Book repairs

For some time I have tended to avoid doing book repairs. This is because, when I went to classes, my book binding tutor always made me do it so perfectly that it took far too long and I lost interest and it became completely uneconomic.
Before Christmas a friend asked me to repair a very falling apart old Mrs Beeton, and as I have a soft spot for old cookery books I agreed. A neighbour also asked me to repair a book, so I thought why not, as I'm in the swing, and I even got round to repairing a cookery book of my own.
Mrs Beeton had to be completely taken apart,

And re-stitched (I've posted this image before, I've worked on it very intermittently!)

 then have a new spine

 And here it is finished. As you can see I didn't spend hours perfectly colour matching it so you couldn't see the join, I just made it strong enough to last many more years, and made it as neat as I could. The pale stripes are where it had been patched up with duct tape!!

 Again, you can see the join inside the endpapers, but the owner seemed happy.

The other book didn't need re-stitching, just needed a new spine. Here it is pulled apart, looking worse before it gets better

 New spine being made

 And here it is finished

 An easier endpaper to repair as I managed to find some paper of a very similar colour. It's quite amazing how many different whites there are when you are trying to get something to match!

So, because I didn't have to do them perfectly (sorry Mary if you ever read this), I quite enjoyed it, and it was almost economic. Well I didn't actually count the hours, that would be silly wouldn't it? But it is good to have indoor work when it's raining or frosty.

p.s. for Belinda
I'm still working on my lambing writing, I'll be back working in the lambing sheds in March, so will try to get it blogged then, when it's 'live'. Also sorry I haven't replied about the dog/sheep thing, I'm thinking about it and will probably e mail you when I've got some ideas together.