bookbindings referred to quite accurately as embroidered bindings. Embroidery has been an interest and hobby of mine since I was a child. My research into this style of binding led me as far as Cyril Davenport’s Book of English Embroidered Bookbindings<\/em><\/a>, which is one of a handful of books written solely on embroidered bindings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From my research, I set out to create an embroidered binding using similar materials and techniques. I bound\u00a0The Crucible<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in 2011. The overall layout and imagery on the covers are inspired by traditional outlines and iconography seen in historical embroidered bindings.\u00a0The Crucible<\/em> was a success (landing me Best Binding from the OBMI Chicago Public Library Exhibition<\/a>) and ever since embroidery has been a technique that I’ve been wanting to translate onto a fine binding.<\/p>\n

Entering for the first time to the most recent Society of Bookbinders<\/a> International Competition, I decided to bind a copy of Margaret Armstrong’s Field Book of Western Wildflowers<\/em>. Margaret Armstrong is notable for designing covers for Publishers’ Bindings during the 1920s. As an illustrator, she also enjoyed drawing life-like representations of wild flowers. Margaret published Field Book<\/em> in 1915, surveying wild flowers throughout the western hemisphere of the United States. The book includes 500 black and white illustrations and 48 colored plates. For the design of my fine binding I wanted to capture Margaret’s fame as a designer and skill as an illustrator. The cover on my fine binding is inspired by Margaret’s design for Henry Van Dyke’s Out of Doors in the Holy Land<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"07.04\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Beginning with a detailed sketch of the cover design, I labeled each onlay with a number and color. Each flower is taken directly from one of Margaret’s illustrations. The onlay leather ranged from goatskin to buffalo, the colors chosen to best represent the natural color of that specific species of flower. The leather was pared down to almost nothing, the illustrations were then pasted down to the leather and carefully cut out.<\/p>\n

\"wildflowers-erinfletcher\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I carefully arranged each piece of leather onto the sketch as a means to keep order to the mounting onlays, which came out to a total of 93 itty bitty pieces.<\/p>\n

\"wildflowers1-erinfletcher\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I cut down the base leather to it’s final size, I chose a dusty pink buffalo skin both for it’s soft, muted color and texture. I glued down each onlay one by one with PVA, pressing it between acrylic boards as I went. Once the onlays were in place and secured, I pared the entire skin to it’s final thickness. While paring the blade is removing more flesh from the areas with onlays creating a ghost-like silhouette, thus the technique of a back-pared onlay. This allows for a smoother transition between the base leather and the onlay leather.<\/p>\n

\"wildflowers2-erinfletcher\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point, the leather was ready to be embroidered and this became my favorite part. Each flower onlay was outlined with a floss that best matched the color of the leather. Additional colors were chosen to add highlights and shadows. Stitching through leather was surprisingly easy. However, a misguided needle could leave a lasting hole, so it was very important to accurately pierce through the leather.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"wildflowers3-erinfletcher\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Part Two coming soon…\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During my first year at North Bennet Street School, I stumbled upon this underrepresented category of bookbindings referred to quite accurately as embroidered bindings. Embroidery has been an interest and hobby of mine since I was a child. My research into this style of binding led me as far as Cyril Davenport’s Book of English […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,8],"tags":[1196,173,1198,67,1148,1197,1199,1090],"class_list":["post-6582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookbinding","category-my-hand","tag-embroidered-binding","tag-erin-fletcher","tag-field-guide-of-western-wild-flowers","tag-fine-binding","tag-leather-binding","tag-margaret-armstrong","tag-society-of-bookbinders","tag-the-crucible"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Btis-1Ia","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6932,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/31\/my-hand-field-book-of-western-wild-flowers-part-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":6582,"position":0},"title":"My Hand \/\/ Field Book of Western Wild Flowers: Part Three","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"October 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Part One can be read herePart Two can be read here I need to backtrack a bit. Part two ends with the covering of the matching leather doublures. The remainder of the design elements that are going to be explained in this post were applied before the doublures were pasted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bookbinding"","block_context":{"text":"bookbinding","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/bookbinding\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wildflowers12-erinfletcher","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/wildflowers12-erinfletcher-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/wildflowers12-erinfletcher-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/wildflowers12-erinfletcher-768x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6895,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/15\/my-hand-field-book-of-western-wild-flowers-part-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":6582,"position":1},"title":"My Hand \/\/ Field Book of Western Wild Flowers: Part Two","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"October 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"If you missed part one, you can find it here. After hours of embroidery work, I was finally ready to cover the binding. The book itself had been removed from its original case binding, taken apart signature by signature and resewn. Once rounded and backed with boards attached, the edges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bookbinding"","block_context":{"text":"bookbinding","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/bookbinding\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wildflowers4-erinfletcher","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/wildflowers4-erinfletcher-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/wildflowers4-erinfletcher-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/wildflowers4-erinfletcher-1024x768.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7285,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/27\/best-of-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":6582,"position":2},"title":"Best of 2013","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"December 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The year of 2013 has been surprisingly busy, both in my business and my personal life. Over the course of the year I established my\u00a0own business, bound my first\u00a0leather embroidered binding, became an Aunt for the second time, started an impressive board game collection, interviewed with Susan Mills for\u00a0Bookbinding Now\u00a0and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "best of"","block_context":{"text":"best of","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/best-of\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/bestof2013-a.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/bestof2013-a.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/bestof2013-a.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8846,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/19\/featured-on-fine-books-magazine\/","url_meta":{"origin":6582,"position":3},"title":"Featured on Fine Books Magazine","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"November 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend, Boston\u00a0hosted\u00a0the 36th Annual International Antiquarian Book Fair.\u00a0The fair was filled\u00a0with so many wonderful treasures. I was pleased to discover a few embroidered bindings, a collection of Gaylord Schanilec's little books, a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicles (bound in alum-tawed skin over wooden boards) and a design binding\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bookbinding"","block_context":{"text":"bookbinding","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/bookbinding\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Crucible-ErinFletcher","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Crucible-copy-764x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11505,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/15\/upcoming-workshops-april-to-june-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6582,"position":4},"title":"Upcoming Workshops \/\/ April to June","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"April 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"APRIL Secret Belgian Binding April 28 (Saturday) 9:00am \u2013 4:00pm Wishcamper Center, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME During this single-day workshop, students will assemble two variations of this non-adhesive structure, which is simple and can be quickly constructed. It opens flat and is perfect for thinner text blocks. MAY\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "workshops"","block_context":{"text":"workshops","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/workshops\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SecretBelgian2day-1024x618.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SecretBelgian2day-1024x618.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SecretBelgian2day-1024x618.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11466,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/15\/upcoming-workshops-march-to-may-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6582,"position":5},"title":"Upcoming Workshops \/\/ March to May","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"March 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"MARCH No more workshops scheduled in March APRIL Secret Belgian Binding April 7 \u2013 8 (Saturday & Sunday) 8:30am \u2013 4:30pm North Bennet Street School, Boston, MA This class is currently full. On day one, students assemble two variations of this non-adhesive structure, which is simple and can be quickly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "workshops"","block_context":{"text":"workshops","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/workshops\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SecretBelgian2day-1024x618.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SecretBelgian2day-1024x618.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SecretBelgian2day-1024x618.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6582"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6892,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582\/revisions\/6892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}